Author: Garth Beyer

No, JFDI isn’t an airport acronym, though it can help you get places.

It’s short for just fricken do it.

Is it something your audience will appreciate? Asked differently, does it add value?

Does it align with the core truths that you want to exude?

Then just fricken do it.

No need for reassurance. No need to wait for someone to partner with. No need to research and validate it.

Do and then learn from it to the point that you’re motivated with another idea.

Then just fricken do that one, too.

All the while, you’ll build brand awareness and loyalty and start to connect with many smaller tribes who will support you.

Make a book of poems from your brand. Create surprise and delight boxes. Start a TikTok account, a blog, a Venmo tip jar. Do a pop up event at a place no one would imagine you would do one at.

Try it, and if it doesn’t work, try something else.

The truth no one talks about is that if it’s something that doesn’t quite work, no one cares much. They only care about what they care about. They subconsciously ignore what doesn’t. Go ahead, take a poll of your customer base or audience if they remember you trying that one thing six months ago?

Mhm.

Stay Positive & If You Don’t Try, You Fail

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They might be asking for advice, but what they need beyond that is to know you’ve got their back.

They might be asking for a specific piece of work, but what they need beyond that is validation to their boss that their ask is the right one.

They might be asking for you to share a social post, but what they need is to know that you support their efforts and trust them.

There is always more to the ask then the ask.

The professionals, the ones who care, deliver on the ask and give others the backing they need.

Stay Positive & A Little Reassurance Goes A Long Way

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Unless someone is trying to prank you or you’re selecting a haunted house to visit, usually good things come from sharing your authentic thoughts with others.

By sharing your reservations about an idea or event or tactic, you open yourself up to a real connection with the one you’re opening up to. And in a world where we are all human, you’ll be surprised to find just how often others share similar reservations.

By sharing your concerns, you not only create an opportunity for others to help you in addressing it, but in doing so, you work to prevent others from feeling the same concern you are. Someone has to go first, but damn is there a ripple effect.

By sharing your fears, you can then begin to move forward, dance with them, acknowledge them and do the work anyway versus letting them force you to stand still. (No decent work gets done that way.)

Share them with your clients. With your significant other. With your family. With your coworkers.

And if they discard them, ignore them or all the sudden invite you to stay at a haunted house with them, find better ones.

Stay Positive & Proactively Communicate

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What you do matters, no doubt. But how you do it, makes all the difference.

What you say matters, no doubt. But how you say it can be the game changer.

Say, for example, you’re interviewing someone for a project management role. They can list all their skills and historical experience, but if they don’t do it with an undertone of confidence, they’re likely to be scored lower than someone with a similar interview experience, but exudes confidence throughout it.

Of course, the how is that stuff that’s tough to measure and observe (especially if you’re trying to self-observe).

But that’s the stuff we need to focus on if we’re going to elevate our ideas, build a tribe and do work that has an impact on our culture.

Stay Positive & Let The Characteristics Shine

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It’s about the money when the price helps us tell a story to ourselves. Maybe we feel our status is increased if we buy a higher priced wine.

It’s not about the money when we feel like what we’re buying comes at a bargain. Maybe we value the story we get to share about the sustainable product we bought means so much to us and those we will share the story with.

Imagine three people with the same income. One might buy a more expensive service. The other might buy a cheaper service. The third might not buy the service at all.

What they buy – or don’t – doesn’t have anything to do with whether they can afford it; it has everything to do with the story they tell themselves about it.

The best way to nail pricing is to ensure it aligns with the story people are telling about their purchase (after you know you’ll turn profit, of course).

Stay Positive & It’s The Stories That Matter Most

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Often times, the thing customers come back for isn’t the thing they purchased.

You can get coffee from any coffee shop, but the shop down the street talks to us about their Bernese Mountain Dogs and ours – and they give us a pup cup each time.

You can get a beer from any bar, but the knowledge you get from the beertenders talking to you about what they have makes you feel smarter and smarter each time you walk out the door with a six pack in your hand.

People are buying more than a commodity or service from you; can you put your finger on what it is?

Stay Positive & Add Value

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There’s a narrative that each of us is walking around with. The narrative about the shop we just passed up, why we haven’t responded to that one text yet and why we’re heading to the destination we’re heading to.

But within it, it’s multiple stories.

And once we realize the complexity that everyone is walking around with, it gets easier to connect. To appeal in various ways to the multiple stories. To listen more deeply and respond appropriately, more often.

To change culture, entice someone to make a specific decision or to spread an idea, we have to do more than hit the mark on one story. We have to keep swinging and swinging differently to hit on all the mini stories.

Stay Positive & Keep Swinging

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