Welcome to issue 65! Did someone forward this to you? If so, Subscribe here!

You can send all the cold emails you want.

Optimize the DM sequence.

Post on LinkedIn every day.

Run ads.

Buy a list.

Some of that will work, some of the time.

But none of it touches what happens when someone brings up a problem at a dinner party and three people in the room say your name before the sentence is finished.

That's not marketing. That's something else entirely.

The first time I walked into a Costco, I remember thinking: what is this place?

The extra-wide parking spots. The membership card that made you feel like you were in on something. The samples scattered across every aisle. The prices that seemed almost too good to be real.

And the $1.50 hot dog combo that hasn't changed in decades because the founder flat out refused to raise it.

Every single detail says the same thing: we've got you.

And that's what people actually buy. The hot dog just gets all the credit.

I still feel it every time I walk through those doors.

That's not an accident.

That's intentional design.

Paul Graham once told Brian Chesky something that changed how Airbnb thought about growth.

"It's better to have a hundred people love you than a million who sort of like you."

Because those hundred people tell their friends. Who tell their friends. Who tell their friends.

→ They become your marketing.

Chesky took that idea and ran with it. He'd ask his team: what does a five-star experience look like? Then a six-star? Keep going. Seven. Eight. At some point you're sending a limousine to the airport, or throwing a ceremony in someone's honor just because they showed up.

The details get ridiculous on purpose. Because if you can stretch your thinking that far past "fine," landing somewhere between five and seven stars starts to feel like an actual realistic possibility.

Most founders never ask what seven looks like. They're relieved they hit five.

Seth Godin wrote an entire book about this called Purple Cow.

The premise is simple. Drive past a field of brown cows and you don't think twice. Put one purple cow in that field and you can't stop talking about it.

Your business works the same way. Safe is invisible.

Remarkable gets remembered.

Gary Vaynerchuk built his whole philosophy around an idea he called the Thank You Economy.

The premise: genuine care, delivered consistently, is the most underrated competitive advantage in business.

He didn't just write about it. He'd show up at customers' homes with a shovel after a snowstorm. He didn't have an ask. He was just a person who remembered their name and showed up when they weren't expecting it. He genuinely cared.

That kind of thing gets talked about. People share bad experiences all day long. They forget average ones by the time they hit the parking lot.

But something unexpected? Something that created awe and delight? They'll tell everyone.

Because they share stories they can't believe actually happened. Especially in a world where everyone is trying to pitchslap from the first message and get the quick win.

There is more AI-generated slop flooding inboxes and feeds than at any point in history. Everyone is chasing scale. Automated sequences. Generic content. Volume at all costs.

And in that race, a lot of founders have quietly forgotten about the people who actually got them here. Their customers. The ones who took a chance on them early. The ones who referred them without being asked. The ones who are still paying them every month.

→ That's the gap. And it's widening.

Which means the bar for being memorable has never been lower. Everyone else stopped trying to clear it.

The deals that feel the easiest to close are usually the ones where someone vouched for you before you ever showed up or you made their experience with you exceptional.

Trust is earned in many ways. Often, it’s in the subtle actions we take for granted. Those experiences give buyers a glimpse of what it might be like working with you.

That doesn't happen because you met expectations. It happens because someone remembered how you made them feel when you didn't have to go the extra step.

→ The moment that surprised them.

That happens before, during or after they do business with you. It's all important.

Start by asking yourself a different question this week.

Not "did I deliver what I promised?"

Ask: "Did I do anything this week that my client would bring up at dinner?"

If the answer keeps coming back no, you're building a forgettable business. And forgettable businesses have to keep outrunning that fact with more outreach, more volume, more noise.

Remarkable ones don't have that problem.

Because they make people feel something.

As the famous quote goes…

Think about a current client. Someone you're already working with.

What is one thing you could do this week that they weren't expecting? It doesn't have to be big. It just has to be intentional.

Now, how about a buyer you’ve been working with. Anything you could do to produce awe & delight in the sales process?

Prioritize those. See what happens.

Reply and tell me what you came up with. I read every one.