Two questions that show whether your reason is really an excuse, and a way to test the idea you keep putting off for almost no risk.
Neil Martin · Beats, Business & Life
Business
AI already knows who’s asking
Before an AI reads the question, it knows a lot about the person asking. Why that makes earned reputation worth more than keywords.
Where Your Hours Really Go: Benjamin Franklin on Lost Time and a Simple Weekly Look Back
A simple way to see where your hours really go and take them back from the distractions, from Benjamin Franklin’s warning that lost time is never found again.
It doesn’t work. Yet.
Mintel’s AI projects failed again and again, until one day they didn’t. Why an AI idea that flopped last year deserves a second go.
Win It Before You Start: Sun Tzu on Staying Ready
Sun Tzu’s rule for winning before the fight, made practical: work out what your marathon is, stay ready for it, and decide it’s done before you start.
Campaign for something
A washing brand told people to wash less and became the most recommended in its category. What constant posting gets wrong.
Work That Fits You: P. T. Barnum’s First Rule and Three Questions to Test It
Three simple who questions to check whether the work you’re doing fits you, built on P. T. Barnum’s first rule for making money and a client who was scared of their own team.
Would you like me to rephrase this further?
Customers are writing to businesses with ChatGPT, sometimes without reading what it wrote. What Marshmallow learned from the flood.
How to Get Buyers Mentally Moving In: Claude Hopkins on Being Specific
Why vague claims slide straight off people, how specific client results make you believable, and how to let a buyer picture the after before they commit.
Sort the boring plumbing first
Before AI agents can help, everyone needs the same data and the same definitions. Rig’s Toby Mather on the unglamorous bit that matters most.
Be the One They Can Hand the Letter To: A Message to Garcia on Trust
What A Message to Garcia still teaches about reliability, why I put trust before liking, and how giving trust builds a team you can hand things to.
Ask your AI what it learned
Beth Ayers rewrites her AI’s drafts, then asks why hers is different. One habit that teaches AI to sound like you.
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About
Hi, I’m Neil
DJing since 1987, three decades in business, and the author of Done Beats Perfect. This is where I write it all down.