Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
is to know their leader understands them.
And the only way to understand them is to step in their shoes, to do the grunt work, to have experience doing what they’re doing.
The best place a leader can be for quick profits might be in the office, but the best place a leader can be for building a remarkable business, for increasing the chance of surviving longterm, for doing what really gets talked about is out on the floor.
Stay Positive & Same Can Be Said For His Target Audience
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Naming [your book, your business, your child] is one of the most exciting steps of creation. Unfortunately it’s also one of the most time-consuming. While we mull over a hundred different names, use name creation sites, and view top baby/business/book name lists, we waste precious time that could be spent making something out of the name.
I have two tips to offer when it comes to what you’ll name your project.
1) Don’t think of what you want to name your tangible project as you see it now. Instead, think of naming the vision, think of what you want to name the end result, think about what the project will look like when it’s complete and what name best represents that image. Make people believe in something with your name. Create huge expectations out of the name. Don’t think about the starting line, think about the finish.
2) Pick a name quickly. By all means, take a few days, run it by a couple of people you admire (and who know what they are actually talking about), but pick a name quickly. A name is what you make it. Seth Godin wasn’t a remarkable name when he was given it, but it has since become the name of one of the most remarkable marketers of this era. Apple was decided on quickly and has made a name for itself. Same with Zappos, Chobani, Uber, and so on. Pick a name and move on.
It’s not a ‘which came first the chicken or the egg’ situation here. The name came first. The meaning came second. And it’s the meaning that you want to be focusing your energy and time on.
Stay Positive & Fill Your Name With Meaning
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The posts I’ve written that have gained the most traffic in the shortest amount of time were all how-to posts. Going through my archive of more than 1,200 posts, you’ll see I don’t write many of them. Why?
It’s easy to write posts that guarantee a spike in traffic, that have a giant (and often vague) promise to boost your website analytics.
“How to attract a thousand unique visitors a day” and “How to start a multimillion dollar online business” are great examples of instant traffic posts.
I could write how-to posts every day for the next month and gain more traffic than I have had in the last year, but I don’t. I only write them when I can expand on the meaning of each step, when it’s pure fun for me and when it involves more direction than actual steps (because of reasons here).
Let’s point out that there is another type of post that may have less views, but is far more “successful.” It’s a type of post that gains a lot of attraction over a longer span of time because people are interested more in the story being told than the quick turnaround tips so many ego-centric writers present.
These popular posts are written as evergreen content. Content you can come back to, play off of, learn from again and again. When writing about steps, they are steps that can apply to business, to relationships, to work, to art, to life and so on.
These posts are often work to read and process because they challenge the reader to think differently, to try something new, to push themselves. These posts arn’t so much a read and then click over to my next tab… they are a read and come back again later to read again and think about again and play off of again.
The best art and relationships come from the blog posts, the ideas, the pieces of work you ship into the world that one person views and then interacts with, not that a thousand people view and don’t interact with.
I ignore the most magnetic posts because they don’t represent the story I’m telling.
Stay Positive & Make Sure Your Metrics Match The Message
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Pumpkin patches and apple orchards do a wonderful job of adding talkability factors into their design. They have the picture of a farming couple that you can put your head into and take a photo or the turkey that’s begging you to stand behind and show your face where its face should be. They add simply interactive designs that a majority use to share and talk about their experience.
I went on a three and a half hour private tour of the MillerCoors facility in Milwaukee today with a friend. I was too busy listening to the guide and chatting about how to brew beer to take dozens of photos, but there was a moment that was irresistible. As seen above, we’re on the roof of a 12+ story building and it’s clear they’ve designed this rooftop experience as a talking point. You have the shipping carriers, miller park, the brewing facility and the giant Miller sign all in one photo. MillerCoors figured out a way they could add talkability into their design.
I’ve been guilty of trying to make an entire experience worth talking about instead of focusing on a few little points that tell the larger story, that are easily talked about, and that people can’t help but share.
Consider how you can design talkability points into the experience you’re providing people.
Stay Positive & Better To Guide The Points Than Have Others Decide What’s Worth Sharing
because in most instances, they’ll choose not to share.
If Milton Glaser walked you through how to create a masterpiece, step by step, every minute detail by ever minute detail, your art piece couldn’t make the same impact.
If Taylor Swift held your hand throughout the entire songwriting process, your finished product won’t feel unique.
If I told you exactly how to write with voice, you would feel like your writing is a cheap knockoff.
How others feel using your product or service, looking at your art, listening to your songs starts with how you feel using your product or service, looking at your art, listening to your songs.
If you paint by numbers, color within the lines, and follow every “how-to” guide, you’ll ship work and you’ll learn a thing or two, but it won’t feel right.
And the feeling is why we make art.
Stay Positive & Make Remarkable Art, Not Remakable Art
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There are people all around you. To your left. To your right. You’re surrounded.
How do you feel about it?
It pays to really think about the answer because you’ve decided who you’re surrounded by. It’s your decision to work with people with low standards. You’ve decided the friends you will hangout with are the ones who don’t inspire you to work creatively.
We’ll never stop being surrounded by people. Whether we succeed in our endeavors or screw up, there will be people all around us, prodding, interacting, asking questions.
We owe it to ourselves to surround ourselves with people who will challenge us to go to the next level, to think differently, to answer the tough questions.
You’re surrounded. Is it a good feeling?
Stay Positive & If Not, Change The People
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1) Make sure you should be creating a newsletter. I’ve seen it over and over; businesses and brands will want to create a newsletter when they’re just starting their business endeavor only to discover they don’t have enough to talk about and haven’t attracted a following of true fans that will subscribe. Time is almost always better spent doing things that don’t need a newsletter to be talked about. Once you have people talking without the use of a newsletter, then it’s a great time to start one, to catch people up on what they missed (because you’re on such a role of shipping great content) and what they have to look forward to (because now you’ve created interest in your brands future).
2) Pull, don’t push. Instead of pushing people to sign up for the newsletter with a pop up, get other brand leaders and ambassadors to share the fact you now have a newsletter people can subscribe to. It’s much more effective to have a recommendation than it is to disrupt the regulars who visit your site.
3) Know your goal of the newsletter. You already have a website with a blog section (right?), so you’ve got two questions to answer before adding content to your newsletter. First, is it something that could just be said on the blog or is it special enough for the newsletter? You’ve got to draw the line between blog content and newsletter content. Second, to blur the line even more, are you retaining your voice through the newsletter? It’s often difficult to use a new method of communication and retain the same voice. That’s why integrated marketing is such a specialty practice.
4) Emphasize the community. Show through your newsletter that it’s being sent to a tribe, not an individual. theSkimm ends their newsletter with a list of birthdays. How can you end your newsletter? Perhaps thanking all those that send you an email in reply to a newsletter? All those who interact with you on Twitter? Find a way to make readers feel they belong to something big when they receive your newsletter.
5) NW; DR (not worthwhile; didn’t read). The people you want to attract are the people who read what matters, not the ones that read because something is short, quick, and easy. Write strong, write concise, but by all means, don’t let the word count restrict you from sharing your story. And heaven-forbid, don’t use TL;DR at the end of your newsletter.
Stay Positive & Know That Not Having A Newsletter Doesn’t Make You Any Worse Off
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