This is a list of things that define me and my business. My belief system. An operating system, if you will. This is not a how-to, a to do, a list of experiments or recommendations. But for me, these are the things that work. These are things I believe.

I have no owner. No investors. No shareholders. No board of directors. No employees. I have no plan to sell my company. With this I am free to do things no overlords would give me permission to do. I'm free to skip right past safety, approval and acceptance and skip right to the innovative, the original and what actually might work.

I've dedicated my life to perfecting my craft - to working with a set of tools I've mastered. My work is what I do out of love. My work is my passion. I have a deep desire to perform at the top of my craft. But my work and my business don't define me. If it succeeds, I am not a success. If it fails, I am not a failure. What does define me is my ability to operate a steady, dependable business, dedicated to the success of my clients, being a good husband and a great father.

You can outmaneuver big when you're small, but it's hard to outmaneuver small when you're big. Because small teams can focus on what is necessary, and only what is necessary. For this reason my business is designed to be as small as possible, with every bit of energy focused on only what is necessary - the things that will drive actual, measurable results.

As a business owner, my clients' success relies in part on my success. This business adheres to the old-school principle of "make more than you spend." My business has been profitable since day 1. Top and bottom lines have grown year over year, every single year of existence. By carrying no debt and little overhead, this business has operated at an average 86% net profit margin over the previous 3 years. This business is here to stay. My clients can count on that.

My business, and my clients' businesses depend on action. If we wait for every opportunity to itself before we act, we'll miss a lot of opportunities. We need to act quicker than the competition. Before it's obvious. We need to actively search for the smallest possible opportunity, and then the next, and so on. This means my clients have to trust me to take risks, to test new ideas, to push boundaries and take them to places they've never been before.

Unfollow the talking heads and life coaches. We don't need a 10 year plan or 5 year plan. Don't even make a 1 year plan. Everything we think today will be radically different by then. All we can do is plan for what is right in front of us. What we need to do right now. The critical path. We need to figure out the next 90 days and figure out how those 90 days can be used to level up the 90 days after that.

We have to start with the hardest, riskiest, most critical challenges. If we can solve those, we're onto something. If we can't, it's better to find out before we dump time, energy, and resources into a flawed pursuit. We can't start with easy. We can't be misled by the small, easy, tablestakes successes.

There are very few occassions in my career where a client-issued emergency wasn't preventable and the ensuing response warranted. We are humans and humans don't respond well in crisis. In reality, most of what feels like a life or death emergency isn't. A knee-jerk, all hands on deck response is a waste of time, energy, resources and relationships. Planning, coordination, communication, respect and humility will take us much further.

Offices are an unnecessary evil. An unneeded expense. An elementary school for adults designed so the top of the hierarchy can lord over their subordinates. Asynchronous work - work from anywhere - allows top-tier talent to work when inspiration and execution are at their peak, wherever, whenever and however that may be. Let go and trust more. The performance will speak for itself.

I will not be the cheapest service provider in the market. In fact, many times I will be as expensive or more expensive than the large scale, old, tired traditional agencies. Clients shouldn't pay a higher retainer because their agency carries a huge expense line. They shouldn't pay for team building events, lavish travel accommodations, office expansions and holiday parties. The client should pay for results. If the results are on par with the best in the business, it shouldn't matter if it's a one man operation, or 200 people onboard the Titanic. Cheap is easy to find. Results are not.

Remove the hustle pornstars from your social feeds and adopt a long-term vision. There is nothing glamorous about being an overworked, rundown non-existent friend and family member. 6 hours of intensely focused, uninterrupted work performed to the best of my abilities is all my brain can muster until fatigue and errors set in. 6 hours of work. 10 hours to do whatever else I love in life. 8 hours of sleep. Work/Life/Sleep balance. That's a fair formula.

A one hour meeting with four people is not a one hour meeting, it's a four hour meeting. In most cases, it isn't worth it. Meetings are necessary at times, but they should not be the default response. Can you write it up instead? Can you email it? Does a one-on-one 15 minute phone call work instead? I do not charge for meetings, but this doesn't mean meetings are free. When scheduling a meeting, we must consider the tradeoffs and the alternatives.

When the goal of the digital marketing becomes one KPI in a spreadsheet, it ceases to be a good measurement. It will elude us. It will influence every decision we make. It will override all critical thinking. It will lead to the removal of everything that doesn't make that number go up. Many times, it will lead to the rest of the client's business struggling while that one number may be soaring.

Me having all of the right answers may give you a nice cozy feeling. It's what you're paying me for afterall. But convincing you I'm right is not my goal. Finding the right answer is, which takes time. This is why I will ask for time to think, research, ask questions, listen, reconsider and then answer to the best of my abilities. I may turn out to be wrong, that's fine. But this approach will lead to more solutions than problems in the long-term.

Easy is a word people use to describe jobs they have never done before. I might have launched my first ads in 1999. I might have over 40,000 hours logged doing this. I may manage millions of dollars annually. But this isn't easy. Everyday presents a new challenge. An algorithm update, a new tool, regulatory measures. Things that worked until this point in time, may not work tomorrow. This job is not easy and that's why I do it.