Why I (sort of) Chose Marketing As A Career
Article 8/365 of Jacques’s Writing Quest I’m not sure that marketing was my first choice. If I’m honest, it was to be a time traveller. But until Elon Musk invents a time machine, I’ll have to cool my heels. A flâneur had huge appeal to me. Lounging around Parisian coffee shops and observing society is […]
The World Needs You
There are two types of people that drive the world: ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛᴏʀꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴘʀᴏᴍᴏᴛᴇʀꜱ. These people are the star actors, and the rest are the supporting cast. All other roles are subordinate to them. They’re the trees that supply us with oxygen. There’s a pecking order between these two stars, however. There’s a notion that being […]
Meet the mathematician that believes in randomness
I’ve been a fan of networking ever since I joined Business Network International some 15 years ago. I never really understood the power of networking until I read the statistical mathematician, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. He posed a question around why some entrepreneurs are successful and why others end […]
Is your marketing weaponised?
I was rereading Seth Godin’s All Marketers Are Liars the other day. The premise is that we believe whatever we want to believe, and that it’s exactly this trait of ours, which marketers use (and sometimes abuse) to sell their products by infusing them with good stories – whether they’re true or not. Some marketing stories are embellished […]
Write for Jackson Pollock
Someone once told the composer Morton Feldman that he should write for the “man in the street”. Feldman went over to the window, and who did he see? Jackson Pollock. When writing your blog posts, write about things that interest you. When you write like this, you find your tribe. What you find fascinating, they’ll find fascinating. What […]
Entrepreneurs don’t have a marketing problem, they have a belief problem
If you feel overwhelmed by branding and marketing your business, you’re not alone. Even though I run a marketing shop, there are days when I find marketing to be a soul-sucking, money-gulping and time-wasting minefield, mired in complexity, empty promises and poor results. These are the days that I ask (｢๑•₃•)｢ ʷʱʸ?. Those are the […]
How to get traction with your posts on Facebook
I don’t know about you, but I find it extremely difficult to get traction on Facebook. I put out my best work, and get 3 likes, if I’m lucky. But those frikking cat memes get 10 000 likes. But, recently I found out what I was doing wrong when it comes to marketing my posts […]
Please stop my accountant from firing me
This is a direct response sales letter I wrote for my How To Charge Like A Grown Up Workshop. I loved writing it. ——————————————————————————————————– Hello I would like to offer you a spot on one of my signature workshops, How To Charge Like A Grown Up. I’m facilitating it live and in-person on 24 November […]
Why you really don’t need more customers
You really don’t need more customers, seriously. What you need are more clients. On the face of it, customer/consumer/client means the same, doesn’t it? But there’s a nuance, and that can make all the difference to how you attract the right business to you. Right off the bat, I hate the word consumer in anything. […]
LinkedIn Profile Writing by Jacques de Villier. Rainmaker. Author. Speaker.
I fix boring LinkedIn profiles so that you can attract the right clients to your cause. If you’re serious about using LinkedIn to generate sales, then you need to be obsessed about crafting a profile that registers and resonates with your ideal client. I’m Jacques de Villiers, rainmaker, author and speaker.I shift people who shift […]