GarthBox

There are so many apps on your phone to help you improve your photos, but in reality you’re better off spending your money on a better camera.

There’s a lot of different shapes and sizes of glassware that can elevate your drinking experience, but it’s far smarter to purchase better quality beer.

You have plenty of perks, building designs and software options to help your organization succeed, but nothing will be a better investment than attracting and choosing the right people.

 

Stay Positive & What’s Your Foundation?

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It’s likely rare that a day doesn’t go by that you don’t feel anger or frustration.

Chances are even better that it’s the same for all of those around you.

Next time you notice your temperature rising or a touch of irritance, pause to find it in others.

Two things will happen.

One: You gain a sense of relief. Every emotion, not just misery, loves company and when we start to empathize with others, it makes us more comfortable with the emotions we’re feeling, no matter if it’s sadness or madness.

Two: It becomes about them and when it becomes about them an opportunity arises for you. What can you do to relieve their frustration?

As ol’ Zig would say, “You can get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want in life.”

 

Stay Positive & Training Starts Now

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In your head, you talk to yourself 500 times faster than you talk out loud.

And just as quickly, your lizard brain fires up.

That’s what you’re up against every time an opportunity presents itself.

In the past, I’ve written about you having 30 seconds to act before the lizard brain starts feeding you reasons not to, reasons to back down, reasons to pass.

Reality is that 30 seconds is generous.

 

Stay Positive & Act Fast

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Storyselling is a lot like storytelling, but with the obvious intention of making a sale.

Many a marketer may claim it can’t be done. Selling and story are separate, they’d say.

This may have well been the case early on in advertising when the sales team never talked to the marketing department.

Alas, now they’re combined and we must effectively tell the brand story while selling a product.

Without products being sold, stories can’t be told.

Without stories being told, no products will be sold.

The benefit of time is now at the wayside. As marketers, we have to work harder than ever before to combine what matters for the target (story) with what matters to the brand (sale).

 

Stay Positive & Exciting, Isn’t It?

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You could dumb it down, turn your project into a to-do list any gruntworker could complete.

You can make it so your business just needs cogs, people who check the box and complete A and B while others complete C and D.

You can convert it into an assembly, compete on price and outsource all the work.

On the other hand, you could also care more, invest more in the long haul and personalize every element of it.

You could give more than you have, connect on a deeper level and listen more than any one would imagine you listening.

For some reason, people have been convinced that to scale you can’t be human, but imagine if you scaled being human?

What if you hired more people who care and who ask questions? What if you invested the time to personalize every outreach and package?

Scaling doesn’t always mean doing more with less, it can also mean doing more with more.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Not A One Or The Other Situation

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Anger and a touch of resentment can be remarkable fuel.

There’s nothing as satisfying as being able to say “I told you so.”

Equally important is anger’s ability to bring us down and hold us there.

If we misuse anger, our attitude can attract the worst out of everyone we surround ourselves with, it can enable the floodgates to open too wide and crush us with our own weight.

Then again, when you think about it, the same potential impacts goes for any other emotion.

Happiness can help us, but it can also hurt us.

Same with sadness, guilt, shame, vulnerability, humor and alike.

The best part? It only takes a moment to pause and notice how you’re using the emotion.

 

Stay Positive & Hopefully For The Better

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Best case scenario, demand meets supply and supply meets demand–a perfect cycle.

More often than not, there’s too much supply and not enough demand.

So we drum up the marketing, shout louder and find ways to get in front of anybody.

In the short-term you might get enough people in the door, but now you’ve caused a frenzy of panic and your supply ceases to meet the demand.

What then?

It pays to market a product, it pays to be ready if no one comes knocking, it pays to have a game plan to deal with your endless supply–a lot of time and attention are put on these elements.

But, it pays far more to be ready for when your supply can’t meet demand.

What do you do or say or give when the appetizer trays are empty and people are in line waiting?

What do you say when someone’s waiting 10 minutes for a beer?

What do you say when the product is backordered?

Those are important moments.

 

Stay Positive & “Sorry” Isn’t Gonna Cut It

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Worse yet, is “Sorry, we didn’t anticipate this.” Wait … you didn’t anticipate succeeding?