Life Lesson

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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It puts a huge smile on my face to see the transitional leap so many businesses are taking to hire people with initiative rather than obedience.

Funny how I’m just writing about this today when I asked Michael on last week’s podcast what he would look for in a person if he were hiring. He said initiative. (Episode 33)

Bravo to brands for up-ing the game, the standards, and for realizing the connection economy we’re living in before it was too late for them. Sadly we have another problem.

The workforce who is looking for jobs is still under the impression businesses are hiring the compliant. School has taught them how simple compliance is to measure and to test for. It’s easy to know when they’re doing a good job and when they’re not. They are seeking low standards and easy acceptance into the work world.

Many of those doors have closed though.

We need to change the mindset we have about the workplaces we want to be in and the brands we want to work with. They’re not looking for compliant workers, they’re looking for artists who take initiative.

Of course, initiative isn’t any easier to take, to do, to be. That’s on me and you. The cool thing about initiative is once you take it, we all benefit.

 

Stay Positive & Here’s Godin On Initiative

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