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And to put my money where my mouth is, consider this example:

Advice: In B2B be on the lookout for people, organizations, or events which can force the hand of your prospect customers.

Story: There was a company that made e-commerce vulnerability detection/prevention software, but when they tried selling it, they found that IT departments stonewalled the adoption because they didn't want to admit there was a security problem in the first place. After much frustrating direct sales attempts, our protagonists took their software to a payment processor, which has promptly mandated use of software for all e-commerce portals that were their clients. Problem solved.

Now consider first the advice on its own, and then the advice and the story together. Which one actually drives the point home?



the advice is look for X who can do Y, but provides little means of identifying if any given X can do Y

the story is better in this case because i can draw my own maxims from it which directly apply to my business.

the downside is the story doesn't fit in a tweet.


If that is the downside, perhaps we should stop catering towards the absolute lowest common denominator.


Should is a strong word. Like it or not. lowest common denominator is what get the most eyeballs.


In this example, why would you want the lowest common denominator? It's not always about quantity of eyeballs. It's about quality when you're managing a brand appealing to the best and brightest.




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