Josh Kaufman Quotes

Every improvement you make to your Value Stream makes it harder for potential competitors to keep up, creating a Barrier to Competition. By increasing your ability to create and deliver value in an efficient and effective way, you make it more difficult for competitors to compete with you by doing what you’re doing. Every benefit you deliver and every customer you serve make it harder for competitors to replicate you. Don’t focus on competing — focus on delivering even more value. Your competition will take care of itself.

Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. — CLAY SHIRKY, PROFESSOR AT NYU AND AUTHOR OF HERE COMES EVERYBODY AND COGNITIVE SURPLUS

Reactivation is often a quicker, simpler, and more effective approach to increasing revenue than attracting new customers. Your old customers already know and Trust you, and they’re aware of the value you provide. You have their information — you don’t have to find them. Your cost of customer acquisition (a component of Allowable Acquisition Cost) is low — all you have to do is contact them and present an attractive offer.

Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried. — FRANK TYGER, POLITICAL CARTOONIST AND COLUMNIST I

Before you engage, you won’t know the outcome of the struggle. You may win the day easily, with barely a scratch. You may prevail, after much effort and after earning a few battle scars. You may fall, never to rise again. There may be treasure in the back of the cave, enough to live on in splendor for the rest of your days. There may be nothing. You may win glory and renown, or be considered a fool, worse off than you were before. This is the essence of life. The outcome of your actions and decisions is unknown and unknowable. What separates the adventurer from the bulk of humanity is the willingness to fight in spite of the risks: to meet the enemy on the field of valor, trusting in skill, instinct, and determination to see them through to a good end. There are no certainties and no guarantees. The hero fights anyway.

Parkinson’s Law: if you don’t set a limit on your available time, your work will expand to fill it all.

Management is the act of coordinating a group of people to achieve a specific Goal while accounting for ever-present Change and Uncertainty.

Improve by 1% a day, and in just 70 days, you’re twice as good.

The Ten Ways to Evaluate a Market provide a back-of-the-napkin method you can use to identify the attractiveness of any potential market. Rate each of the ten factors below on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is terrible and 10 fantastic. When in doubt, be conservative in your estimate: Urgency. How badly do people want or need this right now? (Renting an old movie is low urgency; seeing the first showing of a new movie on opening night is high urgency, since it only happens once.) Market Size. How many people are purchasing things like this? (The market for underwater basket-weaving courses is very small; the market for cancer cures is massive.) Pricing Potential. What is the highest price a typical purchaser would be willing to spend for a solution? (Lollipops sell for $0.05; aircraft carriers sell for billions.) Cost of Customer Acquisition. How easy is it to acquire a new customer? On average, how much will it cost to generate a sale, in both money and effort? (Restaurants built on high-traffic interstate highways spend little to bring in new customers. Government contractors can spend millions landing major procurement deals.) Cost of Value Delivery. How much will it cost to create and deliver the value offered, in both money and effort? (Delivering files via the internet is almost free; inventing a product and building a factory costs millions.) Uniqueness of Offer. How unique is your offer versus competing offerings in the market, and how easy is it for potential competitors to copy you? (There are many hair salons but very few companies that offer private space travel.) Speed to Market. How soon can you create something to sell? (You can offer to mow a neighbor’s lawn in minutes; opening a bank can take years.) Up-front Investment. How much will you have to invest before you’re ready to sell? (To be a housekeeper, all you need is a set of inexpensive cleaning products. To mine for gold, you need millions to purchase land and excavating equipment.) Upsell Potentia

There are four ways to support a price on something of value: (1) replacement cost, (2) market comparison, (3) discounted cash flow/net present value, and (4) value comparison.

It always pays to assume your prospects begin in a state of Preoccupation. Begin your marketing approach in a way that breaks their Preoccupation and earns their Attention.

there’s often a huge difference between an interesting idea and a solid business.

The best way to invest willpower in support of skill acquisition is to use it to remove these soft barriers to practice. By rearranging your environment to make it as easy as possible to start practicing, you’ll acquire the skill in far less time.

When creating a Hook, focus on the primary benefit or value your offer provides. Emphasize what’s uniquely valuable about your offer and why the prospect should care. Brainstorm a list of words and phrases related to your primary benefit, then experiment with different ways to connect them in a short phrase.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. — HENRY DAVID THOREAU