The dictionary wars · Market domination

The dictionary wars

On a wet November night in 2026, the rain hit Alex’s office windows so hard it blurred the city lights into a smear of white and gold.

He should have gone home hours ago.

Instead he sat at his desk, tie loose, cursor blinking on a half-written email to a $40 million prospect—a business owner who had said, very politely:

“Honestly, you all sound the same.”

Alex leaned back and stared at those words.

Fifteen years building an RIA. CFA. CFP. Carefully crafted “holistic planning” language. A respectable book of business.

And still, to the people who mattered most, he sounded like everybody else.

His phone buzzed. A text from Jenna, his operations lead:

Did you send the follow-up? This guy could make our year.

Alex didn’t answer. He closed the email instead and stood up, restless. The office smelled faintly of coffee and printer ink. He wandered into the small conference room where the shelves were lined with old books—a design choice from the previous tenant.

One spine caught his eye.

An American Dictionary of the English Language – Noah Webster.

He pulled it down. The book was ridiculously heavy, the leather cracked, the pages thin and yellow.

“Who still uses this?” he muttered.

“It decided how you spell your own name.”

Alex nearly dropped the dictionary. An older man stood in the doorway, umbrella dripping against his coat, hair gray at the temples. It was Tom, the building’s landlord—retired lawyer, occasional late-night visitor, and collector of trivia.

“Didn’t mean to spook you,” Tom said. “You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

“I might prefer a ghost to this prospect email,” Alex said. “What do you mean it decided how I spell my name?”

Tom stepped in, shut the door, and tapped the cover of the dictionary.

“You see Webster there?” he said. “There was a time when this wasn’t just a book. It was a weapon. And it won a war.”

“A war,” Alex repeated. “About… spelling?”

“About who gets to define reality,” Tom said. “Sit. I’ll tell you a story. Might even help you close that prospect of yours—and a whole lot of CPAs and associations while you’re at it.”

Alex almost laughed, but something about Tom’s tone—steady, measured, like he was cross-examining a hostile witness—made him sit back down.

The rain hammered the windows. The city hummed outside. Inside, in the dim conference room, Tom opened the dictionary and began.

The First War: Webster vs. Worcester

“Start in the early 1800s,” Tom said. “America is young, cocky, insecure. Still half in love with Britain, still trying to prove it doesn’t need Britain.

“And then there’s Noah Webster.”

Alex pictured a stern man with powdered hair and a pen clenched like a weapon.

“He wasn’t just writing a dictionary,” Tom continued. “In his mind, he was writing America into existence. He changed spellings on purpose. Colour became color. Centre became center. It was a statement: ‘We’re not just a copy of England.’”

“Branding,” Alex said, before he could stop himself.

“Exactly.” Tom’s eyes flashed. “Webster wasn’t selling ‘a dictionary.’ He was selling the American dictionary. If you were a patriot, you didn’t reach for Johnson’s English dictionary anymore. You reached for Webster. Every time a child wrote color instead of colour, the brand got stronger.”

“And the competition?” Alex asked.

“Joseph Emerson Worcester,” Tom said. “Quieter. Meticulous. He thought Webster went too far. Worcester wanted precision, tradition. Keep the British spellings where they made sense. He believed the language should be beautiful, orderly, correct.”

“So two products,” Alex said. “One loud and patriotic, one careful and refined.”

“Two visions,” Tom corrected. “And then it got nasty.”

He told Alex about Worcester helping abridge Webster’s earlier dictionary, then publishing his own. About Webster accusing him of plagiarism in public. About newspapers taking sides, calling Worcester a thief. About pamphlets volleying back and forth, with titles that sounded more like legal briefs than booklets.

“It wasn’t a gentleman’s disagreement,” Tom said. “It was a street fight. Words like ‘fraud’ and ‘pirate’ got thrown around. For years.”

“Who was right?” Alex asked.

“That’s not why you’re listening,” Tom said. “You’re listening because of what happened next.”

He flipped a few pages, though he wasn’t reading. The story lived in his memory.

“Noah Webster dies,” Tom said. “His heirs sell the rights to a publishing house: G. & C. Merriam. These are not scholars. They are businessmen. They see an opportunity.”

“They have the brand,” Alex said slowly. “Webster.”

“They have the brand,” Tom agreed. “They look at the battlefield and say: ‘We’re not here to participate in a quiet academic debate. We’re here to own the category.’”

“How?” Alex asked.

Tom held up a finger.

“First, they double down on identity. Every ad, every preface, every whisper reinforces that Webster’s dictionary isn’t just accurate—it’s American. To use Webster is to participate in the project of the nation.”

“Second, they target gatekeepers. They go after schools. State boards. Textbook publishers. They cut deals. They provide school editions. They work margins down to the bone if they have to, because if a kid grows up with Webster on the desk, that kid becomes an adult who instinctively trusts Webster.”

Alex saw it immediately: the platforms, the accounting firms, the industry associations. Center of influence marketing before the term existed. Association marketing before anyone called it that.

“These guys weren’t spraying ads at random newspaper readers,” Tom said. “They were systematically embedding Webster into the people who define what’s ‘standard.’”

“And Worcester?” Alex asked.

“He kept doing good work,” Tom said. “His dictionaries were well regarded in many circles. Professors loved him. But he didn’t build the same distribution. He didn’t fight as viciously. He didn’t act like a company that understood marketing… or war.”

“And that was enough to lose?” Alex asked.

Tom nodded.

“Imagine two RIAs,” he said. “Same technical skill. One becomes the preferred firm for three major CPA shops, two industry associations, and the biggest peer group in town—maybe by hosting a podcast those centers of influence love. The other is quietly excellent but invisible. Who wins ten years from now?”

Alex didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

The Second War: Webster vs. Funk & Wagnalls

“Now,” Tom said, “you might think Webster’s victory over Worcester ended the story. It didn’t. The crown always draws challengers.”

He set the heavy Webster volume on the table and pulled another book from the shelf. This one was thinner, its spine stamped with a different name: Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary.

“These folks came later,” Tom said. “Late 1800s, early 1900s. They weren’t clowns. They produced a serious competitor. For a time, their big dictionary stood shoulder to shoulder with Webster’s.”

“So what happened?” Alex asked. “Did Merriam accuse them of fraud too?”

“They didn’t need to,” Tom said. “They let time do the dirty work.”

He leaned back, eyes half-closed as if watching a time-lapse.

“Funk & Wagnalls launched their flagship big dictionary in 1913,” he said. “Around the same time, Merriam-Webster released and kept improving their own immense New International dictionaries. Every couple of decades, a major revision. New words, new scholarship, new layout.”

“And Funk & Wagnalls?” Alex asked.

“They barely revised the big one again,” Tom said. “Reprints, minor updates, but not a serious overhaul. Decade after decade, the world changed. Science advanced. Culture evolved. The language marched forward. Webster did the hard work to keep up. Funk & Wagnalls mostly coasted.”

Suspense prickled at the edge of the story. Alex could feel the inevitable, like watching someone ignore a slow leak.

“And their marketing?” he asked.

“Oh, they were clever there,” Tom said. “They shifted into mass-market mode. Encyclopedias and dictionary sets sold volume by volume in grocery stores. Trading stamps. Book clubs. You could practically get a Funk & Wagnalls set with your groceries if you saved enough coupons.”

“That sounds… smart?” Alex ventured.

“It was smart for volume,” Tom said. “But it did something subtle and deadly to the brand. Webster was what you saw in libraries, universities, and serious offices. Funk & Wagnalls became the set you got in a supermarket promotion. You see the difference?”

Alex did. One said “authority”; the other said “bargain.”

“And then television made them a punchline,” Tom added. “A recurring joke on a popular show. ‘Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!’ Suddenly the name was famous—but not in the way you want if you’re claiming to be the standard of the language.”

“So they became the discount advisor,” Alex said quietly. “The one who’s always running a promo.”

Tom smiled slightly. “You’re getting it.”

“Webster refreshed the product. Kept prestige channels. Controlled the narrative. Funk & Wagnalls chased cheap distribution, stopped really updating, and got stuck as a trivia brand. Is that about right?”

“Exactly,” Tom said. “One company kept doing the unglamorous work of staying relevant and trusted. The other cut deals that felt great quarter by quarter—and woke up one morning no longer invited to the serious table.”

The Realization

The room felt smaller now. The rain had softened to a steady hiss.

Alex wasn’t thinking about dictionaries anymore.

He was thinking about his own website—the same “holistic planning” copy it had had for years. The same three services, described the same way, regardless of who walked through the door:

• Financial planning.

• Investment management.

• Retirement income strategies.

He pictured his niche—if you could call it that: mid-market business owners, a smattering of corporate executives, some retirees who had followed him from his wirehouse days.

True, he’d worked with a lot of business owners exiting their companies. Helped them transition from illiquid to liquid, from operator to investor. But he’d never claimed that territory. Never said:

“We are the firm for owners facing a life-changing exit.”

He thought of the CPAs he liked and occasionally hinted to that they should “keep us in mind.” Of the local attorney who sent one client every couple of years, almost by accident. Of the industry associations his clients actually belonged to—groups holding monthly meetings, conferences, and webinars—none of which featured his name.

He realized, with an uncomfortable twist in his stomach, that he was Worcester and Funk & Wagnalls at the same time:

• Technically excellent.

• Slightly invisible.

• A little too generic.

• A little too timid with center of influence marketing.

“You look like you just saw your own autopsy,” Tom said gently.

“If we disappeared tomorrow,” Alex said slowly, “I’m not sure my niche would even know what it lost. Not in the way people would notice if Webster had vanished in 1900.”

Tom nodded.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” he said. “Are you just another dictionary on the shelf? Or are you the dictionary for someone’s world?”

The Spark: A Different Kind of Microphone

“How do you turn it around?” Alex asked.

He expected a list. A framework. Some consultant’s clean diagram.

Instead, Tom tilted his head.

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “When was the last time you were the one asking the questions instead of trying to give all the answers?”

Alex frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“You keep trying to get in front of prospects one by one,” Tom said. “What if you started by getting in front of the people they already listen to? The CPAs. The association leaders. The folks who write the newsletters and run the panels.”

“Sure,” Alex said. “But those kinds of centers of influence are busy. They don’t want one more advisor pitching them.”

“Of course they don’t,” Tom said. “But they might want a microphone.”

The room seemed to tighten around that word.

“A microphone,” Alex repeated.

“A podcast,” Tom said simply. “You want a modern equivalent of what Merriam did with schools and publishers? Start a show. Something those CPAs, attorneys, and association heads want to come on. That’s podcast marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing.”

Alex’s mind jumped immediately to every webinar he’d endured, every stiff “networking lunch,” every lukewarm association presentation where advisors fought for five minutes at the podium.

“What would I even call it?” he asked.

“Wrong question,” Tom said. “First ask: Who is it really for?”

The answer surfaced before Alex could overthink it:

“Owners within ten years of an exit,” he said. “People who could be massively helped—or massively hurt—by what happens next.”

Tom nodded. “Then imagine a show that becomes their Webster. The reference they go to for exit stories, tax landmines, post-sale identity, family dynamics. And imagine every episode gives you a new excuse to build a real relationship with a center of influence.”

Alex could see it: instead of cold emails saying, “Hey, can we grab coffee?” he’d send:

I host a show called The Owner’s Second Act. Our audience is business owners within ten years of an exit. I’d love to feature you in an episode about the biggest post-exit tax mistakes you see.

It wasn’t “please send me referrals.” It was “I want to showcase you.”

That was a different kind of association marketing, a different flavor of center of influence marketing. Less begging, more collaborating.

“You’re suggesting,” Alex said slowly, “that my podcast becomes the gatekeeper strategy.”

“I’m suggesting,” Tom said, “that your podcast becomes the Trojan horse.

“You walk into CPA firms, industry associations, even niche LinkedIn groups not as ‘another advisor,’ but as the host of the show their people have started to listen to. You sit at the center of the conversation.”

The words podcast marketing for financial advisors floated through Alex’s brain like an unwritten blog title. He’d seen the phrase before. It always sounded like one more fad.

But this felt different. This wasn’t, “Start a podcast to be famous.” This was, “Start a podcast as the modern equivalent of owning the schoolroom dictionary.”

Designing the War

“So what do I do tomorrow?” Alex asked. “Tactically.”

“Tomorrow,” Tom said, “you still send your prospect an email. But not the one you were writing.”

Alex frowned.

“The man who told you ‘you all sound the same’ just did you a favor,” Tom said. “He held up a mirror. Don’t reply with the same face.

“Tell him what you actually do when you’re at your best. The Webster version of you.”

The words began to form in Alex’s mind before he could stop them:

Most advisors will talk to you about investment options after your sale. Our work starts earlier and goes deeper. We help owners design the life they want before they sign the deal, so the money serves the life—not the other way around.

He could feel the tone shift. Less “we do holistic planning,” more “this is the definition we live by.”

“And while that email is out in the world,” Tom said, “you block a day this week and sketch your war plan.”

“My… war plan,” Alex repeated.

“Every category worth winning has one,” Tom said. “Yours needs three fronts:

1. Identity: you are the advisor for owners facing exits.

2. Gatekeepers: your podcast becomes the doorway into CPA firms, associations, and other centers of influence.

3. Evolution: your services, your offers, your story—freshened and aligned with that focus.”

Alex could see it now, not as a fuzzy “marketing idea,” but as scenes:

• A podcast called The Owner’s Second Act, every episode featuring a business owner, CPA, attorney, or association leader talking candidly about life after a liquidity event.

• Episodes titled with questions his clients actually whispered:

• “What happens after you sell?”

• “How do you tell your kids?”

• “How much is enough?”

• CPA partners sharing episodes with their own clients, not as a favor to Alex but because the content made them look good.

That was podcast marketing without the cringe. That was association marketing that felt like service instead of sales.

“And your offers?” Tom prompted.

Alex thought of the dusty service menu on his website.

“We rebuild it,” he said slowly. “Three levels.”

He ticked them off like he was discovering them as he spoke:

• “A one-time Exit Readiness Review—a paid diagnostic an owner can find through the podcast or a CPA introduction.”

• “The core advisory relationship—the Second Act Blueprint—ongoing planning and investment management for life after the sale.”

• “And for the truly complex cases, a Family Capital Office engagement—multi-entity, multi-generational work.”

Tom smiled. “Webster’s school dictionaries, collegiate editions, and unabridged volumes,” he said. “Different names. Same structure.”

Alex almost laughed at the comparison. But it felt right.

“What about the associations?” he asked. “You mentioned them earlier.”

“They’re your modern-day school boards,” Tom said. “Your association marketing strategy is simple: give them something they can’t get elsewhere.

“Offer a member-only series: The Second Act Sessions. Live recordings of your podcast at their conferences. Q&A shows for their members. White-labeled guides you co-brand with them.

“You show up not as ‘Sponsor: RIA Firm,’ but as ‘The person who runs the show our members love.’”

The phrase center of influence marketing glowed in Alex’s mind like a neon sign. It didn’t have to mean awkward lunches and thinly veiled pitches. It could mean building a platform those centers of influence actually wanted to stand on.

The First Move

Back in his office, the rain softer now, Alex opened a fresh email to the prospect.

Subject: What we actually do for owners like you

He didn’t attach a pitch book. He didn’t copy-paste the firm’s value proposition.

Instead, he told the prospect a short story:

• About owners he’d seen rush into sales only to wake up six months later with money and no sense of purpose.

• About one client who almost overfunded a lifestyle that made him miserable, until they built a different version of “retirement” together.

• About the firm’s decision—effective now—to focus its best thinking and resources on one type of client: owners within ten years of an exit who didn’t want to become cautionary tales.

Then, almost without thinking, he added a line:

I’m launching a show in January called The Owner’s Second Act, where we’ll be talking with business owners, CPAs, and attorneys about exactly these issues. I’d be happy to interview you about your own journey—on or off the record—so that even if we never work together, your experience helps others avoid the common traps.

He read it twice. It was bolder than anything he’d sent before. It was also honest.

When he hit send, his hand trembled. Not from fear of rejection, but because he knew, deep down, that whether this prospect said yes or no, the real decision had already been made:

He wasn’t going back to being “one of many.”

He closed his laptop and finally texted Jenna.

Sent a very different follow-up.

Also… we’re starting a podcast. Need you tomorrow. Big changes.

Jenna’s reply came quickly.

A podcast??

You’re going to have to explain that in the morning.

He smiled.

Short version: We’re going to be Webster, not Funk & Wagnalls.

Six Months Later: The Studio and the Boardroom

The microphone in front of Alex was no longer intimidating.

The sign on the wall behind him read:

The Owner’s Second Act

Real stories from life after the sale.

Across the table sat three people: a CPA partner, a construction business owner three years post-exit, and the executive director of a regional trade association.

They were mid-conversation, recording a live “roundtable” episode at the association’s annual conference.

“So if you were talking to someone in this room who’s nine months away from selling,” Alex said into the mic, “what’s the one thing you wish you’d known?”

The former owner laughed, then turned serious. The CPA added a nuance about tax elections. The association director chimed in with what she’d seen other members struggle with.

Alex barely had to speak. He just guided.

Later, as the crew packed up the portable recording gear, the association director pulled him aside.

“Our members love this,” she said. “It’s more valuable than half the keynote speakers we’ve had in the last three years. We should talk about making this a quarterly thing. Maybe a virtual series. Our own ‘Second Act’ channel.”

Association marketing, Alex thought. Except it didn’t feel like marketing. It felt like being useful.

Two weeks after that, he sat in a glass-walled boardroom at a mid-sized CPA firm whose partners had, until recently, treated financial advisors as necessary but interchangeable.

On the table lay a printed booklet:

The Owner’s Field Guide to Life After the Liquidity Event

[Alex’s Firm], in collaboration with [CPA Firm]

Companion to The Owner’s Second Act podcast

The managing partner tapped the cover.

“Our clients keep talking about this show,” she said. “They forward us episodes. They show up to the live Q&As you’re doing with the association. It’s making us look good.

“We want to formalize this. Regular guest spots from our partners on your podcast. Co-branded webinars. Maybe a joint newsletter column. You’ve basically become their… I don’t know, dictionary for this stuff.”

Alex remembered the rain, the weight of Webster’s dictionary in his hands, the look on Tom’s face.

He smiled.

“That’s exactly what we’re aiming for,” he said.

Because the podcast had done exactly what Tom predicted: it had turned center of influence marketing into a series of invitations, not interruptions. It had turned association marketing into a service, not a sponsorship. It had given him a way to talk to dozens of CPAs, attorneys, and business leaders—not as a supplicant, but as a host.

And it had done something else, quietly, episode by episode:

It had forced him to define, out loud, what a good “second act” really meant.

Not just “more money.” Not just “a diversified portfolio.” But:

• A life with structure after the calendar empties.

• A family prepared for sudden wealth.

• A purpose that doesn’t vanish with the company logo.

That was his Webster moment: deciding which meanings counted.

Epilogue: Owning the Definition

On another wet November night, almost exactly a year after that first conversation with Tom, Alex found himself back in the conference room with the old books.

The Webster volume still sat there. So did Funk & Wagnalls, its spine more faded than before.

He picked them both up, feeling the difference in weight.

His phone buzzed with a new email:

Subject: Podcast Invite

Hi Alex,

I’m the program chair for the State Manufacturing Association. A number of our members have shared episodes of The Owner’s Second Act, and I’d love to talk about making it a featured resource for our members in 2027…

Association marketing, he thought again. But now it was inbound.

He set the books down and smiled to himself.

There was nothing magical about microphones or dictionaries.

The magic was in deciding:

• Who you exist for.

• What you are the definitive reference on.

• And how you embed yourself with the people who decide what’s “standard” in that world.

Webster had done it with ink and paper.

Alex was doing it with a podcast, a point of view, and a web of centers of influence who had begun to introduce him as:

“The guy you talk to if you’re thinking about selling and don’t want to screw up what comes next.”

And maybe that was the real lesson the dictionary wars had been trying to teach him all along:

If you don’t define what matters in your niche, someone else will—and they’ll use their stories, their platforms, and their relationships to lock it in.

He picked up his phone and typed a message to Tom.

You were right.

The microphone works.

Tom’s reply came back a minute later.

Webster had his printing press.

You’ve got podcast marketing and association marketing.

Different tools.

Same game.

Alex slipped his phone into his pocket and turned off the light.

Out in the dark, business owners were still signing letters of intent, still dreaming of second acts they only half understood.

He couldn’t reach all of them.

But for the ones who found their way to his world—through a CPA’s recommendation, an association’s email, or a podcast episode that hit home—he would be ready.

Not as another advisor on a long list.

But as the one who had taken the time to say:

“This is what a good second act really means.”

And in a noisy market crowded with near-synonyms, that was enough to make him something very specific:

The Webster’s.

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