Author: Garth Beyer

If you’re like me, numbers don’t really move you.

I’m skeptical of statistics and research and data because it’s often easy for researchers to go into data and pull out the numbers that support their theory and ignore the digits that don’t.

It’s funny how I grew up loving statistics until I realized how bogus a lot of them are. Yet, that might be because I haven’t quite perfected how to use them to tell a story. I’m working on it by tackling the setbacks.

The first setback is there’s too many numbers that mean nothing. I wrote about football the other day and how there are so many meaningless statistics shared during a game.

I think of the number of shark attacks there are each year or the % you can elongate your life by drinking a cup of olive oil a day.

We can combat this setback by choosing one piece of data that supports a universal truth. “96 percent of statistics are made up.” That is statistic that’s funny for two reasons, it fits the story I’m telling in this blog post and it’s a universal truth.

The second setback is working to make the numbers as fun as the story. We have to stop telling ourselves and others how not fun data is.

Visually speaking, data can be incredible. Consider all the infographics you’re awed by. Or consider all the fun you can have creating an infographic by doing the digging to show how effective infographics are to brand awareness.

Before we can tell a compelling story with numbers, we have to tell ourselves a story about how numbers can impact our work in a positive way.

 

Stay Positive & Slowly But Surely, We’ll Be Fluent In Data Storytelling

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Short stories don’t move us, short books do.

It’s tough for a short story, a blog post, a tweet to move people.

I’ve wondered why I haven’t been using Twitter and this is what I’ve come up with.

I’ve never been transformed by a tweet. Never been spurred into action or motivated to change my world view from 140 characters.

Multiply 140 a few dozen times and maybe that has got me to think a bit, but not as much as 50 pages of a book or (what feels like 50 pages) of a long blogpost from a friend.

There’s a vast difference between too short, good enough and too long. Yes, of course there are outliers but decide now if that’s what you want to achieve or not. If your hope isn’t to be an outlier, but to give the world something special then don’t live your life dreaming of the grand novel you want to write.

Write a short book that people can pick up and read in an hour or two, maybe even read in the bookstore without purchasing it. After all, the point of writing is to tell a story that changes the way readers see the world, right?

Making money from a book is aiming to be an outlier.

 

Stay Positive & Go Write Something Special, You’ll Feel Good (And So Will The Reader)

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We’re served numerous statistics everywhere we look.

Sorry.

What I meant to type is we’re served numerous statistics that have virtually nothing to do with our day, our job or the people we’re marketing to.

Football, a perfect example, is packed with statistics. Does it matter how many yards the tight end has run in his career if the only goal is to defeat the team he’s versing in the moment?

Does the unemployment rate in Minneapolis matter if you’re searching for a job in Austin?

We are in fact endowed with a plethora of statistics, the challenge is to focus on the data that matters and ignore the rest.

 

Stay Positive & Study The Right Data

A perfect experience, product, service doesn’t necessarily make it more interesting.

In fact, it’s often the opposite.

Not in the sense of a poor experience, but one that’s different, unexpected, with more variability.

 

Stay Positive & Be Different, Not Perfect

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There’s a lot at play in the market.

I have plenty of friends wanting to sell books, sell movies, sell workout groups, sell music, and sell t-shirts out of the trunk of their cars.

Growing up it’s apparent that scarcity sells. Johnny Cupcakes profits when his inventory of limited time shirts is nearly empty. Airport restaurants succeed because food is scarce at the airport, so they can charge you more and sell just the same.

When someone has something you don’t, you want it.

What happens when someone has everything?

Scarcity still sells, but it’s an instant gratification transaction. What consumers are craving is…well… everything and forever.

Blockbuster circulating 20 DVDs of He’s just not that into you isn’t good enough, although scarce. (Which is why they’re no longer in business). Netflix arose and found a way to give people everything, right now, easy to digest, easy to share, easy to talk about and for as long as the consumer wanted.

It’s getting harder, I believe, to leverage scarcity.

There was a time when people wanted what others couldn’t have, now they want what everyone has. The market is transitioning from a selfish market to a generous one, a connected one.

I don’t just want to be able to watch everything, I want my closest friends to be able to watch everything too. (Thanks, Netflix three person login capability.)

When in doubt, favor subscriptions, packages, and boxes.

It is, after all, a connection economy. What can you give?

 

Stay Positive & Telling It Like It Is Since 2011

Thanks for reading along.

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I love driving, but never knew why until this last weekend.

When I’m driving, I like to put myself in the driver-of-another-vehicle’s shoes. I like to guess how they will act on the road. Do they speed? Are they about to pass someone? Are they the type to look before they start changing lanes?

How does their actions relate to the vehicle they’re driving? Do they fit stereotypes? Do they blow expectations away?

There’s a remarkable world out there on the road where you can acquire so much information about human habits, intentions, and behaviors.

And, of course, the marketer in me finds brand-related touch points.

The epiphany was a nice reminder that we as marketers can get smarter off the road as much as on it, even without podcasts.

 

Stay Positive & Shut Up And Drive

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Many brands choose to rot instead of change.

When business slows up, they hunker down, they pull resources, they stop investing in themselves, in their staff, in the “extras” no one expects when they reach the storefront.

In doing so, fewer customers show up. Fewer clients call.

Less income means they’ve got to hunker down even more.

Then they begin to rot.

There is another option, obviously. It’s to change. To pivot. Right now, as you’re reading this, you still have some customers, still have some income, still have some product. Change things up. Try a new platform. People die standing still. Move.

Is losing really more scary than altering your vision for your business?

 

Stay Positive & Rotting Is A Choice

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