📰 8 naming strategies ✍️

Only 15% of new managers get any training.

We take our top performers and simply hope they’ll figure it out.

Some do. Eventually. But most aren’t given that much time.

I got lucky. But it wasn’t without making a boatload of mistakes.

Now 20 years and thousands of leaders later, I’m not the only one.

I showed a draft of this to a founder yesterday, and she said:

“That’s like the new manager’s bible. And we were all sinners.”

Unfortunately, many of us still are.

In the beginning, it was just rock solid discipline, you know? And I can say that as somebody who flunked out of college and who, for the majority of my life, has not been a disciplined person at all. I flunked out of UGA because I wasn't going to class. I never had discipline, ever.

When I flunked out of school, I read Ben Franklin's autobiography. I saw how he lived his life and how structured and disciplined he was, and I started incorporating habits into my life. The first habit I formed was that I started reading 100 pages a day every day. I did that for years — even when I went back to school. I went back to the University of Georgia and ended up making straight As. Even during that time, I would read 100 pages every day on top of reading for school.

I started exercising and playing piano for an hour. And I did those things every single day for years, and then I got proficient at piano, I was in good shape, and I educated myself pretty intensely. But I think the most important thing that was happening during that time was that I was learning discipline. Not only did my habits improve me in many ways, but I also got very good at the skill of creating habits in my life.

So when Humans of New York came along, I knew taking a day off wasn't about the day of work that you lost, it was about breaking that habit. So no matter how I felt, no matter how insecure I was, no matter how lonely I was, no matter how sick I was, I went out and photographed every single day. For years and years and years, I posted four photos a day, every single day. And this is when Humans of New York was dovetailing with the rise of Facebook.

That discipline of posting and constantly putting it out allowed me to catch this wave that, in many ways, I'm still riding.

Are people talking about the problem or looking for a solution?Will people pay to solve this problem?Who will be our primary customer?Can we develop a solution that addresses the core problem within 2-3 days?Will this solution add value either by saving time or money for the user?How will we reach our primary customers to get feedback and first 10 sales?How will we collect testimonials from early adopters?What data do we need to track to gain insights?How can we bring 1,000+ users to our website?

The Top 4 Marketing Tactics Every Successful Author Uses 1. Focus on Word-of-Mouth Marketing Over Tricks The primary reason that books sell is not fancy tactics or cool tricks. The primary reason books sell is word of mouth. People read the book and then tell their friends to read the book. Every successful book of all time has that one factor in common.

If you want a successful book, write a book that people want to tell other people about.

That’s it. That’s the secret.

Simple to understand but not that easy to do. So what’s the core skill that creates great word of mouth?

The Twitter algorithm loves threads.

If you struggle with writing, know I used to as well.

I eventually overcame it.

Play on words

Play on words are creatively spelled terms that describe the company's product, service, or value.

Tiktok: Play on the ticking sound of a clock

Reddit: Play on the term read it

Google: Play on googol (a mathematical term for the number one followed by 100 zeroes)

Lyft: Play on the word lift