“If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.”

• Geddy Lee, modern philosopher and lead singer of the rock band Rush

The easy choices are easy, so we make them.

The difficult choices are (wait for it!) difficult, so it’s easy to postpone, avoid or ignore them.

And that’s where Geddy Lee comes in. Not deciding is a choice.

Our best people know which of their teammates are not additive to the mission. Our best people know we have great intentions and that we’re they’re biggest advocate.

That’s why they get so confused when we hold on to people who are not additive to the mission. They admire our loyalty in advocating for them, but they’re confounded by how their “great” leader can miss the thing that is right in front of their eyes. All of their eyes.

Choosing the right people is a crucial choice. De-selecting the wrong people is number 1.a on that list.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

• Upton Sinclair, (1878 – 1968)as quoted in The Monday Morning Memo, January 6, 2025

If we’re sales pros, uncovering the bias and the internal politics at our Client’s business is essential. And our ability to believe, to really believe, in what we’re providing is key to conveying understanding.

Often, incentives run contrary to taking the steps a business needs to take to impart real change, and that means we may face people who are deeply committed not to understand.

Asking questions. Getting into their perspective. Living the deal from their chair.

We can, in some cases, make them understand. It’s much better to help them understand and how they might protect their salary by applying that understanding to their team, culture, and other resisters.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, as quoted in The Monday Morning Memo on January 6, 2025

It’s a skill missing from our political environment and seems to be in short-supply in many of our business dealings.

“We’re right, and they’re wrong.” “We stand for good, and they stand for evil.” “We’re honest, they’re liars.”

Where’s the person we’re trying to serve gonna land in there? And what if circumstances, market conditions, or customer habits change? Will we still be right, good, and honest? How can we be flexible and move with our markets if we’re going to draw hard lines on every feature, every issue, every challenge?

Of course, we need guiding principles, and we need to be able to differentiate. We also have a critical need to understand the conflicting position. Why does the other party believe, claim, or promote something we disagree with? And, if we make the conversation about why we do what we do the way we do what we do – and when we make it clear we understand and appreciate – even if we don’t accept – the other side’s views, what does that tell our Clients how we’ll handle things when they have an issue or problem with our product or service? It tells them we’ll be reasonable.

There ain’t enough reasonable in too many conversations or negotiations these days. We can lead and make a difference by bringing it to the conversations and negotiations in which we engage.

“Do something different, do it right and end up with the highest quality product.”

• Charles Mellowes, founder of Charter Wire, now part of Charter Manufacturing

“There are no new ideas…” I’ve said it. I’ve written it here in these posts. Mike Rowe said it on a recent Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Dozens of folks I know have said it. And I think we’re directionally correct.

That said, Joe Rogan disagrees. I know dozens of people who disagree. And I think they’re also directionally correct.

Maybe the time and the circumstances make an old idea seem new. Or maybe the time and circumstances are so clouded by our biases and experience that they make a new idea seem rehashed. Or, maybe there really are ideas that have never been hatched before. It’s not a black and white consideration.

That’s why I was drawn to Mr. Mellowes’ statement this week, as I help clients do things differently they’ve done forever.

“Do something different,” he says. Not necessarily to do a “different thing.” Not a new thing. But something. Here’s the magic, at least for me. “Do it right!” The Heston Group’s model is based on doing the right thing, the right way at the right time. For over a decade, I’ve been tempted to change it. Because what I mean is to do “a right thing.” Rarely, if ever, are we faced with only one right thing.

Especially in our business lives, looking at a problem, agreeing on a series of right-thing-options, and then executing one of them the right way (not halfway, not wishy-washy or mamby-pamby, but full swing, all-in-doing it!) gives us the best opportunity to end up with the highest quality outcome, or, as Mr. Mellowes put it, the highest quality “product.”

Maybe it’s in the steel industry. Maybe it’s daycare. Maybe it’s grocery, hardware, lobbying, landscaping, providing advisory services, selling automobiles, or dry cleaning services.

Doing something different the right way.

It’s worth considering if we want to separate ourselves from a market that AI, competitors, and every other Tom, Dick, and Harry are trying to commoditize.

If you want some help with this approach, I know a guy!

“Take the attitude of a student, never be afraid to ask a question, never know too much to learn something new.”

• Og Mandino (1923 – 1996), American author of The Greatest Salesman in The World

A friend (also in da consulting bidness) and I met for lunch yesterday, and we spent a ton of time on answers. He’s a 30+ year career ops guy – a real talent and exceptional problem solver. I’m a 40-year sales and leadership guy – during our combined 70+ years, we’ve seen a lot of things, as the insurance commercial says.

Some of our Clients and potential Clients are a generation younger than we are. If we take the professor’s attitude too early in the engagement, it can come off heavy-handed and, depending on the young exec’s confidence, may even be unintentionally arrogant.

That’s why questions matter so much!

“How much would you charge for that, Steve?” I usually know. I almost never answer with that information, however. “If that problem were solved, completely, how much would it be worth to you?” is my usual response.

Questions make sure we keep it about them. Questions, not only help us stay focused on the outcome they need, they force us to consume knowledge, information, or context. We may not be learning a new formula. We may not be learning a new method or approach. We may, and likely will, however, be learning more about the Client, more about their motivation, fears, hopes and dreams.

A kid named Mason manages a convenience store about a block from my home. I think I’d hire him tomorrow if I were still in a corporate gig. He asks excellent questions. He asks them in a non-threatening way. He remembers the answers. He treats me like visiting royalty and remembers what we talked about the last time I stopped in for a bag of ice or a tank of gas. More often than not, it’s a bag of ice. During a series of $2.79 transactions, he’s drawn me into his sphere of influence because he gives a darn.

Most of us probably give a lot of darns. And our best way to prove that is to ask instead of tell, and ask when it’s time to tell. “What if we tried ______________, Mr. Client? How would that feel.”

“It’s better to have that and not need it than to need it and not have it!”

• Cap’n Woodrow F. Call to Newt in episode two of Lonesome Dove a 1985 miniseries that is worth the watch!

Call, whom everyone knows is Newt’s father, even though he won’t acknowledge it, gives Newt a gun in this scene, as they prepare to cross the Rio Grande and “secure” a few hundred head of cattle and horses to take to Montana.

Montana’s become a consistent theme for me in the past couple years, but I digress…

What are the things in our bidness that are better to have and not need than need and not have?

Empathy. Preparation. Awareness (goes with research and preparation…). Curiosity. Listening skills. Intent to listen. Desire to understand over being understood. Oxygen. (Yes, breathing really does matter, especially when things get amped up!).

Cap’n call gives Newt the six-shooter about 45 seconds before they ride off. The things we want to have and not need rather than need and not have will likely require more prep — and will assuredly provide more benefit. (Spoiler alert – Newt doesn’t need the gun. Yet.)

^{Editor’s Note: Can a spoiler alert exist in a 39-year-old TV reference? But, I digress again…}

“History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”

• Mark Twain (pen name) for Samuel Clemens (1835 – 1910), American Humorist, iconic literary figure

I’ve been reading or re-reading biographies during arguably one of the most challenging periods of my adult life. I’ve also engaged with a couple of Clients to look behind the rhymes and help them apply the lessons from their history to plot out a better future.

Reading about Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, John Adams, the Stoics — it is easy to draw parallels between their times and circumstances. Still, when we consume them in the context of a rhyme with current events, we get to apply hundreds of years or more of gradient shades of learning to tackle the issue at hand.

There will, no doubt, be tariffs that will affect our business or that of our Clients. There will, no doubt, be interest rates and market fluctuations that will make us want to think it’s 1987, 2008, or even 1929 – 1939. I’ve already heard some intelligent people say, “The only way we can draw our citizenry together is if we have another attack on our country.”

The repeat would be allowing this divisiveness, lack of discourse, and respectful debate to goad us into waiting for the big thing to happen and coming together when the common cause involves bloodshed, financial loss, or other catastrophic events. The rhyme allows us nuance and an opening to proactively engage with a “Hey, let’s not just rinse and repeat what we’ve done the last five times the market got tumultuous. Let’s recognize the meter, theme, tone, and syntax of the poem we’re hearing and rewrite the next stanza.

Let’s make our future a better poem than the ones we’re tempted to fall back upon.

“We don’t get to know what’s coming next – when the peaceful or challenging or terrifying periods might arise. Everything rests on our capacity to navigate from moment to moment, making the best decisions we can and not allowing ourselves to be disheartened by the ways in which our journey doesn’t exactly map the plans we might have had for it. In this situation, the only action that really matters is the one (we) take right now.”

• Oliver Burkeman, author of “Meditations for Mortals…” in an op-ed piece in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal (titled Radical Doability)

“May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions…”

–     Joey Adams (1911 – 1999), American comedian and columnist for the New York Post

New Year’s resolutions. Gag…

The Diff annually eschews them, and this post maintains that commitment. Besides, most folks will ditch their commitment to becoming a different kind of person less than 30 days into the new year.

Burkeman closes the article by suggesting: “So let 2025 be the year when you finally stop trying to become a different kind of person and instead start doing a few things differently; one message to a friend… one workout. Not later, but right now, in the only lifetime any of us ever get.”

Incremental over grandiose. Foundational over spectacular. Faith, trust and peace over control and fear. This moment over what’s already happened or what may happen.

More better than New Year’s resolutions.

“Transparent, it turns out, has several shades of meanings…and has itself become a baggy-pants synonym of sorts for “the truth.”

• Joseph Epstein, American writer, in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal (27 Dec 2024)

“Inexact words,” Epstein calls these words, or “vogue words.” These words find their way into everything from those painful coach interviews during time outs of sports events to speeches penned by professional writers and telepromptered into my aching brain by talking heads who couldn’t swear under oath if they believe the words, let alone whether they could even summon them up without the teleprompter.

I love how Epstein phrases it earlier in the piece; “Words can glimmer, glow, dance, and sing, but they don’t always obey their users. Transparent is such a word” he writes.

He also states, “Ready acceptance of vogue words seem to some people the sign of an alert mind; to others, it stands for the herd instinct and the lack of individuality.”

Count me among the latter group. Our Clients deserve better than the vogue words of the day. They deserve clear statements of what we believe and why — whether to differentiate our offering, define their challenge, or describe the steps by which we’ll tackle their challenges with our offerings. They don’t deserve transparency, because we probably won’t work from the exact definition in the other person’s mind. (Translucent or truthful, for example…)

“At the end of the day, to be candid, transparency is the least we can offer,” some might say, combining vogue words and vogue statements into mind-numbing non-speak. Our response should be, “What about other times during the day? Are you usually not candid? Why would we ever consider putting the least we can offer in play?”

Cliches fall into the same category. The Minnesota Vikings quarterback played a masterful game against my beloved, 13-time World Champion Green Bay Packers late yesterday afternoon. (Cheater!) The pretty sideline reporter asked him, a very bright guy, the question, “How did you do it?” “Really just being in the moment, taking one game at a time and trusting the great guys in our locker room. Now we’ll enjoy this one for 24 hours and then it’s on to Detroit.”

(Insert eye roll, gagging sound, “Huh?” or “Really?” into the interview, if you’d like…maybe all at once!)

Words matter even when they don’t obey us. They can either cement our depth and bring gravity to the point we’re trying to make, or they can annoyingly say and mean nothing, simply tossed out to give the impression that we’re engaged. Since they matter, let’s consider them carefully and use our language to make the clearest statements possible, for the good of the whole ecosystem in which we work.

“Identify a tribe. Develop the tribe. Market to the tribe.”

• Ryan Deiss (Digital Marketer, Founder & CEO, The Scalable Company)

Mass marketing might have died a long time before the family was notified. In 1992 I spoke at a radio convention, hypothesizing that the segmentation of listeners meant more than the overall ratings when placing an ad buy. So, much like Al Gore invented the internet, I kinda invented the data and analytics movement, clearly.

Just sayin’… Al and I get about the same “play” these days, too. Hmmmmmm…

Back to the point. Micro-markets are becoming increasingly prevalent and must be considered when setting a strategy. Direct-to-consumer might still be a place for mass play, but in the B2B space, knowing who your tribe is, investing in its development, and marketing to the tribe at the exclusion of those who would simply create overhead is gonna get us a better ROI.

The algorithms matter today. So too (and still) do our instincts and the voice of our customers and Clients. Tribes don’t only show up in algorithms. Tribes show out in word, deed, and action.