Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
Take the chicken out of the marinade too soon and you forfeit all the flavor.
Let is soak for too long and you might as well drink right from the container.
All good things get made in that space between too early and too late.
Where’s your work at? Have you started? Have you sat on it for awhile?
The only way to know if it’s too soon or too late is to ship it.
Then learn, rinse and repeat.
Stay Positive & Mmm Progress
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There are plenty of people who can do graphic design the same way you can.
There are those who can nanny just the same and perform surgery and pitch the heck out of a deck.
There are organizations that do the same work, too. There are agencies that follow the same processes and non-profits with the same tactics.
Throughout the day, what makes the difference in the work is the energy you bring into it.
People notice, respect and appreciate when you show more excitement in the work than someone who can do the same.
Stay Positive & Do They Know You’re A Geek About What You Do?
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When it comes to being remarkable, it’s more than the quality of service or product value.
It’s making it easy to share the story.
It’s positioning yourself so the one sharing isn’t as responsible if the friend they talk to about you has a bad experience (but still responsible enough if they have a good experience).
It’s being ready to handle an influx of customers or clients.
It’s about not needing a rewards program, but having one because it’s a separate story to tell.
All of these things … they’re hard, but they’re the playing field that brands who stand for quality (rather than price or speed) are battling on.
Stay Positive & What Makes Your Brand Remarkable?
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Everything you’ve done so far for your brand has been about making a promise, keeping a promise or breaking a promise.
At the start, you promised to meet expectations that people have of your kind of brand going forward. A bank is expected to be trustworthy, a bakery is expected to be fresh, a bar is expected to have a selection.
The promises you’ve made and need to keep on top of expectations are ones of worth and delight and connection and community. They’re of making the right choices when push comes to shove. They’re of mitigating risk or maximizing reward.
Alas, there’s the near inevitability of breaking a promise. More often than not, though, is that a promise was broken that you never intended on promising.
When you’re building, it’s important to know what you stand for, who your target is, where the funds are coming from, but just as important (and more forgotten) is to know and communicate what you’re promising, the change you are telling the customer to anticipate, the delight one will experience when they choose you.
It’s about making the promise clear.
Stay Positive & Make It Something Worth Talking About, Too
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At the root of getting people in the door, to sample or to try something is risk and reward.
Some marketing is about mitigating the risk. It’s a free sample, it’s a money-back guarantee and it’s backed by 3 of 4 dentists. For some customers, reducing the risk is what will get them to give your brand a try.
However, some marketing is about magnifying the reward. It’s having something worth sharing with friends, it’s something that brings a treasured memory back or a big dream forward and it makes you feel good.
Risk or reward.
What’s at the root of what you do to get customers?
Stay Positive & A Touch Of Both Works, Too
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Chances are likely that you need a significant amount of capital to start what you’ve dreamt of starting. (Significant amount to you, of course.)
Unfortunately (or more fortunately) the days are fading in which you can raise the funds needed to start and then, all the sudden, you get the green light.
More likely is that you’ve started to sell some form of your product.
It might not be specifically what you’ve dreamt up, but it’s a start.
It’s having someone else brew your beer and distribute it before you do. It’s running food tours before you open a restaurant. It’s doing freelance work before breaking off into your own agency.
Sure, quitting today, going to the bank tomorrow and starting your new endeavor next week is a possibility, but it invites unnecessary hardship.
And it’s not even that we can take on the challenge; it’s that we’ve gotten smarter.
Start small. Start selling. Drip drip drip.
Stay Positive & This Journey Is More Fun Anyway
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We are what we say and – more importantly – do.
That’s why to get a good read on who we are, we can look to what others expect us to do next.
Not in the moment, not what we’ve done, but what do they anticipate our next move to be?
Do they imagine that we’ll thrive through the turbulence we’re facing or cop out early? Do they expect us to be generous or selfish? Do they anticipate us to reach out or wait to be selected?
The beauty of this analysis is that there’s still time to change that expectation and improve on who we truly are.
Stay Positive & Our Reputation Is At Stake If We Don’t
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