I heard this while speaking with my friend Mark Levy, who heard it from some branding guy, he couldn’t remember whom. “Positioning is dead,” the guy said. Since both Mark and I are positioning people this was of major interest.

He said that positioning was dead because the people, the users, the community… they were creating the positions of companies by participating in Web 2.0. He believed that companies’ positions were defined by what was being said about them in the infosphere.

This is total nonsense. While Web 2.0 gives people a voice and amplifies the conversation, you have to ask where the conversation comes from in the first place.

All UNREASONABLE ideas violate some accepted wisdom.  Some norm.  Some convention.  Some formality.  Some age-old practice.  Some way of doing things, the contravention  of which would be inconceivable.

That’s what makes them unreasonable.

I’ve been wracking my brain to find a new one, but there’s no way around it. Although there are hundreds of specific approaches, when you distill them all down, there are only three ways to expand a business. Three main ways, and only three. What are they?

1. Sell more to your existing customers
2. Find more new customers
3. Merge or acquire your competitors

You might ask, “What’s the point of talking about three when there are ‘hundreds of specific approaches’?” That’s a reasonable question – it’s easy to think consolidating them obscures the opportunity. But in fact, it’s just the opposite.

To say that time management is a huge problem could be understatement of the century. Except for Tim Ferris, the author of The Four Hour Workweek, I don’t know anyone who feels they have enough time for everything they’re supposed to do. Full disclosure: neither do I – expanding Axcelus (our international business acceleration consulting company) definitely takes a ton of time. But that’s the key word — supposed. The ultimate secret to time management is this: only do things you want to do, and only do things you are pretty sure will help you accomplish whatever it is your care about.

Met a really unreasonable guy yesterday. His name is Mike Long, and he’s a behind-the-scenes internet marketer. What that means is that he’s helped a number of very successful internet marketers become successful. Extrememly so.

His new website is http://www.area51marketing.com/, and it’s definitely worth a visit. It currently isn’t selling anything — although of course, it may down the road. Right now, he’s giving away excellent free content (“content” is a Mike Long word) about how to do certain marketing things better. What’s particularly interesting is that he’s controlling the “free” content so that it cannot be redistributed, which runs contrary to the way most internet marketing marketers work.

There’s an old saw. Wait – more than an old saw – it’s truth – right?  “The customer is always right.”  You’ve heard it, and most likely, you’ve incorporated it into your business philosophy.  Everybody has.

But you know what? This truth isn’t always true.  Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s in London, is credited with starting this idea as a way to inspire a higher level of customer service in his employees.  And it may be a great bit of wisdom for retail and other product-oriented businesses

Here’s something unreasonable: a success book that uses the words “cash” in the title and “millionaire” on the cover, not hawking one more worthless get rich quick scheme.

I just got a copy of Loral Langemeier’s new Cash Machine For Life, and it’s pretty neat.  It lays out a step-by-step foundation for building a real business that can provide cash flow and profit for a long, long time. I call it get rich slow – definitely counter-trend.

20^th century architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is famous for saying, “Less is more.” In the 21^st century most businesses — large and small — seem to think the opposite; more is more rules the day.

Books have more pages than ever before. So do magazines. My wife’s latest copy of Vogue is over 400 pages. There are more TV channel choices and more radio stations. There are more car brands and more car models. More custom-fitted premium blue jeans. And when you get to the internet, there are an infinity of blogs (like this one) and news sites and information feeds and, and, god knows – everything anyone could ever want…

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, suggests that the secret to happiness is to “want what you have.” That very reasonable, stress-reducing practice damps down the unfulfilled cravings which can lead directly to dissatisfaction and unhappiness. But those cravings which, when frustrated, can make you unhappy, can also — when properly channeled — lead towards action which creates progress.

There’s another way – the unreasonable way. Being unreasonable, you simply want what you want, and figure out how to go get it. By gaining clarity over what you want, and asserting that one way or another you will be, have or do that very thing, and not giving up until you get it — you make something happen. That’s the realm of invention, the realm of creation, the realm of leadership: wanting what you want.

Some people think that they have to know everything before they go public.