GarthBox

There’s a problem with total differentiation.

When you go into a market with the idea that there’s no one else like you, that you’re completely different on all fronts, that there’s no alternative choice for the consumer, you’re left without an anchor.

You’re left without a measurement tool. (Your consumers are too!)

You’re left without the potential of stealing share rather than creating share. (Creating share is much more difficult, while stealing share requires you to be a level about crap.)

You’re left without an external challenge. (The best ideas often come from some sincere competition.)

You’ll attract a few when you’re completely unique, but you make it insanely more difficult to reach the most.

A little competition is a good thing.

 

Stay Positive & You Don’t Need To Be New To Be Remarkable

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About 10 years ago, burning bridges was fairly easy to do.

There was a lot of “X person is trying to screw me over. I’m going to screw him over.”

There was definitely a lot of “this person sucks at doing what they are supposed to do, I’m leaving them to go do it myself.”

The increasing number of burnt bridges is one reason why there were so many new businesses started 10 years ago.

As time waned, businesses quickly realized that they shot themselves in the foot when they burned the bridge to start their own business because they didn’t just burn a bridge between themselves and one other person, they burned the bridges of all those that one person had bridges with.

Talk about a quick realization of stupidity.

Add the internet in and it’s no wonder everyone became determined to connect and build more bridges.

Here’s the lesson: it’s a smaller world than it has ever been.

That’s what the connection economy is about. It’s about making something so vast seem so small and personal and intimately shared.

In the connection economy, there’s no winning when you burn a bridge.

In the connection economy, we compromise when something doesn’t go the way we want, when we begin feeling uncomfortable in a relationship, when we get defensive.

We don’t burn bridges.

 

Stay Positive & Connect, Collaborate, Compromise, And Most Importantly, Overcome

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Getting better at something doesn’t need to be as frustrating as we sometimes make it.

Take kindness for example.

It’s difficult to always be kind. In fact, it’s often counterproductive when you try to be more kind. You wind up frustrated with yourself for not being able to do it, you become short-tempered, you give off the vibe opposite of kindness.

The quickest and most painless way to be more kind is to be less unkind.

Gradually recognize moments you’re being unkind and change them. Have the foresight to know when you’re often unkind and go into that setting with a new perspective.

Many write about being 10 percent better.

Why not start being 10 percent less of the bad stuff?

 

Stay Positive & Getting Better Is Easier Than We Think

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If you’ve been published, but want to switch to self-publishing. It doesn’t make sense to stop everything you’re doing. Craft the longest pro/con list. Shut your doors and work three years on writing a book that will be perfect for the self-publish market of readers.

When you have the fans, the admirers, the other writers you write alongside, it’s best to use that momentum and leap.

The easiest way to change your business model, change your way of doing work, change…period, is when you have momentum built up.

Last year was the best time to start building momentum, but the next best time is now.

Start with what you have, what you can accomplish, and build the momentum you’ll need to change your course. If there’s one guarantee about any industry, it’s that it will change and the only way to stay on track is to build and retain all the momentum you can.

 

Stay Positive & To Change Your Course, You Have To Be Going Down One

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The beer geeks of the world care deeply about the glasses they drink out of, not just the shape of them, but that they’re clean. (Bartenders pressing a glass down on a beer glass rinser before putting beer into them wasn’t always the norm.)

How can you tell if a beer glass is clean?

If, as you drink beer from a glass, you see lacing on the inside of the glass, it’s a clean glass.

It amazes me how nicely a nitpicky thing can become a trend and turn into an awareness initiative on social. Take a gander at this write up of #MCCleanPint.

It begs the question: how can you leverage the nitpicky parts of your product or service on social?

If you’re a pizza company do you ask fans to post a photo of the perfect crust done right?

If you’re a crafting brand, how about the nitpicky-ness of sharp scissors. Perhaps call on fans to post a video of their flawless fabric cut?

When all the big things are figured out, we’re left with the little things.

Can you own them before anyone else?

 

Stay Positive & Little Things Will Continue To Matter More And More

A lesson in darts.

Math would tell you the more you throw, the likelier your chances are you’ll score.

The problem is, the harder you try to make hits, the less likely you’ll make hits at all.

Your arm tires. Aim becomes sloppy. Toes go over the line.

The same goes for business.

The solution: aim small.

The right hits matter more than so-so hits and much more than wrong hits.

 

Stay Positive & Aim Small

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