Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
You have 24 hours to make an impact tomorrow.
Regardless of what you can’t control (the weather, your boss’s attitude, the ticking clock…), you have the ability to make do work that matters, interact with people in a way that livens their spirit, you can decide to only do what will make a difference.
Curiously, how is tomorrow any different from today?
Stay Positive & Why Wait?
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You know me to believe that the more difficult a task is, the more emotional labor it calls for, the more vulnerability it requires, the more it matters.
When a task is easy, not only is it low-value, it’s soon to be nonexistent.
In a world full of process-creators, short-cut developers and those who focus solely on the efficiency of a project, the easy tasks are the first to go, to be placed within a human-less process or to be cut entirely.
If you’re doing the work that only provides 20% of the results, you’re doing the wrong work.
Stay Positive & Easy Is Finite
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Our lizard brains are the worst. They love distractions.
The problems we need to truly face are buried under layers of them: from lightweight distractions like television and cleaning to tougher ones like working an insane number of hours at work or having a couple of drinks every night.
If you’re going to make meaningful progress, you have to face your root problems: the expectations you have of yourself, the amount of control you’ve given up, your deep-seated fear of failure…
Uncover the truth, then dance with it.
Stay Positive & Progress Is Made Distraction-Free
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Most consumers have made up their minds on a purchase long before they hit the final confirmation button or carry the product up to the register.
They’ve seen the marketing materials for it, they’ve (at minimum) checked reviews of it or have asked someone they trust what they think. They’ve begun telling themselves a story about it.
Our job as marketers is to follow the bread crumbs as far back as possible to understand what the story is, how it started, how it go to that confirmation button or register.
That’s where there insights are. Not where the last click was.
Stay Positive & Are You Tracking?
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The quickest way to disconnect with a customer (online or off) is to assume they don’t care.
Consider the man who knows exactly what he wants when he enters a liquor store. Does that mean you let him do his thing? That he doesn’t care about being asked if it’s his first time there, if he’s looking for something else, what his plans for it are, if he’d like help carrying any of the goods to his vehicle?
Consider the woman who has ordered the same pair of pants from an online retailer year after year. Does that mean she doesn’t want to be thanked for her business, shown a shirt that pairs well with the pants, given $10 off at check-out for being a loyal customer?
People give off a decent illusion that they don’t care to be cared for, but it’s not true.
The brands that show they care (by listening, observing, conversing, responding, helping) are the ones who cut through the noise of the assembly line brands, who get customers to keep coming back, and who will be here years from now.
Caring makes every interaction more of an experience, one they’ll remember, one they’ll tell others about.
Stay Positive & The Time To Get Away With Not Caring For Customers Is Over
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For whatever “it” is, it’s too often figured out in only one way. Either it’s through talking to as many people as possible, gathering data, hoping to be persuaded to take a single action. Or the other way, trial and error; doing then redoing, but remaining in your own bubble.
True discovery happens when you take both paths. When you put yourself out there in your actions and you make yourself vulnerable in conversations with others and yourself.
One skill to work on is handling feedback–from others and yourself–but more more importantly the skill you want to work on is doing something that’s worth gathering feedback on.
Stay Positive & Go
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Many-a-brand focus on others in their industry for inspiration.
What are the competitors doing? We should be doing that.
What does the Food Network magazine say about the new year? Let’s make that happen for us.
The problem of working from within is that only a select few can be at the top, and, unfortunately working within your business sphere often turns one into a follower rather than a leader–always playing catch up to those few at the top.
What if you looked outside your industry?
What are the giants doing in the trucking industry that could help your diner?
What is Draft magazine writing about that can help you run your own cupcake shop?
Even better, what is your target caring about? What’s trending in their lives?
Where you put your attention is usually where you’ll stay. Isn’t it time to branch out?
Stay Positive & There’s A Lot To Learn Out Here
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