What’s Missing?

Garth Beyer

‘What’s missing?’ isn’t specific enough. The real question you’re looking for is ‘what connection is missing?’

You don’t lack ideas. You lack your connection with those who have them. Perhaps a special dinner is in order.

You don’t lack courage. You lack connections with those who dance with fear. Perhaps a summer seminar is in order.

You don’t lack resources, hope, business skills or a precondition for taking risks. You lack the connections.

I don’t believe in inabilities. You are the sum of all of your connections.

 

Stay Positive & Go Build Your Tribe And Tell Me Your Goal Still Can’t Be Achieved

Better Ideas Than Meeting Spec

Garth Beyer
  • Surpassing spec.
  • Spending a few nights building a new strategy plan and pitching it.
  • Finding ways to deliver promises faster.
  • Adding more or something different. Being generous. Giving goofball gifts.
  • Taking two minutes to make the message more personal and empathetic.
  • Showing clients the fun you had developing their plan.
  • Making larger promises and then surpassing them by over delivering.
  • Hiring a better editor.
  • Scraping the plan of mediocrity and tasks of ill-used time.
  • Trying something new.

 

Stay Positive & Meeting Spec Isn’t Good Enough (More on good enough)

Assorted Links

Garth Beyer

1. Can a robot do my job? (read)

2. 5 steps to new job opportunities (read, seriously, I’ve read this four times over already)

3. Gen Y Girl (read/follow)

4. Readers expect humor on Facebook, says author of Dallas paper’s funny weather posts (read) Social media angle (read)

5. On being good: the secular virtues (read)

6. How I got fired from a hot startup (read)

7. Don’t let the PR plan block your path to success (read)

The Invaluable Variable Of Any Great Business

Garth Beyer

What are you teaching?

There is not a single successful business that doesn’t teach something of some sort to their customers or clients, or at least gives the opportunity to learn in some shape or form.

Netflix. Documentaries.

Starbucks. Small talk.

Pursuitist. How-tos.

Barnes & Noble. Self-explanatory.

Inkhouse. PR.

 

So, I ask again. What are you teaching?

 

Stay Positive & Businesses Stop Teaching When They Stop Learning

In For Free

Garth Beyer

There are two situations for any club, event, outing, etc,.

1) You pay to get in and then you pay for things inside.

2) You don’t pay to get in and then you pay for things inside.

In both circumstances, you pay for things inside, but there is a large mental processing gap when it comes to how much you’re willing to spend inside.

See, the situations you pay to get in, you’re lead to believe everything inside will be cheaper. It’s not. Then you begin to rationalize your purchases, typically beginning with, “Well, it was already $15 to get in…”

On top of that, you may rebut with an example of an all-inclusive package. Supposedly, you pay for the all-inclusive package and everything “inside” is free. Thing is, it’s never free. When you’re inside, you then have to pay for an upgrade or to get the special drink that’s not included in the package or to get into VIP.

Taking a look at the other side

Everyone loves free. In fact, I’d argue they love getting into something free more than having everything inside be free. When you make an exchange with money, the value of the item (perceptional value) increases. That is, people who, say, buy a brat at a brat fest think the brat tastes better than someone who pays to get into the event and then gets the brat for free.

What does this mean for you and me?

It means to let your customers, clients, friends, strangers into your business for free and then charge them for what’s valuable inside. Consider all the business models that incorporate the situation where customers must pay to get in, then everything inside is free. Newspaper subscriptions. Water parks. Strip clubs. Movies.

Having clientele pay for what’s inside and not pay to get inside is not a flawless model (think Netflix), but it’s one worth considering when developing your business plan. One worth arguing about. Perhaps, one worth rebutting (or supporting) in the comments section below.

 

Stay Positive & Never Underestimate The Power Of In For Free

Creating Chief Content For Your Landing Pad

Garth Beyer

Your blog is your landing pad. All properties and social media outlets change without your control, but not your blog.

Recently I’ve blogged about independent PR blogs and how to face Goliath, the mass content producing sites like Pursuitist. I was privileged recently to sit in on a talk by Christopher Parr, founder of Pursuitist. I heard the story of how he made Pursuitist what it is now, a success.

Worth noting, not once did he say he couldn’t have done it without the help of all his contributing writers (group blog model). Perhaps he may think it, but I would still respond with disagreement. He could have done it by himself too. Why do I believe that?

Below you will find a list of ways he swears by to create blogging success. Bare with me 10 seconds before you scroll down to read them. As you do read them, ask yourself if you could do the action by yourself. Matters of speed and time aside, it is purely a matter of what you think you can and can’t do. You can take on the content machines. You can.

 

 

 

 

Chief Content Officer Takeaways:

  • Engage your community with questions.
  • Share amazing photos.
  • Create content that can be easily consumed on mobile devices.
  • Keep it “human.” Don’t be a bland corporation.
  • The best posts or videos come from the frequently asked questions people have.
  • Interviews make great content.
  • Share original, behind-the-scenes photos of you and your team.
  • Create interesting, brief product and service demos with videos.
  • Testimonials are great, especially if you can highlight the hero, your customer, and not your product.
  • Point out the great people in your community with videos and interviews.
  • Deliver instruction and teach someone how to do something. Create a “how to” series.
  • Keep publishing, keep creating great content. Don’t give up.

 

What do you think? Think you’re up for it. I do.

And again. You don’t need to neglect the benefits of them, by all means participate, but also withhold your own landing pad.

 

Stay Positive & Imagine David And Goliath As Friends

The Forgotten Factor Of Networking

Garth Beyer

Networking has officially become a buzzword. Not recently, of course. It is, however, getting more criticism. Some folk are refusing to use the term, thinking of networking as an act, a play to be sure you can get what you want from someone at a later time. Some believe networking is full of fake smiles and insincere it was great meeting yous.

It’s hard to argue about it. Networking really is a game of give and take, except, in networking’s defense, if everyone agrees to it, then is it wrong. (Don’t blow that statement out of proportion.) No one goes into networking events unwilling to give and no one goes into them unwilling to take. It’s not a game of cat and mouse, it’s a game of human interaction.

I do have one bone to pick about networking events. More and more I’m seeing those who attend them not enjoying themselves. They talk to those who they think they should talk to. They will stand talking with one person who they know they don’t connect with. They’ll waste an evening searching for a possible future exchange they can make with someone when it’s not there.

I said everyone at networking events are there to give and take, but each has its limits. Not everyone there will be able to help you, yet we think they will.

It’s not hard to pause in conversation with someone who you’re truly not enjoying conversing with to say, “Excuse me, there is another person I wanted to connect with tonight. If you would like to chat again, here’s my card.” And move on.

Networking, sure, is about putting your talents out there for others and looking for others’ talents you can use, but it’s also for enjoying yourself, making friends, not partners.

Friendship is an exchange too. More valuable, I would be willing to argue, than the skills of someone you meet at the event.

 

Stay Positive & Enjoy Yourself, Always