Your Passion Is Showing

Passion Flows

Anyone can do the work.

What matters is that you do the work with more passion.

And by doing it with more passion, you inspire others, you send a ripple effect of good vibes and you connect to the end user of your work on a deeper level.

 

Stay Positive & Keep The Passion Flowing

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The Network Effect

The Network Effect

The network effect is more powerful than any ad in the right-hand column of Facebook.

It’s more powerful than a beautiful “contact us” page.

More powerful than a TV segment viewed by millions.

Look at any brand you admire and you’ll see a network effect at work.

Maybe small, maybe massive, but it’s there – a brand working to connect others who want to tell themselves a similar story.

Too many brands ignore the network effect.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Be Too Many Brands

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How They Want To Feel

Their Story

That’s all you need to figure out and then act on to succeed.

The stories you tell should make them feel that way.

Their experience in your shop or with your packaging should make them feel the same.

How they use your website and what hero image you use on your contact page should resonate with how they want to feel.

It’s not about what you want them to feel. It never has been.

 

Stay Positive & Help Them Tell Their Narrative

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What You’re Testing

Measuring What Matters Most

On any ad you push out there, there are hundreds of variables working for you or against you.

At some point (early on) assumptions need to be made.

Assumptions of how variables are impacting your test so that you can get closer to the tests that matter.

The time of day, the word choice or if you make the logo bigger isn’t all that important to test.

Certainly, we need to make smart assumptions and use what data we already have, but running a test for these variables isn’t as important as running a test on if a story we tell is a memorable one or if one giveaway item was more meaningful to the target than another.

Better still is testing of the target.

What makes them tick? Do the people you’re targeting care? Do they remember you? It might not be the creative, it might be the people you’re targeting.

Reality is the stronger input, the stronger output.

As Seth puts it, “Just because it can be easily measured with two digits doesn’t mean that it’s accurate, important or useful.”

 

Stay Positive & Measure What Matters Most

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If There Was No Reward

The Work Worth Doing

If there was no reward at the end, would you still do it?

The questions begs you to think through the benefits along the way–a series of ups and downs we often overlook for the end result.

What if you removed the guarantee of a higher pay for putting in more hours than those around you. Would you still?

Knowing that your product would never make it to market, would you keep making it for the next 60 years?

Short term gratification and long hauls aside, it’s worth looking at the impact you make by following your passion even if it doesn’t get you what you want in the end.

The people you inspire when they see you being resilient.

The positive ripple you make on the community when you give more than those around you.

Even simply making someone else’s day.

It all adds up.

Not to a big gratifying ending, but to an enjoyable ride for those around you.

Isn’t that what it’s all about, anyway?

 

Stay Positive & Keep At It

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Your Everything

Giving It Your Everything

Life really isn’t that long after you factor in all the time you spend eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom.

That being said, you could complain about how little time there is–that it’s unfair there isn’t enough time to try more things (because there isn’t).

It seems the world wants you to focus on one thing for each area of your life for your entire life.

That’s why there are professions and marriages and passions.

That’s why it takes years to get good at any of them, and no doubt failure will be felt if we try to do too many different things.

With so little time, if you’re going to do something, it’s not just a matter of doing it right; it’s a matter of giving it your everything.

If you’re not in it to be the best, then its best to reconsider how you’re investing your finite time.

It’s not fair, but we need you to shrug it off and give it your everything.

 

Stay Positive & You Can Look Back At Things At The End

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Special Requests

Special Requests

You can make your business open to special requests, embrace them and over deliver on them.

Then again, it’s completely reasonable to forgo them if you’re focused on tightening your time investment, cutting costs and keeping your banal offerings, banal.

In a time where there are commodities everywhere, no one will bat an eye when you don’t offer a special request.

Then again, everyone will look at you with awe when you do.

 

Stay Positive & What’ll It Be For You?

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