Once in a while I see a blog from someone who I like and respect, but that is SO TOTALLY WRONG, that I have to comment on it. This is one of those posts.

Scott Yates – an entrepreneur and writer I respect – recently posted on the Marketo blog this post on Amy Adams and why you must post blog articles that you may hate.

Scott summarizes his point this way “… the short version of how this relates to content marketing is simply this: You can't treat your business blog like a movie. It's fine to like or dislike an actress. What's not fine is to treat your business blog like a movie. The question isn't if you like it. Rather, the question is if the blog is helping you meet your business goals.

If you only want customers who think exactly the way you think, then you are going to eliminate a huge swath of customers. In fact, you should go out of the way to publish posts that you do NOT like because those will appeal to customers that you just aren't reaching.”

If you have followed our blog at all over the last 5 years, you know what part of the above we object to… “If you only want customers who think exactly the way you think, then you are going to eliminate a huge swath of customers”.

Frankly, we pretty strongly believe that for most businesses, especially B2B services business, management/knowledge consulting firms, technology consulting firms, you do want businesses that think the way you think.

Simon Sinek in “Start with Why” says it better than anyone else I know – “It is easier to business with people who believe what you believe”.

The most profitable customers are those who share our purpose, our belief system.

Their expectations match ours – that makes them easier to satisfy. Their value system lines up to ours so we view the same importance in the same things.

So my counterpoint is this, if you don’t like the writing style, but the points are ones you agree with, by all means, publish. If you love the writing but don’t agree with the points – hit delete. You don’t want every customer. You want the profitable ones that you’ll enjoy working with today, tomorrow and into the future. And those are the same customers that will refer you to more customers that you’ll like (funny how that works).