GarthBox

Not everything you create needs to be for the marketplace.

Creating a product everyone will pay you for isn’t the only way to make an impact.

You don’t need to have a book published to be considered a writer.

Better to maximize what really matters like spreading ideas horizontally, giving thorough and honest feedback to other makers in the world with a review, reflecting on what has helped you make a meaningful dent in the universe so others can follow suit.

There’s no blogging just for you, there’s only blogging for others…
you just happen to benefit from it.

We’re getting close to a new year.

You might consider blogging.

You might even consider starting now: https://wordpress.com/

 

Stay Positive & Why Wait?

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With any new venture, its first about surviving, showing proof to a concept, breaking even so you’re not in the hole.

Then it’s about growth, scale, leverage, profit, expansion, market domination–a tall order.

There’s a critical shift in thinking between these two endeavors and many-a-business fails because they can’t retain alignment on what the business is there for through the transition.

• The new manager you hired at your second store thinks you’re in it for X when you are really in it for Y.
• Your sales team thinks they have all the right answers because they’re interacting with the customer.
• The marketing team thinks they have the right answers because they’re aware of the latest tactic in messaging.

This is why a business needs a mission statement. Not the generic “we make things accessible, easy, fast, cheap or reliable,” but the detailed job a customer is hiring you specifically to do.

Once you’re aligned, it’s likely you’ll also be unstoppable.

 

Stay Positive & On The Same Page

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People don’t buy a quarter-inch drill, they buy a quarter-inch hole.

It’s an interesting adage that is often either misinterpreted or forgotten altogether.

A better question (HT Clayton Christensen) that gets you to think more: What job is your customer/patient/client hiring you to do?

 

Stay Positive & It Starts With The Target, Not The Product

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What can you do before you’re asked?

What does your boss need before she sends you an email asking? What does the customer need before they send you a Facebook message complaining? What does your audience need before you wrap up your speech?

Empathize by thinking of what others need before they do, and then acting on it.

 

Stay Positive & Get Ahead By Feeling Ahead

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You don’t have enough time, money or knowledge as others.

Nor is it likely you have enough experience, bandwidth or connections.

That’s how everyone starts, though.

The paradox about enough is, if you wait until you have it, you’ll never have it.

 

Stay Positive & Onward Anyway

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The trouble with many creators is they apply the polish too early.

During layout, during planning stages, during the what-ifs of a project.

Polish is meant to coat a project once the big idea is realized.

Until then, all you’re doing is preventing an idea from becoming big.

 

Stay Positive & Polish Later

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Save

There’s one pivotal way of thinking that sets one marketer far ahead of the others.

It’s difficult work, it’s emotionally intensive, it’s mentally laboring, but it’s vital if you’re going to create work that’s meaningful.

The greatest marketers embrace the fact no one they are seeking to influence thinks as they do.

You are not the target. The target doesn’t know what you know. They don’t work or think the same way you do. They’ve had different experiences that have led them to the present moment.

 

Stay Positive & The Answer Is To Empathize

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