Casey Schorr

"The best thing you can do for a prospect is eliminate her fear. Offer a trial period or a test project."

— Harry Beckwith, Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing. Think about how much of the marketing mix is devoted to eliminating fear. Practically all of it! Free trials, 1-800 numbers, FAQs, SSL logos, BBB logos, no credit card required, cancel anytime, money back guarantee, free returns and exchanges, case studies, the list goes on and on and on! What else am I missing?

"China and India are likely to produce many rigorous analytical thinkers and knowledgeable technologists. But smart and educated people don’t always spawn innovation. America’s advantage, if it continues to have one, will be that it can produce people who are also more creative and imaginative, those who know how to stand at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. That is the formula for true innovation, as Steve Jobs’s career showed."

— Walter Isaacson, the author of Steve Jobs. From the wonderful NY Times article Steve Job’s Genius.

"Have we forgotten to say thank you? Have you forgotten? Do you thank people enough? Are you sure?"

— Harry Beckwith, Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing. Thought this was a great Thanksgiving quote!

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment."

— Elizabeth Gilbert; Eat, Pray, Love.

"Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying."

—

Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success.

Thinking of this statement in terms of my own life, I’d say I have autonomy and complexity nailed. I do what I want, and it’s damn hard. But I need to work on #3 - the connection between effort and reward. I’m exerting a ton of effort but haven’t yet seen the huge reward. I’m not just talking about monetary reward either. Sure, that would be nice. But I bet equally important is a huge spike in # of users, # of paying customers, # of happy employees, etc. There’s a lot more to reward than money! What about you, where does your work stand?