Author: Garth Beyer

It’s magic when someone experiences your brand and rushes to tell their friends.

Even more magical is when those friends tell all of their friends.

But, soon, the magic does more damage to your brand than wished-for.

The original group went there or bought your thing because it was personal, it was for them, it gave them something to talk to their friends about and elevate their status.

Now everyone is doing it.

(And unless you’re selling something that only gets better with more people like a dating apps or fax machines or wikipedia, you don’t want hypergrowth.)

Better to focus on your minimum viable audience and – when you begin to experience hypergrowth – create something else to moderate it.

It’s less about making your online store larger or replicating your west side venue on the east side.

Nor do you want to begin turning people down (especially those your original audience).

So what’s the solution?

There’s a restaurant group in town that each restaurant is outrageously successful. They could build more of the same poke restaurant across town, but if they are given the chance, they build something new.

It’s for another audience , which might pull from another one of their restaurants, but that’s how they prevent hypergrowth at any specific location, while still growing overall as a company.

If “more” means “something else” then you might be onto something.

Stay Positive & The Work Of Starting Another Is Always Worth It

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An orange that’s brighter than another, looks better.

An orange that’s not actually orange gets people’s attention.

An orange that’s sold in a bunch with other oranges makes sense.

An orange that’s sold in a basket with other fruit is plain smart.

An orange found in a snack food isle is unique.

But none of that matters if it doesn’t taste good.

You can use marketing to spin a lot of things, make the brand flashy and creative, but if the orange isn’t delicious …

Stay Positive & It Starts With Being Honest With Your Why

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Time spent letting your eyes glaze over and trying to hide it is time wasted.

Time spent asking a question that was answered during the presentation is time wasted.

Time spent sitting back, looking at the minutes to see when the talk is over is time wasted.

Time isn’t the only thing wasted. Credibility. Trust. Connection are, too.

If it’s worth listening to, do so actively. Interrupt to understand. Ask tough questions. Write what you can do in the near future with the information you’ve been provided.

And if it’s not worth listening to (which we can often tell within a few minutes of any presentation), excuse yourself or seek a way to elevate the experience for the speaker.

Chances are you’re not the only one struggling to maintain attention.

It’s our responsibility to remain active listeners – to ourselves, to each other and to the presenter.

Stay Positive & Try Not To Get Too Comfortable

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Getting reassurance takes a long time.

And for some reason, we’re still never satisfied.

We can talk to a hundred experts and still not know if what we’re about to tackle will work.

Turns out the fastest way to know is to do it.

And more often than not, you don’t need a board to review or a thousand participants or a call from a family member to tell you it worked or didn’t.

That’s the beauty about action.

Immediately after taking it, we know if it’s working or not. We can feel it.

Sure, there’s plenty you risk when doing so, but don’t you think you risk more by waiting until you have a guarantee (that may never come)?

Stay Positive & To Know, To Really Know, We Must Leap

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When someone answers a question you have or gut checks your work or refers your business to a friend, they’re not necessarily doing it to help.

They are, however, doing it to feel.

To feel helpful. To feel like a leader. To feel like they belong. To feel like they have authority. To feel like they can be counted on. To feel like an activist. To feel trusted. To feel affectionate. To feel gracious. To feel on the same level. To feel part of something bigger than themselves.

The only desire they have to do anything is when the doing is attached to a meaningful emotion.

Stay Positive & Which Strings Are You Pulling On?

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In an effort to make things better, here’s the math homework we have to do.

What can we add to the product or service to make it better or to appeal to more people or to be able to charge more or to create more value? What can we add?

Equally as important is analyzing what we can remove from the product or service to make it better or build greater loyalty or create more value? What can we subtract?

Success can be attained either way, but blindly running after “more” isn’t always the answer. (Namely because most brands are doing it.)

If there were ever a time to subtract, it might be now.

Thankfully we can show our work and see if the numbers add up in the end.

Stay Positive & It’s A Learning Game (But We’ve Gotta Play To Win)

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When we try to correct someone, we take on the responsibility of teaching and them learning.

Yet, each time we do so (whatever the reason for it), we end up frustrated at the other person.

It’s worth pausing to think about how you’ve learned all you’ve learned.

You might have had a guide, watched someone do something one way and someone else do it another, but for the most part, you’ve done it yourself and learned.

If you cared about it enough, you did it more often, learning more and getting better each time.

Unless you’re striving to become a teacher, correcting others can be a waste of time.

Then again, even if you’re becoming a teacher …

Stay Positive & We’re Better Off Course Correcting Ourselves

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