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Rod Aparicio

Perspectives.

Published over 1 year ago • 1 min read

Now, it’s been 10 days since my last email after 2 years of non-stop dailies. Was on a trip in India with a client and it brought some perspective (besides the jetlag that really messed up my rhythm 🙃).

It brought perspective about the level of impact. The scale of impact.

Here’s a shift in my practice. From a perspective of one, to a perspective of one who leads.

A small firm. A small business.

If you’re running one of these you’re at a disadvantage. Or are you??

I’d argue that running a small biz gives you a few advantages:

  • You can break the traditional pricing model(s) in your industry.
  • You have more flexibility.
  • You can take certain calculated risks bigger players can’t/won’t.
  • You can choose a specific focus.
  • You can make changes at a higher speed.
  • You can re-structure things in your own ways.
  • You can be pickier with who you serve.
  • You can develop deeper expertise.
  • You can ditch hourly.
  • You can reposition leaner.
  • You can focus on transformations (meaningful ones).
  • You can shift your sales culture.
  • You can scale up your ops.
  • You can increase your margins dramatically.
  • You can make a larger impact.

Yet, it won’t be easy.

You’ll have trade-offs.

And you’ll need to decide the way.

Rod Aparicio

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Read more from Rod Aparicio

More words, more convincing, more self-investment in the sale, more excitement, more proof, more references, more... noise. Just because you use more words and make things more complex, what really happens in the head of your customer is that they get overloaded with information. When they're at this stage, all they have is "too much to figure it out", and it automatically translates into "more risk". When things feel risky —unless you're an adrenaline junkie—you'll default to the way things...

about 2 hours ago • 1 min read

Business playbook Brand playbook Marketing playbook Sales playbook Product playbook They're best practices slightly tweaked. Something new (to you), but not different. Most of them, shallow. Following a script. Inflexible at the core. Almost like memorizing. For you to stand out, playbooks could be a start. Not the middle, and not the end.

1 day ago • 1 min read

LLMs are awesome language prediction models that tend, as with anything that's scaled-up, to the average. They're great at helping you see patterns —when you have learned what patterns look like. They're also great at making your thinking and voice sound average. To strip you out of your originality. At creating strippers of thinking. The more you leave your thinking to LLMs, the more you're stripped-out of your voice. Don't be one. Your customers care, hire you, and love you for YOUR thinking.

3 days ago • 1 min read