The Great Discourager

The Great Discourager

Garth Beyer

Better Than You

Here’s the sitch when it comes to going down the path of your passion: you’re not the only one, and nearly all the others down the same path are much, much better than you.

Want to be a beer writer? There are so many others better than you, more experienced. Steve Hindy, Maytag, Heather Vandenengel, Robin Shepard, this list could run a thousand.

Want to be a graphic designer for fortune 500 companies? The slots are already filled by someone bigger, taller, stronger, faster, and with a better stretched and exercised imagination than you.

Even something extremely specific, like a crêpe artist. There’s someone already more artistic with crepes who others will choose over you.

Unless.

Unless you tell a better story. Your story is the leverage you can have over someone more excelled than you. Your story is how you not only get a bite out of the stranger pool, but you turn the strangers into friends. Your story is your competitive advantage.

The decision you need to realize you’re making when you start following your heart and putting your passion to practice is that there will always be someone better than you, more skilled, more talented. You can’t let that be the great discourager.

The world can never have too many stories nor too many artists.

 

Stay Positive & Those Who You Feel Discouraged Be Can Be The Most Encouraging

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What Do You Want To Do?

Garth Beyer

Answer that question in as few words as possible.

Do you want to surprise people?

Coordinate a dinner?

Save trees?

People may resonate with your work, but they will resonate much more if they know what your goal is.

Not to mention, people generally want to help you accomplish it. All work is a teamwork sort of thing as long as the team knows your goal.

 

Stay Positive & Go Share Your Story

Horizontal Prioritization, A Better Method Of Prioritizing

Horizontal Prioritization, A Better Method Of Prioritizing

Garth Beyer

Design Matters

Perhaps you’ve heard of the six F’s (family, friends, finances, fitness, faith, and fun) or something similar. Every success mentor always suggests making these lists, and I agree, not just in life, but in business as well. They allow you to divvy up your focus on all the important matters. However, the way they are often presented is vertically.

Family first

Faith second

Finances third…

The problem with prioritizing your life this way is that it gives you an excuse to not tout as much effort in the bottom categories. By prioritizing vertically, you’re forcing yourself to weigh the importance of each group, when, in fact, the reason for writing the various groups (whether you go with the six F’s or some other type of categorization) is that they are all equally important.

Success and balance aren’t easy to achieve, but trying to achieve them using vertical lists and actually prioritizing one important theme or category over another is a sure indicator of always lacking sufficiency, efficiency, and quality in the bottom-most themes or categories.

Prioritize horizontally. Then feel free to list goals and tasks below those, vertically.

While finances and fun are both equally a necessity, how you go about achieving each is not.

Go ahead. Try it.

 

Stay Positive & Design Matters When It Comes To List-making

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You Wouldn’t Think It Would Work, But It Does

You Wouldn’t Think It Would Work, But It Does

Garth Beyer

Beating A Dead Horse

Some of the best writing comes from challenging a cliché, turning it on its head, and getting original with something overused. Weird is original and original is often uncomfortable.

Think of this concept in terms of advertising, not just writing.

Epic ads are often about challenging stereotypes. Pantene for example. Or the famous Cherios ad, aired during the Superbowl.

If you want meaningful buzz, go creatively challenge status-quos, clichés, and stereotypes.

Spare some time this weekend to incorporate this tactic into your PR, your brand, your writing. See what happens.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Take The Flack Personally

Related

 

If You Love Your Business So Much, Why Not Marry It?

Garth Beyer

I’m half-joking.

Legally, it’s not even possible, but what’s stopping you from thinking of your business like a companion?

I’ve suggested you write an obituary for your business, now how about those vows?

What are you committing to? What are you willing to go through with your business? What promises are you making? Reflect on your business, highlight the key memories, and make those vows.

 

Stay Positive & How Can Anyone Not Trust A Business Whose Owner Has Vowed So Much

Under New Management

Under New Management

Garth Beyer

Teddywedgers under new managementTeddywedgers, a fantastic and rich-in-history corner-place to grab a pasty in Madison has signs up stating it will be under new management when it reopens. A colleague and mentor of mine, Doug Moe, wrote about Raymond Johnson and his journey to owning Teddywedgers. To this day, I have never heard a single complaint from anyone who bought a pasty from Johnson or any past owners for that matter.

So, I wonder why there is a need to state the establishment will be under new management?

Must people worry now that they will get less of an experience than previously? Will they be searching for the slight changes and critiquing them harshly?

For those who never went to Teddywedgers, was there a reason it needed new management? That’s sort of a turn-off, isn’t it?

Having a sign that says “under new management” is like a really poorly written essay or speech where you begin by telling people what you’re going to write or talk about and then you write and talk about what you just said you were going to write and talk about. Why not just write about it? Skip the unnecessary introduction, it makes your full fledged points seem redundant.

Let new management take place behind-the-scenes and have the new experiences they bring with them be for the customers to experience unexpectedly.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Better To Be Pleasantly Surprised Than To Simply Have Expectations Met     (…or not met)

Photo credit (apologies this is not a photo with the new management signs up, if I walk by Teddwedgers again in the new week or so, I'll snap a picture and update this post)
Two Ways To Start A Business

Two Ways To Start A Business

Garth Beyer

Starting A Business
One way is to start with your own idea, build a business plan around it, and shout, shout, shout with hopes people hear you, switch from competitors to you, and give their attention. To be successful with this, you have to change the way people think, act, and feel.

Damn difficult to do.

Another way is to start by searching for a niche, an area that’s been untouched, perhaps listening to more than a million complaints of people until you come up with a solution. The method: you find a small problem and you provide a small solution.*

To be successful with this, you gather a tribe of like-minded people who have the same complaint, the same problem and you give your solution to them. Instead of changing the way people think, act, and feel, you’re listening, understanding and reacting to how people think, act, and feel.

You can shout, advertise and sell or you can connect, gather, and give.

Two ways to start a business. I think you know which way is better.

 

Stay Positive & Either Way, Have Fun With It

*All big problems have been solved with big solutions. Times have really changed. Think the taxi industry. Big solution for big problem. Then think of Uber and Lyft. Small problem. Small solution. Huge success.

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