GarthBox

Like many people, I get a lot of inspiration from music.

When I’m writing copy for a client, I put a certain genre of music on that I know the target listens to.

When it’s time to focus completely on something, I put on classical music or cellos. Sometimes it’s one song on repeat.

It’s rare that I find music that reminds me to create something human, something personal. Most music is so specific, so categorized, so for a single tribe.

Of all people, you know I’m against marketing to the masses, but I’m not against marketing to human truths, those feelings that everyone feels that connects us with each other, those thoughts that everyone has, but are too afraid to admit having, those jokes we all laugh at, but on the inside. It’s the truth that we’re all in this together.

That’s the kind of music we could all be playing more of.

I find this to be a starting example. Close your eyes and listen.

 

Stay Positive & What Music Is Your Work Playing?

Some call them mastermind groups. I think they’re something more than that.

A friend recently asked if school was worth it to me because we were playing with the idea about going back.

I had said I learned more from the groups of people I hung out with after class than any class, professor or TA.

When I think back to an early highlight of last year, it’s the lunch I had with six professionals in the area. We all left that lunch taking initiative with our lives, our careers, our clients.

If you would like to be invited to a lunch like this, where you leave not just thinking of great ideas, but with the willingness to apply them, simply send me a note: thegarthbox@gmail.com

For those in the Madison area, we’ll be meeting in person. For those not in the Madison area, we’ll connect over blab.im.

 

Stay Positive & Let’s Stop Waiting And Start Connecting

There’s something special in the moment someone utters, “…but it works.”

The phrase typically follows after you create something unique, elegant (not obvious) and is, well, a bit different, but not so much that it goes misunderstood. It’s creative just enough for someone to make the connection themselves.

Too often we settle on extreme clarity, complete direction, and totally obvious content and products. I see marketers every day trying to tell people about the product instead of showing it to them and letting the user make the connections themselves.

There’s a certain sweet spot between lucidity and a complete erratum.

The telltale of you finding it often ends in, “…but it works.”

 

Stay Positive & If It Works, Why Dumb It Down Any More?

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Haste makes waste. Rushing to react to real-time events on social for a brand often leads to a loss of brand voice, a total screw up or simply another tweet that ends up in the abyss.

As far as the agency side of PR, it’s difficult to respond rather than react to real-time events for a brand. Maybe you’re too busy building out a content calendar to respond in real-time. Maybe there is too much red tape with a client. Maybe you’re convinced it’s too difficult to break through the noise of real-time.

I say that’s a shame.

If you want to respond in real-time, you’ve gotta understand real-time opportunities come from brands who hold a go big or go home brand culture and who have a trusting relationship with their PR agency. The exception to these two variables is if the brand is also small. In other words, nimble enough to execute a real-time response.

The neat thing about real-time responses is that practice makes perfect, but the only way to get there is to develop a positive relationship with your client and work the go big or go home mentality into their hearts.

If you want to succeed on social in real-time, start with succeeding in building that relationship.

 

Stay Positive & Get Building

• trying something new
• shipping (anything!)
• when people take responsibility
• working smarter, not harder
• seeing people unafraid to share their work
• showing up early and staying late
• momentum
• those who regularly reflect
• those who dance with fear
• not owning an umbrella
• knowing when something is good enough
• writing daily
• having short-term and long-term goals
• car dancing

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay Positive & Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo

Starting something new is hard. Those first 15 minutes of sucking, sucks. But then, all of a sudden, you begin to have more knowledge, more experience, more industry know-how. Then, finally, you discover how easy it is to do what you set out to do, but then you stop going for it because you realize it’s easy to do.

I’ve had this happen to me a few times. I get an idea. I follow the idea – learning a lot of information and connecting with a lot of people – and then I realize how easy it is to accomplish the idea and then that idea I had loses its sex appeal.

I’ve written a novel already. I know what it takes to write a book. Many of my friends are authors. All the sudden, I don’t have an urge to write another book even though I know how beneficial to my fans (you?) it would be. Sure, I’ll change my mind on this one day, but one day isn’t today and that’s sad to me.

It’s sad that the easier something becomes, the harder it becomes because we so often define the worth of something by the level of difficulty in completing/creating it.

Perhaps we’re better off challenging that mindset.

Easier is better.

Less work is stronger work.

Shipping is more important than having the ability to ship.

 

Stay Positive & Easy Or Hard, Completion Is What Matters

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