Michael Hyatt has been on my radar for years. His name keeps surfacing in my world, and I was curious. I’m interested in personal branding, and right now is a good moment for me to build my own platform, so reading his book on the subject felt like the obvious move.
Unfortunately, it was something of a disappointment.
Here is the central idea, and I do like it: a platform is the stage you build, the place you speak from, create from, and connect from. Hyatt splits the components into a home base you own, like a website or newsletter, embassies like your social profiles, and outposts like search monitoring. Clean way to think about where your work lives and who controls each part.
Past the framing, though, the book only scratches the surface and keeps scratching.
The biggest problem is the lists. Lists of elements, lists of steps, lists of tips, lists of examples. Ten components of a “wow” experience: surprise, anticipation, resonance, transcendence, clarity, presence, universality, evangelism, longevity, privilege. They read as descriptive labels, not advice you do anything with. After enough of them the book stops feeling like a strategy and starts feeling like a folder of loose thoughts someone numbered.
A chunk of the second half is product marketing, and for that I’d reach for Alex Hormozi instead. $100M Offers and $100M Leads are far more practical, far more usable.
The dating is what sinks it. Read in 2012 I’m sure I’d have found plenty here. Read in 2026, the tactics are either common sense or stale.
It isn’t all loss, and I want to be fair, because the good bits are genuinely good. The lobby example stuck with me: Hyatt walks through different versions of arriving in a corporate lobby and how the experience shapes your impression. That made me think about the experience my own platform hands people before I’ve said a word.
The email signature tip is the one I’m actually implementing. Use your signature to point at your work. Tiny, free, and repetition builds familiarity, so your message lands in front of people again and again with no extra effort.
His list of post ideas is the other keeper: tell a personal story, review a book or app, comment on a quote or the news, walk through how to do something, answer reader questions, explain the reasoning behind a decision. I’ll be coming back to that one.
And he is painfully right about frequency. The core of the work is showing up for years. Most of his tips exist to make showing up easier, but the showing up is the main thing. I struggle with exactly this. I easily chase new projects and lose interest the moment results don’t arrive overnight, so that one landed harder than I wanted.
Hyatt is also a heavy reader, and the references throughout left me with a solid reading list, which I appreciated.
No shade on the man. I’ll try his newer work. This one didn’t hit for me.
My highlights
Very simply, a platform is the thing you have to stand on to get heard. It’s your stage. But unlike a stage in the theater, today’s platform is not built of wood or concrete or perched on a grassy hill. Today’s platform is built of people. Contacts. Connections. Followers.
A good product does not stand on its own anymore. It is foundational, but it is not enough. […] In order for you to be successful in today’s business environment, you need two things: a compelling product and a significant platform.
We don’t need more messages or products or services. Instead, we need better messages, products, and services. Specifically, we need those that wow.
Being successful means becoming the expert in recognizing wow when it shows up. More importantly, it means being able to recognize it when it is absent—and insisting that you ask yourself to deliver it. Don’t settle for something less, because, in doing so, you are depriving your customers of the wow experience they seek—and deserve. It is the foundation to building a significant platform.
Here’s the bottom line: you must exceed the customer’s current expectations.
[E]ach person brings a specific set of expectations to each experience. Those expectations may be conscious or unconscious. They may be general or specific. They may be vague or clearly defined. Regardless, no customer comes to any experience without some kind of expectation.
[Y]ou don’t have to make every experience in life a wow. If everything is a wow, then pretty soon, nothing is a wow. But you must be able to identify which experiences you want to make a wow, and then have a process—or a technology—for creating that outcome.
If we are going to create wow experiences, we must become courageous. This is a personal, psychological bridge we need to cross. What we want to create—that wow experience—is on the other side of the ravine. There’s no other way to get there from here.
The truth is, mediocrity is natural. You don’t have to do anything to drift there. It just happens.
Coming up with compelling names for products, services, blogs, and blog headlines is arduous, time-consuming work. Yet nothing in the marketing mix is more important than a strong title.
Great titles are PINC (pronounced “pink”). They do at least one of the following: make a promise, create intrigue, identify a need, or simply state the content.
By the way, one of the best books bloggers could ever read is David Garfinkel’s Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich. It is basically a catalog of headline templates that have proven effective in selling all kinds of products.
It is worth taking a look at the best sellers in your product category. What current design trends do you see? What seems to be working? Review the top one hundred products and take notes.
When we are young, parents and teachers tell us we can do anything and become whatever we want. But as we grow older, these same people tell us we must be more realistic.
Here’s an example of how I pitched this book: I am writing a new [Component 1] business book called Platform. [Component 2] It is designed for anyone who is trying to get attention for his or her product, service, or cause. [Component 3] I teach my readers how to build a tribe of loyal followers, using social media and other new technologies. [Component 4] I explain that it has never been easier, less expensive, or more possible than right now.
The more successful you become, the more you will need a good, reliable attorney.
By the way, some negative reviews from ordinary users can be helpful. If all user reviews are positive, I get suspicious. When a few are negative, I assume they are all honest and put greater stock in the positive ones.
Ask yourself, Who are the recognized authorities in my field? Don’t be too quick to rule out someone because you don’t think you have access. You may not know the prospective endorser, but you may know someone who does.
[I]t is a good idea to get your head shots redone every few years. Nothing is quite as jarring as meeting someone who looks ten years older than his photograph—and it could create mistrust where none existed.
Planks include everything from Facebook, Twitter, your blog, your website, even traditional media.
Before you begin, ask yourself these two vital questions: • Can you generate high-quality content on a regular basis? (And by “regular,” I mean at least three times a week.) • Will your content attract a loyal and growing audience?
All of this requires your personal participation. You can’t hire it done. You can’t fake it. If you’re not willing to make the personal investment, don’t bother. You won’t fool anyone.
This seems almost too obvious to mention, but you should keep a list of your ideas—the ones that come to you when you don’t have time to follow up, like when you’re driving to work.
Now, on average, it takes me sixty to seventy minutes to write and format a single post.
I use a formula based on the SCORRE method taught by Ken Davis at the SCORRE Conference.
Perfectionism is the mother of procrastination.
Start with a story, a promise, or a startling fact. The idea is to grab their attention and hang on to it. Many bloggers spend too much time trying to set up the post or provide context. Just get to the point.
I have tried to narrow my own focus to four areas: leadership, productivity, social media, and publishing. If I want to write on something else (e.g., fitness), I do so through one of these four lenses.
[Y]ou might want to create a separate About page for your Twitter profile so you can make your page more specific to Twitter followers. This is the page you then link to in your Twitter profile.
Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators, had it right decades ago when he said, “Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and fingertips.”
Tribe-building is the new marketing. Marketing is no longer about shouting in a crowded marketplace; it is about participating in a dialogue with fellow travelers. Marketing is no longer about generating transactions; it is about building relationships. Marketing is no longer about exploiting a market for your own benefit; it is about serving those who share your passion—for your mutual benefit.
If you are going to be serious about building tribes, you have to provide for all four kinds of communication. • Tribe leader to tribe member • Tribe member to tribe leader • Tribe member to tribe member • Tribe member to outsiders
If you are successful with your online platform, you will inevitably be asked to appear on radio, television, or Internet shows to discuss your product, service, or cause. It’s critical that you learn to do this well.
Many first-timers complain that the interviewer didn’t know a thing about what they had to offer. Trust me: this is the norm. Assume the interviewer hasn’t prepped, and you won’t be disappointed.
[M]ake the host look smart by providing the producer with a list of questions to ask. Nine times out of ten, you will be asked these exact questions. That has the bonus of making you look smart too!
Follow the feel-felt-found formula: “I know how you feel. I felt the same way. But here’s something I found in my research.”
[I]t’s also a great idea to listen to the conversations about your competitors. For example, if Marriott had a Google Alert set up for “Sheraton,” they could listen online for customers who get frustrated with their Sheraton experience enough to blog about it. When it happens, they could be the first to post a comment.
As you build your platform, you are going to attract critics. It is inevitable. In fact, if you aren’t attracting critics, you should be wondering why.