I had a really smart friend in high school. She shared her opinions with me about everything from dance themes, the book club we were in, student council and how the outdoor fair day could be even more fun.
All of the things she had opinions on didn’t shine as much as they would have had she found a way to act on or implement her ideas. I didn’t realize it in the moment, so I never encouraged her to speak up, contribute, run for council or anything.
Bummer.
—
I have no problem starting a book and not finishing it if I think it’s a terrible book, which means I’ve explored a lot of books. And many of the books have blown my mind. Not in the sense of being great, but in regard to the fact that someone put their stamp of approval on it, published it, distributed it, spent marketing dollars on it and so on.
This doesn’t just happen in the book industry, though. It happens in every industry. No doubt you’ve seen a movie or TV show that was absolutely dismal.
Yet, there it was.
—
Rather than advertising himself in the perfect place (which is often the crowded and costly one), Johnny Cupcakes seeks out the edges. Whenever you buy a shirt from Johnny, you get more than a shirt. My latest order included a motivational print and a packet of x-men playing cards.
Slim Jim connects the long boi gang with one another through endless memes.
Uno celebrates it’s 50th anniversary with Nike and Giannis.
The brands that get talked about are the ones that are marketing at the edge.
—
Someone had the guts to share the idea with Espolon Tequila that they should do more with the lifestyle photography they have in their library and it’s why they’re on Unsplash, where I get my photos for my blog posts.
We can go back and forth on if it’s the perfect place for them, but I find the argument is much more fun to have once they are there.
Same goes for most marketing arguments. It’s all theory until it’s real and once it’s real, there’s no need to argue about whether or not to do the idea because it’s being done. The best part is the two conversations the spark after a brand explores an edge. 1. How can we be better in the space? 2. What’s the next edge to explore?
As a marketer, that’s far more inspirational than spending hours on a deck making the case to do something in the first place.
—
There’s a particular thread through the brands and people that we all talk about. It’s not their core values or the amount of charity dollar they’ve raised or the quality of their products; it’s that they decide to show up in unique places. They get ideas and they just do them.
(And if you’re thinking “well, of course they vet and evaluate and plan and put a lot of work into all these new spaces,” you’re not wrong. The same can be said for all the expected and crowded places they show up, too. The amount of effort doesn’t change, but the impact they have sure does.)
When you’re talking about reaching a target, permission matters – and it goes well beyond needing to ask for it first. Permission in marketing is earned.
Permission in marketing is more valuable than ever before because there are no boundaries for where you can earn it. You’re not limited by geography, for example of where you can make an impact. Donating books to kids in Nigeria is as easy as donating to the Free Little Library at the corner of your street. The same can be said for your voice: it can be used to create change in your school district the same it can be used to change the structure of an online course hosted three time zones over.
For all things marketing, permission and boundaries are important.
But when we talk about personal growth and the leaps we are able to take, permission is something you can give yourself. And, as for boundaries, there are none.
Many are still on the paths of obedience, waiting to be chosen, and staying within the boundaries that have been drawn around them. But there are fewer who are than there were a year ago or ten years ago or 50. And there will be fewer that are today than there are tomorrow.
Most things that are broken, the source of the problem is a part, not the whole thing.
This goes for appliances. Goes for people. Goes for culture.
At first glance, the easy thing to do would be to simply replace whatever is broken, but there’s often more time and money (and emotional resources like trust and reputation) that is spent.
Far better to figure out the part and replace that. At first glance, it seems like it would be the harder thing to do, but it nearly never is. Not to mention, it’s much more fulfilling to fix a problem than it is to start something from scratch (with inevitable new problems to arise from it anyway).
One way to get to a flow is to schedule time to do the work, check all the other items off your to-do list so you can focus, maybe even warm up a little with some practice of whatever it is you need to do.
The problem with this is that it’s a relatively slow path to flow.
You can achieve flow much more quickly by simply diving in and doing the work. If anything, find a way to turn the dial up higher and get the muscles (mental or otherwise) working.
One-way works when you give and don’t expect anything in return. Zig has been saying it for years, “you can everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want in life.” Selflessness isn’t just impactful, it’s fulfilling, too.
The two-way path works for all the obvious reasons: all ships rise with the tide and you’re both working to rise the tide. It’s give and get and steadily challenging and fulfilling.
Now the question is begged… what doesn’t work?
Both paths can not work.
One-way doesn’t work when it’s constant take take take. Selfishness not selflessness.
Two-way doesn’t work when you’re heading in different directions. A tide is a tide; it can’t be split in half.
