The Problem With Brand Voice

Garth Beyer

It’s hard to maintain your brand voice.

When anyone does anything over and over again, they’re bound to get tired of it. That’s what brand voice is like.

While you may get tired of writing the same way over and over and curating similar responses on social media, your target isn’t tired of it. In fact, they either come back because of the same voice or you’re appealing to a new prospect with your natural brand voice.

Just because you’re more involved in your brand than your prospect, doesn’t mean you need to regularly change the voice to appeal to you. Quite the opposite.

 

Stay Positive & Change When The Prospect Asks, Not When You Feel Bored

Where Marketers Get Themselves In Trouble

Garth Beyer

Marketers like to make big predictions based off small tests.

  • You flush out three different uses for a product and state there are 10 other uses for it.
  • You land a spot in a major publication, then tell your boss you’ll have no problem meeting the expected quota this month.
  • You find a handful of original pins to repin on Pinterest and then plan to repin 100 a month.
  • You know an easy way to start a fire and advertise to invest in your way because there are a dozen hard ways.

If you’re going to make a big suggestion, flush it out.

Take the fire starting example: figure out those 12 ways to start a fire that are hard even if you won’t showcase them all. Not only does it add to your authentic voice because you know you’re telling the truth about there being a dozen ways, but it also gives you content to use down the line.

Consider the big predictions, but see them through before you talk about them.

Either you’ll garner more support as in the fire starting example or you’ll realize how flawed your prediction is as in the original repins (there really isn’t much originality on Pinterest).

 

Stay Positive & Think Big (But Act On It Before You Profess)

Where The Magic Really Is

Garth Beyer

You don’t need thousands of investors, subscribers or participants to launch, to be on the path toward success.

Skillshare, one of the largest educational online platforms started their first class with only 6 participants. Look where they are now: millions of people enrolling in classes, signing up to teach, developing hundreds of creative projects – oh, and they’re making a ton of money from subscriptions.

Many would argue a lot of magic happened in the middle of their story, between their first class and where they are now. They obviously refined a lot, trashed bad features and focused on developing a minimum viable product. While there may have been passion, I don’ believe there was much magic during their progressional phases.

The real magic happened when they decided to keep providing classes and improving the system after their first class of 6 students.

Think if you were in their position: only six students in your first class you worked hours and hours on? Would you press on? Or would you be disappointed with the number who showed up? Obviously it’s not a good idea if so few people sign up at the start, right?

Poor turnout is often a passion killer, but you don’t have to let it be. Remind yourself that those 6 participants have 10 friends, and there’s an insane amount of magic there.

 

Stay Positive & Press On

Talking More

Garth Beyer

When I pick up the phone to pitch to journalists I don’t know… When I type up an email to send to a CEO I’ve never met… When I attempt to write a personal note on a LinkedIn invite to someone inspirational, but has no clue who I am… fear tends to creep up on me.

If you think cold calling is tough when selling, consider how tough it is to connect cold, to establish a relationship with someone who knows nothing about you.

Here’s what gets me through it.

Before I reach out to anyone I’ve never met, I remind myself the more people I talk to, the easier it will be to do, ask, and connect with people later down the line.

If you had to guess which scenario feels better, would you rather dial the number of a journalist who has never heard of you before or would you rather dial the number of a journalist who you’ve talked to before, if even once.

Or… would you rather send an email to someone saying “Hey, I’m friend’s with John Appleseed. He’s spoken highly of you. Would you have time to chat for a few minutes?” That’s certainly better than “Hey, would you have time to chat for a few minutes?”

The more people you talk to now, the more times you put yourself out there to warming a cold connection, the easier things will fall into place for you in the future.

The quickest way to dissipate the fear is to dive straight in it.

 

Stay Positive & Who Are You Connecting To?

You’re Doing It Wrong

Garth Beyer

I’m not fond of advertisements or PR campaigns that are built on the foundation of people doing something wrong.

Drinking bud light? You’re drinking wrong, drink this instead. Starting fire with newspapers? You’re doing it wrong, do it this way instead. Spending countless hours playing video games instead of being outside? You don’t know how to have fun because you’re doing it wrong.

No matter how right one may be right, I can’t justify getting behind a campaign that embraces a product or service’s rightness by pointing out the user or consumer’s wrongness.

It takes a certain amount of passion and faith about a product to state to someone they are doing it wrong and to do it right they should invest in your product.

It takes even more passion and faith (and a great product) to not need to.

 

Stay Positive & Focus On What’s Right, Not What’s Wrong

p.s. also by giving examples of wrong ways, you’re planting the idea of doing it any of those ways instead of the “right” way you’re suggesting. What’s wrong for you might be right for them.

p.s.s yes, this may be a bit abstract. Feel free to email me to chat more.

In The Box Podcast

Episode 16: Luck, Being Early, False Equivalency And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we discussed the concept of luck, the need to experience something to passionately sell it, whether life mirrors business or if it’s the other way around. We also talked about the advantages of being early and argued about false equivalency (fortunately never settling to agree to disagree).

On an earlier podcast Michael and I chatted about how so little surprises us anymore. On this podcast Michael stuck a check-up question about surprises in the box. It was a good time. Well worth the listen.

Episode 16: Luck, Being Early, False Equivalency And More

Selling – Does one have to experience a product themselves to sell it passionately?

Luck – Is luck something that finds you randomly or something you create?

Early – Do you believe it pays to be early? (early to a meeting, early to send email, early to say I love you?)

Surprises – Been surprised by anything lately?

False equivalency – How can we eliminate false equivalency?

Mirror – Does life mirror business?

 

Stay Positive & Refresh Your Life, Refresh Your Business

 

Still Discovering, Learning, Making A Fool Of Yourself

Garth Beyer

“I don’t mind looking stupid. I don’t know everything.”

Those were the words of a well-seasoned PR pro after asking what “lossless images” were during a meeting.

While she thought she was making a fool of herself, I was thankful she asked because I had no clue what lossless images were either. In fact, it sounded like they were saying lostless images, which made it even more confusing.

It’s a fairly natural situation that if you have a question about something, someone else in the room has the same question, but so follows the tragedy of relying on someone else to ask the question.

Please learn that asking questions that help you discover or learn something new — essentially asking questions that make you feel you’re making a fool of yourself, have the exact opposite effect.

It shows you care. It shows you’re humble and can embrace humility. It shows you believe you can still grow.

 

Stay Positive & We Get Better When We Continuously Feel Like We’re Making Fools Of Ourselves