GarthBox

Pitching works, but it’s ultimately time-consuming and often shatters confidence when you think you have a story to tell but no one wants to help share it.

You can also pay for publicity. You can place ads. You can pay someone to stand at the corner and had out flyers. You can increase your paid support behind your Facebook event.

Paying for publicity works, but it’s ultimately expensive and doesn’t do a strong enough job of communicating your real value because you’re the one telling it.

Becoming well-known isn’t a chicken or an egg situation. It’s those who have stories, that do things so special that they don’t need to pitch it. They make every experience valuable enough that the one who experienced it wants to share it with 10 friends.

Pitching and paying is better for amplification of what already exists.

 

Stay Positive & Put Your Time And $ To What Matters

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If your target has money, then they have fewer and different needs than someone without money.

In fact, once someone has money, they begin to blur the line between wants and needs.

So here’s an interesting exercise: What needs does your target already have?

Respect? Health? Community? Peace of mind?

Then list what needs your target is searching for. Self-transcendence? Friendship? Nostalgia?

Now place a check next to the needs that you provide. Are they the ones your target is searching for or are they ones your target has already met?

 

Stay Positive & Our Wants Are Many, Our Needs Are Few

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One reason to love the craft beer industry is that so many brands are working to be special, rather than race to the bottom against the conglomerate companies.

Talk to a craft brewery owner and so often you’ll hear them say “Our friends down the street are brewing some gnarly stuff, too. Definitely check them out if you can.”

They understand that the fellas down the street are alternatives for people who seek something they aren’t offering; they’re not competition.

“Who’s your competition” is always a trick question.

 

Stay Positive & It’s All About Positioning

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1. And add imagery to it.
2. And make it easy to understand. (Ex: Tesla is like an electronic Mercedes.)
3. And show the human side of it. The heartache. The stress. The frustration. And, most importantly, how you overcame it all.
4. And tell it every. single. day.
5. And find ways to add to it.

There’s not much more needed than that.

 

Stay Positive & You Do Have A Story, Right?

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How much can you contribute?

Not own. Not reuse.

But contribute to a room full of others sharing their ideas, beliefs, and thoughts.

Contributing to a conversation is how the best ideas rise to the top, the best connections are made, the best experiences happen.

If you’re not in the mode to give, what are the consequences?

 

Stay Positive & Are They Worth It? Likely Not

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You could shout something you believe in to a room full of 100 people from your current city of residence and it’s likely a few will respond positively, will come up and chat with you about your shared belief, will pay to feel like they just felt; that they’re not the only one to believe something.

What if you were given two options after shouting your belief.

Option 1: Change your belief and re-shout it to see if you can get more people to respond positively and come chat with you.

Option 2: Befriend the few who, like you, have found something that they’ll stand for, nurture those relationships, then find others like them, going into new cities if you have to.

That’s the difference between bad marketing and good marketing.

 

Stay Positive & Maybe Try Whispering?

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Crawling as a baby seems pretty pointless, but it was a step in the direction of starting to walk.

Had we never known that we could actually bring ourselves from point A to point B, we may never have cared to walk, skip or run.

Freewriting seems pretty pointless, too, but it’s often a step in the direction of writing a novel that matters.

Drinking 500 different beers may seem like a waste of money, but it’s a step in the direction of becoming a Certified Cicerone.

All of those trivial, daily, “this isn’t art, I could paint that” moments–the stuff that doesn’t seem to matter…does.

 

Stay Positive & Stop Tricking Yourself Into Not Doing It (It’s How We Learn)

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