GarthBox

You could try more clever marketing.

You can claim your product or service isn’t for a particular group so you can make the customers you do have feel like a tribe and attract more of them.

You can invest in brighter signs and lights.

But this doesn’t change the quality of a customer, it merely adds or refines the quantity of customers.

Clever marketing might get people to make a purchase, but what if they didn’t want to? What if the last feeling they have about your product is regret?

And if we know anything about creating a tribe (a group of insiders), you almost always also create a cult (a group of outsiders) who will be against you.

Best, I believe, is to understand the chain reaction of leadership.

The more you treat, respect and appreciate your employees, the more they’ll do the same to the customers, and, by extension, attract more good-hearted, respectful and appreciative ones.

 

Stay Positive & The Quality Of Outside Customers Starts With The Quality Of Inside Employees

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One beer geek enters a brewery’s taproom, enjoys a brew and then asks the bartender if they have any stickers.

“Definitely. One second…Here are a few! We appreciate you wanting to represent, what’s your name?”

The conversation continued and that beer geek’s brand loyalty solidified.

Let’s look at another instance of a bed and breakfast that places a sticker on your bed instead of sweet piece of chocolate. They also place a sticker at every chair in the morning so you have to remove it before you sit. Knowing how hot it is out, they give you a hand fan made from a crafter down the street, and, lucky you, they placed one of their stickers on it. The laptop you ask to borrow for the afternoon has a sticker on it, too. Lastly, the care package they send you off with has a dozen branded stickers in it for you to take home.

Best of all? The B&B owners never mention the stickers.

The best brand advocates you can attract are the ones who want to be, not the ones you trick into becoming.

 

Stay Positive & Stop With The Stickers, Start With The Experience

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Curious how we can often get caught up in the thought we need to have a plan for changing someone’s life instead of making a difference in the moment.

Yes, you can change someone’s life by planning something special, making it a long-term event, and working toward making a grand gesture.

Lest we forget, though, we have the opportunity to change someone’s life today, right now, in this moment.

One compliment. One nod of respect. One hug. One note of appreciation. One acknowledgement of hard work.

 

Stay Positive & One Is All It Takes, Again And Again

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We can put our energy toward changing the mind of a decision maker we don’t agree with. We can spend time grumbling about the task we’ve been given, but don’t quiet care about. We can use our day to find all the parts of a project that are unmovable. The sad part? We often do.

Better, I believe, to see what happens when we push forward on delivering the best work that we’re handling, to change an idea completely for the better, to spend time on tasks we care deeply about (or to spend time learning to care), and, lastly, to dance on the edge of a project.

 

Stay Positive & If You’re Frustrated With The Work You’re Doing, Change The Work

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You can be quick to decide that a piece of content doesn’t work because it’s

• not using the right keywords
• too long
• too short
• started off all wrong
• not utilizing enough visuals
• and so on

But sometimes, the actual problem is that there’s no clarity around what the user should do.

If you want someone to give you their email, why don’t you create a pop up before they view the post and then when they click into a different web page?

If you want someone to enroll in your class or sign up for a consultation or buy into a seminar, there needs to be a button at the top of the page, at the beginning of the piece of content and at the end driving the user to take that action.

Too often we focus on the metric of time spent on a page and adjusting content to increase that time instead of adjusting the content or the layout to encourage the closing of a sale or sign up or whatever action we’re wanting the user to take.

If you see an increase in conversions by providing more clear opportunities for the user to take action, does time on page, key word selection, and length of content really matter?

Consider it this way: if you created something that attracts the user to your site and they liked what they saw, have you made it clear what action they should then take?

 

Stay Positive & Content Matters, But Not As Much As The Reason For Having It

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When a project goes awry, the reaction is often to reassign tasks to someone else.

Different people = different results, right?

The decision to bring in a different team or team member is often made with good intention, but the problem I see most bosses make is they eject those they are replacing from the project completely.

When you remove those who have intention and care for a project, but who just missed the target, you also put an end to the opportunity for them to learn and grow and be better on the next project they are part of.

For the sake of future projects, never eject team members, especially if it’s a project they care to learn from those who they are replaced by.

 

Stay Positive & Let Them Learn (If They Are Willing)

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Not sure when people started believing they could succeed without doing the reading. The smartest, happiest, most successful people read upward of 30 books a year. Those who are remarkable at their jobs read about their work, the industries that interact with their work and fiction writing that inspires them with their work. It’s never made sense not to do the reading.

Not sure when people started believing that winging it was something to be proud of. When all other options are exhausted and you’re forced to wing something, and then if you perform well you can be proud, but if there is an option to practice (even if it’s one read through out loud, one replay, one rewrite) then it’s smartest to do it. It’s never made sense not to practice.

Not sure when people started believing the best work they can do is work that doesn’t fill them with fear. The best work that’s been brought into this world is the result of someone who felt concerned about it, they poured their heart into it, their worry, their anxiousness–they went through the emotional labor of putting something meaningful out there. It’s never made sense to avoid that emotional labor.

 

Stay Positive & Read, Practice, Create Something Meaningful. Go.

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