Hodinkee’s CEO Update & “In The Comment Section”

Hodinkee (the watch editorial and ecommerce site) used to be the go to example of what a content brand could be.

It used to be a signal of how to create a media business around a theme, in their case luxury watches.

I have spoken to five businesses in the last five years who all have mentioned Hodinkee and their approach as the example of what they were attempting to replicate in their business. In most cases the investment costs to even consider this will put most businesses off.

Media Companies Of The Future: I do believe every company will become part media company - some channels and media will be a natural media fit based on their business vertical, while many others will struggle to make the transition.

The shift to commerce was a bumpy one for Hodinkee and in their recent CEO update (“A Note On The Future Of Hodinkee”) suggested they were going back to their roots. Their sub-header said it all “Spoiler alert: It looks a lot like its past, and I think you're going to like it.”

Speak With Not To: This blog post is a shining example of how to speak to and with your customers while knowing your customers and their they would respond…

“See you in the comments section!” cemented knowing how to speak to their audience while knowing them and their expected reaction(s), with 453 comments and counting this is highly unusual.

Would any other company get this feedback on-site in 2024? - I highly doubt it.

Moving into August many brands are disconnected from their customers and from knowing how to speak with and to their key audience, it is great to see a brand admitting they made a couple of strategic missteps and embracing feedback on site, rather than social media.

Best of luck to Hodinkee and if there was a coaching moment here, it would be to embrace your audience, keep them front and centre of your messaging and don’t be afraid to admit a mistake and guide them into the future.

Google’s Next Battle - AI, Gemini & Customer Happiness

Google’s Secret → Habitual Product, Slow AI Timing & Narrative Builds. 

In Tuesday’s quarterly earnings call Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said:

“Gemini is making Google's own products better.  All 6 of our products with more than 2B monthly users now use Gemini.  This means that Google is the company that's truly bringing AI to everyone”. 

This was a smart comms line.

This statement was made for shareholders and investors to buy into their AI push and ignore the stories coming out of the internal team cultural battles and reduce the friction around Google’s less flashy approach to AI and right now a slight let-down in terms of features and improvements for paying customers. 

What Google is doing well is pushing the narrative that their AI product is the first to be in consumers’ and corporate customer’s lives to send a shot across the bow to Apple (who were the first to embed this from their recent event with their Apple AI partnership approach). Android vs iOS is going to be a long battle especially in the next device to replace smartphones and in AI space, which might blend into one…

Google Wins Are Potentially Google’s Next Big Issue:
What many tend to miss is the incredible results (Alphabet reported $84.7bn in revenue with $24 Billion quarterly profit, from an incredibly strong Search (ads business) and Cloud revenues) Google and competitors can win have arguably declining products: Google’s example is their organic search product (their SERPs are an absolute mess right now) and increasing Google Workspace & Google Cloud pricing for no extra customer benefits, while benefiting from increased ad pricing and ad placements. 

Battle 1 Alphabet’s share price dropped Wednesday reacting to the market news and slow adoption in AI, one major concern is failed cloud acquisitions in HubSpot and now Wiz.

But Time Is On Their Side: Google, Apple and Amazon’s secret is almost always timing, especially with AI and not rushing into AI - this is going to win the mass market for them while others rush, crash and burn. 

Battle 2 Google’s Ask Fatigue & Friction: Google’s asks from customers will lead to ask fatigue and churn, asks will continue to increase, Google will continue to ask for more budget from advertisers with different targeting (soon to be less opaque) options, more company to upgrade users to Gemini AI and ask consumers to pay for more storage for Gmail use.

If you have ever worked inside of a big company or a listed company you have core workstreams (projects that take company-wide priority) and internal politically driven decisions that to the outside don’t make much sense. If your workstream (say organic search or improving Google Workspace features) doesn’t make the OKR sign off it won’t have any resource assigned or budget for quarters ahead.

Google’s next battle is how to improve their search results (away from optimising the number of ads) while facing competition from answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity and cramming in more ads at increasing prices to keep investors happy. 

Here’s a good graphic via Reddit for Alphabet’s results last quarter - take a look at traffic acquisition costs $13.8b — paying for defaults on iPhones and Samsung devices is not cheap.

>> Are you a heavy Google Workspace user? Here are my favourite Google Workspace shortcuts and hacks to improve your productivity

My 17 Rules For CEO Profile Development

Why CEO And Founder Profile Development Needs Rules To Make Them Successful

Here are my 17 rules to help CEOs and founders to know if we would be a good fit to work together on their profile development. And yes, it’s far more than the normal approach which is spray and pray LinkedIn updates and one video sliced and diced across social media to be successful.

1. Take profile development seriously 
   - it’s more than just a trial or testing if you will get any traction

2. It takes time and personality
   - if you lack either you have to do the work and there will be homework

3. You’ve been the boss so long you can’t boss it 
   - CEOs and founders have been the boss for so long that they try and boss every situation, in profile development you cannot control (aka boss) it, it’s a collaboration and an evolution.

4. Know when media training is wrong
   - and the training is going to mislead you often in this modern web-driven world

5. You’re not going to be a success overnight 
   - it will take time, effort and development to become any success. And if you go viral expect it to work against you as much as it goes for you

6. Do you have the time (and money) to invest in you?
   - You will need to crave out dedicated time, to be proactive and reactive to news stories and industry stories, you will have to be fluid with requests and with your time

7. Are you the star or is the company? 
   - you are representing the company, and remember being the star yourself should lead to company success

8. Have 5 important statements to say. You stand behind and will be able to answer with the harshest critics
   - if you do not have statements to say you won’t cut through, if you cannot back up these 5 things with your biggest critics or have solid answers when pushed you will struggle with audiences. Being controversial is a recipe for disaster for 99% of CEOs and Founders

9. Own your old mistakes 
   - these will be surfaced and you will have to answer to them

10. Know you’re going to make new mistakes and likely big mistakes  
    - mistakes happen and you will make big mistakes moving forward, these will be brought up frequently and you will have to be confident in having an answer and sincere apologises

11. Know what’s on the record, ‘on background’ and off the record 
    - where there is a camera, a mic or any size audience knows you will be on record unless you clearly state it. Anything that’s private or confidential will be used

12. You will be “hate-watched” (have thick skin)
    - not everyone watching you will appreciate you and will watch everything you do and will have something to say about it in comments, on social media and they will find your inbox

13. Your team will love or hate it 
    - not all of your internal team will love what you have to say and won’t agree with it, expect questions and hard points challenged, in person, on email and your company chat app(s) and in public

14. Who are you speaking to and what do you have to say to them? 
    - if you don’t know your audience, why you are talking to them and what you have to say, don’t start

15. Influencer vs KOL
    - know the difference and understand what you want to be. If it’s not a KOL (Key opinion leader) you’re looking for fame and that game is very different. Industry experts and leaders are rare

16. Platforms owe you nothing 
    - every social media platform and email platform(s) does not owe you an audience (followers, subscribers), doesn’t reward you with an audience and ultimately wants a cut of your budget, remember this when your reach is cut or your engagement drops

17. This is not a fair game
    - understand the profile development game is as such reputation management and business development as your profile and ego, you will be systematically taken apart by competitors you know, those you don’t know (yet) and those who make it their mission to take someone or someone’s business down

Lastly, it should go without saying you will need to invest in yourself, your image and importantly good equipment, a mic (for interviews and podcasts), a decent smartphone for videos and clips, your office or background for interviews and consider your look.

Get in touch with me directly to find out how to work together.