The Weekend Edition - Crazy-Ideas

Have you ever had that dream where you're walking down a busy street naked? Launching a book is like that. My Bottleneck Detective book launched over the weekend ... and so far all is well. I've had some very nice feedback, and no complaints (yet!). The best bit for me? I've started helping an early reader use Billy Brown's bottleneck detective techniques to rescue their cash starved business. Yay!

Heads up: I decided to write a new book and it will launch within the next 3 months.

I'm going to use the same approach I used to write this new one.

• I'll start with a free email course that I write 1 or 2 days ahead.
• That keeps me motivated and keeps the book ultra focused and short.
• I'll then take a few days off then spend several weeks rewriting it.

This book is gonna be VERY SHORT.

But it's got the longest title I could think of:

Don’t Read This if You Dont Care About Delivering ​
Agile Projects on Time.

The subtitle is

Fast, Focused and Actually Agile

More details tomorrow.

Two recommendations this week - for clever ideas!

RECOMMENDATION ONE - Ian Leslie writes a wonderful substack called The Ruffian, which I happily pay for.

In this week's article he argues that "Maybe Your Opinion Is Just a Feeling About a Story".

He's right - though that's just my opinion and he told a story to prove his point.

RECOMMENDATION TWO - My genius friend Rory Sutherland wrote a short article in the spectator where he suggests a crazy-ar$ed way of coming up with brilliant ideas by coming up with ultra-crazy-arsed ideas.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-ginger-rogers-theory-of-information/

And, now for the weekly recap:

Your Weekly Recap: 

Make me look Competent (selling grid continued)

If you want to sell an idea effectively, you need to understand what motivates the people you’re selling to. That’s why I shared Clarke’s Selling Grid and strongly hinted that you don’t try to fill it out perfectly on your own. Let me explain why, with

Clarke Ching - The Bottleneck Guyclarke ching

Dollarize the Prize ... (more on selling you and your ideas)

You’ve partly filled out your version of Clarke’s Selling Grid (feel free to replace “Clarke” with your name). You’ve chatted to a few of the “Customers” to check your assumptions - and probably discovered some were good, some not so good. Now’s time to add a huge-but-tiny detail to the

Clarke Ching - The Bottleneck Guyclarke ching

Talking about “selling” offends some people?

About 60 people (of 3,000) suddenly unsubscribed when I started writing about selling ideas (and yourself). Makes sense - why clutter your inbox with emails you’re not interested in? The unsubscribe button is one of humankind‘s most useful inventions. Which brings me to today’s lesson in

Clarke Ching - The Bottleneck Guyclarke ching

Choke Point Charlie: The Psychology of Queues

A few months ago I did a talk on the - surprisingly - behavioural science of queues. It’s about more than just waiting—it’s how queues affect our emotions, our decisions, and (especially) our businesses. In it, you’ll learn: * Why moving gates further from baggage claim reduced

Clarke Ching - The Bottleneck Guyclarke ching

Hope you're doing well!

Clarke

PS: And, look, it's a weird time of year.

If you ever feel like your head is gonna do this - 🤯 - send me an email. Sometimes just doing this - 🤮 - onto the page is cathartic. You don't even need to hit send. I'm happy to chat. Won't try and sell you anything.