THE LIKEABLE EXPERT GAZETTE
Twenty-six years of the same nine ideas
Six hundred issues of marketing advice for solo professionals — and what it all added up to
Sept 1999 – July 2026 · 600+ issues
I wrote The Likeable Expert Gazette twice a month for more than twenty-six years — 600-plus short essays for solo professionals and small firms, each starting with something that happened to me and ending with something useful. It has now concluded. Read end to end, the archive makes the same nine arguments over and over again.
600+
issues published
26
years, without a gap
5,000
subscribers, 40+ countries
9
ideas
The whole thing in one sentence
“Stay in front of the people you know, over and over again, in a way that positions you as a likeable expert.”
That’s been my marketing motto, more or less from the beginning.
The nine ideas are the underpinning.
They describe one sequence, rather than nine separate pieces of advice.
None of this works for your larger competitors.
The Ideas
Nine Things I Kept Coming Back To
The stories change — a payphone in the woods, a bottle of wine and four stitches, a paragliding trip I didn’t want to take. These don’t.
Positioning
#1. Different beats better.
You’re competent, experienced, and credentialed. So is every professional you compete with who’s worth worrying about. Nobody refers you because you’re marginally more qualified than the next person (they can’t tell). They do it because they can remember you.
You are facing a much bigger risk when it comes to generating word of mouth and referrals: being invisible and being unmemorable.
Different is Better Than Better · Oct 2021
Positioning
#2. Narrow your focus.
It seems logical to stay broad, to offer as many services to as many people as possible. But getting hired isn’t a lottery — it’s not about how many tickets you hold. Plus, it’s winner-take-all (second place has zero value). People want to hire experts; you need to become the leading expert in something. Find a niche you can own.
The narrower, more well-defined your focus, the less effective (frankly) your marketing needs to be.
Niche Craft · Jul 2014
Getting hired
#3. Hiring isn’t a meritocracy.
People hire people they know and like, or those referred by someone they know and like. Clients can’t evaluate your technical skill anyway (do you have any idea how medically capable your doctor is?). What they can tell is whether they like and trust you. Which means your marketing needs to reveal the person you are, not just what you know or have accomplished.
It’s the you in you — not your skills — that your existing, happy clients love.
Lose the Act; Gain More Clients · Aug 2006
Generosity
#4. Give away useful information.
When it comes to publishing useful content, I heard this a lot: If I tell them the answer, they won’t need me. But watching a house get built doesn’t make you a builder. Giving away what you know is your “free sample.” It reveals how you think and, more often than not, demonstrates to prospects that what they are considering doing themselves is a lot more complicated than they thought.
Watching isn’t the same as knowing.
The Magic of Free Information · Apr 2019
Discipline
#5. Nothing happens until you push send.
A newsletter — the single most effective professional service marketing tool ever invented — has no deadline and is never on fire. Tomorrow is as good as today … which is precisely why they die. But publishing, like exercise, requires showing up, over and over and over again, on a schedule. The people who get the speaking invitations, the inbound leads, and the steady stream of new clients, aren’t the best writers. They’re the ones who never stop pushing send.
Pick a date, give it the respect it deserves, and stick to it.
Why Newsletters Fail · Apr 2023
Craft
#6. Story first, information second.
Most business writing is all business. After all, people are busy. The thing is, your experiences and personal stories — about your dog, your knee surgery, your lost car keys — represent the only unique information and insight you have. The more you share these, the sooner readers will feel like they know and trust you. (Hint: those are the people they hire.)
Your expertise is not unique. Your life is.
How I Write This Newsletter · Mar 2022
Selling
#7. The sale happens long before it happens.
Professional services are risky to buy and hard to sample. The stronger and longer the relationship you have with prospects before they are asked to decide, the easier it becomes for them to move forward. At that point, selling is just a simple conversation about the specifics.
By the time the question is asked, the decision has already been made.
Closing Is Not Selling · Dec 2018
Scale
#8. Do things that don’t scale.
Large firms are forced to automate. You and I are not. Handwritten notes, personal replies, interactions that don’t require filling out a form … these are all things our clients love, and that our larger competitors can’t match.
Real relationships don’t scale. They are not a function of time, horsepower, or budget.
The Bigness of Smallness · Oct 2021
Working solo
#9. Having a job is risky.
A job is like having one client who can end the arrangement immediately and without notice. Plus, they — not you — dictate how, when, where, and with whom you work. Building your own business represents freedom from all that, not to mention never having to wonder, “Maybe I should have gone for it.”
Working for a large company is like being a solo professional with one client.
The Illusion of Safety · Jun 2008
1999 – 2026
The World Changed, The Approach Didn’t
Read chronologically, the archive doubles as a field record of what small firms were being told to worry about, decade by decade.
1999–2004
Making the case for email
Before anyone had an inbox strategy. The argument is simply that a small firm can publish at all — and that permission, not reach, is the asset.
Personalization Ain’t Personal The Power Of A Free Sample Leap, And The Net Will Appear
2005–2010
The likeable expert
Expertise is just the price of admission. Personality and niche are the differentiators.
Lose the Act; Gain More Clients World’s Leading Expert Familiarity Breeds Clients
2011–2016
Everybody’s a publisher now
Blogs, social, podcasts, automation. As the channels multiply, the advice narrows: be a human, be specific, be remembered.
Blinded by the (Technology) Light Small Is The New Big Write Once; Share Often
2017–2022
Small on purpose
Smallness isn’t a limitation; it’s a strategy. Handwritten notes, trust, things that don’t scale.
The World’s Greatest Marketing Tool What To Say Now The Bigness of Smallness
2023–2026
What the machines can’t do
AI arrives. If there’s anything remaining that will set us apart, it’s the human stuff: point of view, voice, and personal story … the parts that don’t commoditize.
Godzilla Wants Your Job 3 Ways You Are Better Than A.I. Presumed Competent
The Method
How to Write 600 of These
I followed the same, simple three-step formula:
Step One
Find something interesting
Something that actually happened to you. A surgeon’s offhand remark, a child’s pet snake, a leaky homemade ice-skating rink.
Step Two
Make a connection
Connect your personal story to a business insight related to your expertise. The less obvious the connection, the more compelling it all becomes. People read to find out where you’re going.
Step Three
Share the insight
Now teach the reader something that will help them live their lives or do their jobs better. Not self-promotion and not too complicated; just enough to provide real value.
I’ve written more than 600 of these newsletters. I’ve only got a handful of ideas.
How I Write This Newsletter · Mar 2022
Headlines matter. Nearly every issue was titled with a song, film, or idiom bent slightly out of shape — a small, consistent promise that the next 800 words won’t be boring.
READ THESE
If You Read Only Six
A short path through the archive — one from each strand, arranged so they build on each other.
Mar 2022
How I Write This Newsletter
The three-step formula. Start here and the rest of the archive makes sense.
Oct 2021
Different is Better Than Better
A payphone in a state park explains why your credentials are not what people remember and repeat.
Apr 2019
The Magic of Free Information
The definitive answer to “but if I give it away, why would they hire me?”
Dec 2018
Closing Is Not Selling
An unromantic marriage proposal, and what it says about how professional services actually get bought.
Jun 2008
The Illusion of Safety
Written mid-financial-crisis, a clear explanation of why working alone was the lowest-risk option.
May 2021
Lessons From 500 Newsletters
Five lessons, beginning with “Nobody cares that you’ve published 500 newsletters.”
The Last Word
The Final Issue Was About Failing
The last issue of The Likeable Expert Gazette was published in July 2026. It was about riding a bicycle — a thing you can’t learn by reading about or being told how. You just need to get on and give it a try. If there’s a better metaphor for starting a business, I don’t know what it is.
The more things we try, the sooner we uncover the ideas that actually work.
Failure Is an Option · Jul 2026 · the last issue
The Likeable Expert Gazette was written by Michael Katz of Blue Penguin Development, published twice monthly from 1999 to 2026 and now concluded. Every issue remains online in the archive.
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