John Doherty

Today I read a great excerpt in Robert Glazer’s Friday Forward (one of my favorite newsletters). Quoting from Robert directly: There is a famous fable about Pablo Picasso that goes something like this. One evening, while enjoying a meal at a restaurant, Picasso—the world’s most influential artist at the time—was interrupted by an admirer. The […]

For two years in my mid 20s I lived in an evangelical Christian hippie commune in a tiny dairy village in Switzerland. That experience changed my life, and taught me a few important things that I think are pertinent to our current day. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m currently a 35 year […]

Dear reader, As an entrepreneur, I like to keep a broader eye on what’s going on in the world as it informs my business’s strategy and helps me to prepare for things happening wider that could affect my business. I’m all about being proactive instead of reactive, and this approach keeps my ever-present anxiety down. […]

I’m a skeptical person. My initial reaction when I see something happening is to think that I know better, especially when it’s something I know well (like marketing or sales or increasingly being a founder). I recently read the book Persuadable by Al Pittampalli which is, as you may guess, all about being open to […]

I just returned from CaboPress, my mentor/coach Chris Lema’s annual event in Cabo for business professionals, many of whom are in the WordPress space. Image via Chris Lema This was my third year at CaboPress, and maybe the most impactful of all three. I’ve written my other CaboPress reviews for 2017 and 2018 here and […]

Last week I was on vacation. To be honest, it was my first real vacation in over a year. Sure, my wife and I have traveled quite a bit and we technically had a vacation last year in New Zealand, but I was in the middle of a crisis in my business and I came […]

If you hang out in entrepreneurship circles enough, or maybe more pointedly in “wantrepreneur” circles where people talk about wanting to start a business, you’ll see a few statements recurring: “I just want to have a six figure business” “I want to be a millionaire” “I’m aiming for a seven figure business” There are these […]

There are two competing camps on the internet: that companies charging money for things is bad; that the internet is still an amazing place to build a profitable company. I get hate for talking about how marketers can make more money (in completely legal and upstanding ways, no less) on the internet by doing what […]

Working for yourself is an incredible thing. You have freedom, you have flexibility, you can work from your favorite coffee shop or your pajamas or another country completely. Over the last three years I’ve worked from 20+ states in the US and 12 different countries. We’ve moved twice and I take most Friday afternoons off. […]

Apparently yesterday on SEO Twitter there was a back and forth between a Times journalist and a bunch of self-styled SEOs. I thankfully missed it somehow (I guess because I don’t follow the journalist and missed all the replies, and no one was subtweeting her), but upon looking back at it the flow went: Journalist […]

I spent the first week of October 2018 in Cabo San Lucas this year. This was my second year attending Chris Lema’s CaboPress, a mastermind-conference-retreat held at Chris’s favorite resort in Cabo. Here’s are some photos from my Instagram feed:   View this post on Instagram   Processing another incredible week in Cabo at #cabopress. […]

One of the most common questions I get emailed from consultants trying to build a sustainable consulting practice is around retainers, and how to sell ongoing projects where you keep working with the client long term. The question is usually something like “How do I sell a retainer? I mean, what will I do after […]

It happens to the best of us – we put time and effort into calls, proposals created and sent, and follow ups to discuss the project and move them towards a close. But then we hear that they’ve gone with someone else. It hurts. You wanted (maybe needed) that business and it didn’t close. So […]

I sent this to my list today while I’m out of the country at a conference in Mexico. I’m probably standing in a pool right now attending a talk when this publishes. Three years ago I wouldn’t have done that, or would’ve been in my room working on my computer instead of present. So I […]

There’s a dream that many of you might have, which is going freelance. The truth though is that going freelance is scary and hard. You probably have responsibilities in life. Maybe you’re the only breadwinner in a family, or maybe you just need to cover your bills each month on your own. But you’re tired […]