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Joel Kelly

Marketer. Writer. Loved by all.

Wishes feel good and rarely come true

Entrepreneurs are full of ideas. It’s what inspired us to start our business, create our products or services, and sell them to the world in the first place. But, over time, we can start to think that the valuable part is the idea, and not the action that follows.

Anything is better than indecision

“With a ton of charts and a wondrous plan, he comes, behold, the Research Man. Give him four and twenty scholars, give him twenty thousand dollars, and in two months he’ll bring to view, the facts that you already knew.”

A torrent of change

On May 4, 1844, over an experimental line extending the almost 40 miles from D.C. to Baltimore, Samuel Morse sent four words. A similar message sent just days before would have taken hours to arrive. Now, it travelled the distance in an instant.

You can positively unenjoy it

“You can make people feel guilty enough to do something,” advertising legend Howard Gossage once wrote, “but you can’t make them enjoy it. As a matter of fact, you can make them positively unenjoy it.” Many business owners positively unenjoy doing their own marketing.

Not an evil at all

"There’s only one thing you can count on...On any given moment in any given day, somebody somewhere is screwing up."

The irresistible pressure to expand

There’s a dangerous pressure in business. The pressure to have more and more products, so we can capture more of the market. To further and further expand our target market, so we can appeal to everyone. Or to provide more and more services, so we can do more work with our current customers.

The most important question in strategy

Building a sustainably profitable business is a bit easier, and a lot more likely, when you couple that drive with a strong strategy.