Workplace Dilemma

Garth Beyer

To build an organization up, you’ve got to do remarkable work for your colleagues, for your boss, for your clients, and I’m sure a few others. You always have to be ON.

To build yourself up in an organization, it’s likely you’ll put things for your colleagues and clients on hold because your boss (who has the ultimate decision power on if you’re promoted or not) has asked you for something.

Here’s the dilemma: do you stop doing great work for everyone involved to do slightly greater work for one person?

Street performers have this dilemma every time someone stops to listen or watch them. Do they focus on entertaining that one person, building up the show to an eventual climax or do they try performing a constant jaw-dropping performance so all who pass by toss some change in their bucket?

Here’s my view: we give too much power to our bosses and the individuals whom we stop everything for to devotedly please. Why? Because the boss will ask colleagues and clients what they think of you before deciding to promote you and the one person who the street performer singles out, might not have any money on them.

This isn’t a matter of appealing to the masses, it’s a matter of performing holistically. It’s a matter of caring about your work and your tribe.

 

Stay Positive & No One Said It’s Harder (That Doesn’t Mean It’s Not Worth It)

A New Kind Of Game Show

Garth Beyer

Think of The Price Is Right. Now, imagine if a contestant guessed a price wrong, that they got to try again, perhaps with a different product, a different price, a different strategy. Those who win are those who stick around through all the wrong choices, not those who gets things right again and again.

Our society puts a lot of currency on being right, but social currency comes from being wrong and not walking off the stage, which takes audacity.

It took me awhile to realize it, but our lives aren’t like The Price Is Right. We win when we give ourselves permission to suck from time to time, when we take risks, when we shun the audience in our mind that’s booing us when we do things wrong.

 

Stay Positive & When Was The Last Time You Permitted Yourself To be Wrong?

In The Box Podcast

Episode 13: Mistakes, Habits, Disorder And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we explored how to process mistakes, being in front of a PR (crisis) story and how to handle disorder. We also talked about a daily habit that gets us energized for the day, if less is really more, and a tad about superstitions, which turned into a discussion about Parkinson’s Law.

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Episode 13: Mistakes, Habits, Disorder And More

Superstitions – Do you believe in any superstitions?

Less – Is less really more?

Habits – What is one habit you’ve developed that is critical to your daily success or energy for taking on the day?

Mistakes – How do you process mistakes?

In Front – How important in PR is it to be in front of a story vs. letting things develop and then responding?

Disorder – How do you handle the role of disorder in your own life?

 

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Permission To Suck

Garth Beyer

There are a few tasks a day, I imagine, that we absolutely need to do things right. There are some projects at work where there is simply no room for being wrong, especially if the shipping deadline is EOD.

That being said, each project or obligation we have to get right, we actually think to ourselves how it must be right, it must be perfect before we send it out. It becomes a constant reminder to do things slow and safely.

Oddly, though, a project where there is room for being wrong, we often don’t acknowledge that privilege and thus don’t exercise it, thus putting us at a disadvantage to those cashing out on the privilege of being wrong.

We ought to notice when there is room for wrong or, as I consider it, permission to suck because the path toward creative righteousness is made of moments of wrong, of failure, of suck. How?

Because regularly shipping work that sucks a bit or being off about a project direction – essentially being wrong about something, goes from feeling like death to being a bit of a nuisance to being a treasured opportunity.

 

Stay Positive & Recognize The Moments You’re Permitted To Suck (and cash out on them!)

The Forgotten Market

Garth Beyer

There’s a huge market comprised of people who notice, who are patient, who are watching to see if you show up every day, and if you show up with a consistent passion and focus in your work.

Bernadette is likely the best-type of friend you can make if you’re a brand. She notices good work. She’s part of the forgotten market.

She’s part of the tortoise market, rather than the hare market.

Social has brought us to think we have to appeal to the hare market to succeed; we have to be first, we have to share the most information, we have to continuously thrash (which has it’s place), we have to spread ourselves out, but so much of the racing is to the bottom.

I get caught up in the race from time to time when doing work for clients. Rushing means missing out on thinking about things differently, which requires information to sit for a bit. Thrashing has its place, but only if that’s the market you want to live in.

Think about it, Bernadette would have never talked to the painter if he were racing each day to get the job done, if he had thrown the tarps on the ground instead of graciously laying them out.

You have the choice to be picky about who you appeal to, and I suggest you consider it because all of not only what you do, but how you do it is dictated by the market you’re communicating with.

One isn’t better than the other. It merely does you, your work, and your clients justice to consider what market you want to speak to.

 

Stay Positive & Each Market Is A Lifestyle, Not Just A Marketing Style

How You Measure Client Success

Garth Beyer

Showcasing engagement on Twitter is nice. Reaching 150,000 people with one Facebook post is amazing. Highlighting a Pinterest board that a lot of people are following must mean you’re doing something right… right?

There is meaning in measuring what people are doing for or on behalf of your client. It gives you talking points, it proves you’re stirring the pot for them and getting people to interact with the brand.

I think we can do more. We can go beyond what customers, tribes, fanatics are doing for our client and notice, share, and appreciate what our client is doing for them.

The best way you can measure client success on (and off) social is by recognizing and shining the spotlight on what the brand has done for them. Sometimes this is represented by a gracious tweet or a shoutout on Facebook, but gets lost in all the examples of what the buyer is doing for the brand.

Metrics like click-through rates and subscriber numbers matter, but no one starts a business for the sake of getting engagement on a social platform, they start a business to make a real life impact on someone. Don’t you think we would want to show that’s being done on social?

 

Stay Positive & Let’s Start Measuring Results, Not Impressions

Driven By A Core Tribe

Garth Beyer

All of your idols have a core tribe.

It’s easy to distance yourself from their popularity, their status, their celebrity because they have such a large following. Surely you can’t be like them because they already exist and surely you can’t take away from their tribe, so why try?

It’s an illusion.

The most popular marketers, branders, bloggers, speakers, artists have far less true fans than you realize. They have a core tribe, likely 20 percent of all the people you think are their tribe actually are and provide for 80 percent of their status, income, and drive.

Just because someone views a blog daily, doesn’t put them as part of a person’s core tribe. Most often the core tribe is a collective of friends. You have friends, right? Then it looks like you’ve already started down the path of becoming noticed, appreciated, and respected. You’ve began growing your core tribe.

It’s not as hard as it looks. All it really requires of you is to befriend people (to be nice more than interesting) and to show up every day (give something and embrace vulnerability daily).

 

Stay Positive & 1 Million Followers On Twitter Is The Wrong Goal