Your Consumers Are Only Getting Smarter

Your Consumers Are Only Getting Smarter

Garth Beyer

Branding

The uninformed consumer is passé.

It’s ever more important to put a story out that matters (if not because you actually have one that matters, but because it is becoming the only way to survive in business).

The days of advertising and appealing to the mass are over. Now people are steadily searching out brands, reading about stories, seeing reviews from people who worked at the company of the product they want to buy. They actively ask what their friends think of a particular product before making a purchase. They read the “about us” page before they continue looking at what to buy.

Very soon Unilever will lose customers to their brands because people will see that they run provocative ads for their Axe brand that directly counters the messages they are trying to get across with their Dove brand.

These conglomerates that are trying to reach the mass by switching what brand they slap on a product won’t benefit them in the long run, simply because people are now realizing how one company is running the majority, and they’re not happy about that.

Take the beer industry for instance. The rise in craft brewery sales can be pinned (among other things) to consumer’s realization that Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors are the parent companies to some of their previously favorite beer brands.

Now people are starting to go to the restaurant that has a family story over the chain restaurant where computers rule.

In the past, having 20 brands owned owned by a parent brand worked. Now people want one brand (the parent) with one product. And that’s good for you and me because it offers us the chance to tell a story that truly matters, resonates with humans (not robotic consumerists), and allows us to pour our hearts into one bucket.

 

Stay Positive & Being Passionately Forward Leads To Consumer Attachment

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Where To Find Your Muse

Where To Find Your Muse

Garth Beyer

Find Your Muse, Stay In Your Flow

The feeling of boredom comes to every linchpin, artist, and entrepreneur from time to time. The reason is quite clear: actions have become easy, challenges are few and far between, and there is less need of a growing skill.

As a result, the impresario seeks out larger challenges that require focus, additional connections, and an incessant need to learn new skills to accomplish the goal.

But once the artist sets down that path, she realizes she has set too lofty of a goal, too large of an expectation of herself, too tough of a challenge, so she returns to the start of this post, desiring a calmer path, a quieter challenge, an easier goal.

As Peter Turchi writes, it’s a cycle of satisfaction and frustration. To find our muse we must find the flow between the anxiety of a difficult practice and the boredom of an easy task.

The real problem isn’t doing what it takes to stay within your flow, your muse; it’s noticing when you’re outside of it, when a task is too easy or a challenge too large. Both of which are slippery slopes that lead to failure and resentment.

 

Stay Positive & Be Aware Of Your Flow

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Two Ways To Succeed

Two Ways To Succeed

Garth Beyer

Hustle & Endurance

Some successful entrepreneurs, writers, artists are hustlers. They beat the competition because they work harder, faster, smarter. They give themselves short deadlines they never miss. They run laps around their competitors.

The other successful method is endurance. If you can just outlast your competitors, you will succeed. People who blog every day for four years, manage to host a podcast seven days a week, write a book each year, they succeed because they have built themselves to survive.

Both methods have their tribulations. The challenge is choosing which is true to you, your energy, your passion.

 

Stay Positive & Choose, Then Run With It

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So You Found A Typo

Garth Beyer

I make typos every now and then. Sometimes I find them myself when I go back and read what I’ve written. Sometimes others find them after months of my blog post or book being published. The question I’ve wrestled with when editing writing is what does it mean to have a typo?

One could argue it means I’m lazy, I hired a terrible editor or I forgot to hit spell check.

One could also argue it means I’m human, that I’ve read and reread what I’ve written so many times to make sure I got the right message across that I just couldn’t catch small typos. I call it being lost in the magic.

Typos are one of authors’ largest fears and disappointments. When we publish a book, we dislike when people find a blemish. It detracts from the purpose of the reading and it confuses the readers because now they are wondering if we know about the typo? Should they email us? How did it happen, anyway?

I appreciate authors like Seth Godin who live up to the typos and solve the issue. Godin’s newest book is out now and he has a page where you can let him know if you found a typo.

When quality is a given, small mistakes like a typo can be an opportunity to delight, to connect.

For those who write, welcome the connection. For those who read, reach out. I’ve never talked to an author who was upset about someone pointing out a typo.

 

Stay Positive & Who Knows, You May Be Rewarded

Pull Back For This New Year

Pull Back For This New Year

Garth Beyer

Slingshot Into The New Year

I’ve written posts, read articles and talked to dozens and dozens of people about their goals for each new year.

A trend I’ve noticed is how people wait until the new year to start anything instead of starting at the best time to start: now.

If we could just pull ourselves back in the sense of doing what we need to do now to excel in the new year, well, we may be proud of how far we’ve gotten come March and April when others realize they’re better off giving up their goals.

When I say pull back, I mean pull yourself back like you would a slingshot. Prep what you need, start developing the action you want to be a habit in the new year, begin planning the book you want to write.

You see, we have two options right now. We can start working toward our new years goals or we can wait until the new year. I’ll tell you from my experience, those who succeed each year are the ones who started down the path of success early.

 

Stay Positive & Worms Are Scarce During The Winter

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How Do You Want To Be Treated?

How Do You Want To Be Treated?

Garth Beyer

Treat Others The Way You Want To Be Treated

Give someone a great experience, something to talk about. Give them the impact you would want to be given.

When you treat people the way you want to be treated, you create a remarkable reputation for not only yourself, but who you’re doing work for. And their voices are the ones that matter when it comes to word-of-mouth.

When you send an email, think of what you would want to read if you were on the receiving end. When you’re writing your pitch and your crunched on time, just put yourself in the venture audience – what would you need to hear  and how would you need to hear it to invest?

Treat people the way you would want to be treated. In every interaction.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Easy To Make Income, Much More Difficult To Make Impact

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The Biggest Lesson Blogging Has Taught Me

The Biggest Lesson Blogging Has Taught Me

Garth Beyer

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People grow at a phenomenal rate.

That’s my nice way of saying people change, goals change, hopes change, circumstances change, problems change, purposes change.

The way I wrote is way different from how I write now. When I started blogging I wrote longer posts and made them more personal because I knew no one would be reading them and I was finding my way. Now I write shorter, more to-the-point posts in a way that is, quite frankly, safe. This will change in the coming year, the coming week, the coming few days.

Blogging is my business, it’s my foundation for acquiring social capital, and any successful business reinvests in itself.

My blog is the best place to see where I’ve been and to find patterns to see where I’m going. Right now, I’ve been about equally satisfied with my blog posts as I have been dissatisfied. To most readers, they may question why I bother blogging if I’m not satisfied with half the material I produce.

It goes back to what I said was my biggest lesson from blogging. Things change, and if we document, reflect, imagine different executions to past events, we can change for the better.

The only way to go once you blog is up.

Consider blogging for the new year that is fast approaching. And feel free to reach out to me to get set up, to get accountability, to get motivated about writing. thegarthbox@gmail.com or @thegarthbox

 

Stay Positive & Words Make Actions Powerful