Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
I hope your solid. After all, you should be with all the practice you’ve had up to today. You can make yourself a hero. In fact, have you made yourself a hero lately? I’ve felt we’ve needed some more heroes.
Your life is yours to direct. So let me ask again. How are you at directing?
Stay Positive & You Create Your Own Tranquility, Your Own Tale
Keurig, the new Brewbot, and so many other products allow you to be creative in your home. Every (smart) industry has gone from giving customers whatever they have to giving customers personalized products and services to giving customers products and services to create themselves.
Everyone is an artist now.
This black friday, I hope you consider what you can get others to make them more of an artist. What can you give them that will able them to be creative and to share their creations (and you share yours!).
If you will be shopping today, at least distinguish between what everyone else is buying because it’s on a (fake) discount and what you can buy that will change the way people create and share.
We may not be able to do away with black friday, but we can redirect the focus.
Stay Positive & It’s Our Purchasing Power Responsibility
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A friend of mine is in love with a particular line I want to share with you:
Those who wait, always will.
Don’t wait to tell people you’re thankful for them, don’t wait to figure out how your business can give, don’t wait to start doing things others can say they are grateful for.
Go make a difference in the world.
Stay Positive & Success Starts When You Do
I’ve learned from a friend, founder of Bicad, that while the why, where, when, and how of a startup needs to stay the same, the what can often change. And that’s okay. It should…at first.
When you’re resistant to changing your what, you’re preventing yourself from growth, and ultimately success.
Many startups start with the mindset at being remarkable at one thing, their thing, and that’s it. The reality is as they grow and connect with others, clients will ask for different things.
The challenge of startups is to not stretch too thin by taking on whatever is asked, but at the same time not dispel the common needs of potential clients.
It’s much more difficult to instill a need than it is to fulfill a need that is already there.
Stay Positive & Find The Best What
If I asked your friends and followers to give me a few adjectives to describe you, will they all say one or two of the same adjectives?
If so – and those adjectives are what you aim for – then you are marketing yourself well.
Now, let’s flip the situation around. If you were asked to name a few adjectives that describe each of your followers, would one or two of them fit each follower?
Often times we try to build tribes, gain large followings, and generally market to the mass because we have an idea that we want every type of person to be interested in.
The truth is not everyone will be interested in joining your tribe. One person may hop on your idea at the start because they are idea generators, unreal optimists, and creative folk, but as soon as your idea gains momentum, they may fall off. They just don’t share the same adjectives as you and your core tribe.
A quicker way to have adjective consistency with your tribe (and retain membership) is to ask why each member of your tribe joined. Answers will vary and it will take a while to figure out exactly why the majority join.
Once you find out the why, you can change your marketing to appeal to what most people answered with. “To meet people like me,” “to build my résumé,” “because I was restless.” They will practically give you the content for your new marketing plan.
Don’t place a variety of food out and shout to everyone that they can have some. Ask what a few people are hungry for and then provide solely that.
Stay Positive & To Build A Tribe, Just Ask People Why They Joined In The First Place
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I once had a professor who assigned groups of his students to write an elaborate creative and advertising brief. The document was to include everything from a SWOT analysis to target demographics to a media buying plan. When it was time to turn in parts of the overall plan, each part was 20+ pages when it should have been 2-5.
It was 20+ pages because the students wanted to use big words, repeat themselves in different ways with hopes it would convey their point better, and generally they thought it made them look better and, thus, get a better grade.
Oddly enough (sarcasm), 60+ page documents don’t move people.
Often times it’s one sentence, one page summary, one short video that makes someone move to buy, to research, to book, to subscribe, to hit “like.”
While I agree there are benefits to getting students to have a 60+ page mindset, I’m not so sure it accomplished the goal of what the class was for.
Sometimes limits, ceilings, maximums can work in your favor: they force you to write concise, they encourage big thinking of small ideas, they push you to work in ways that resonate with the target audience you want to impact. No one wants to spent three hours of their day looking over your brief, no matter how good you say it is.
And if you can’t communicate your message in just a few lines, is it really worth communicating, really worth investing in?
The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?
Ecclesiastes 6:11
Stay Positive & Can You Guess Where Those Long Docs End Up? (see pic above)
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The true answer is no. It never will be.
The stories in Curb magazine have been edited by at minimum 5 other writers, but it wouldn’t hurt to have more people edit them. Also, the authors have all sat with at least two other experts to review their work. All in all, each story has been read for edits at least 20 times. Yet, they will never be ready to ship. There will always be more tweaks that can be made.
Alas, we’ll ship them because they are good enough.
As in, good, now enough.
So asking if it’s ready to be shipped is the wrong question. As long as it’s good enough to get the message across appropriately, then ship. Don’t waste time you can better spend working on the next project.
Stay Positive & Ship Something Everyday
