Reader By Demographic

Garth Beyer

Newsroom T.I.V

I’ve mentioned that every newsroom I’ve been in has a poster of a person who is their average reader. On the poster is the demographic of the person. “37-years-old, Sways Republican, has three kids, loves gardening.”

Writers will even remind each other to “write to Lisa” or “Chad,” or “Josephina.”

It’s a good start. But I have to agree with Seth Godin, that there are more important questions to be asking like,

  • What do they believe? (What’s their worldview?)
  • Who do they trust?
  • What are they afraid of and who do they love?
  • What are they seeking?
  • Who are their friends?
  • What do they talk about?

Bonus questions:

  • What legacy do they want to leave?
  • All views change over time, how will theirs?
  • Will you follow those changes?

 

Stay Positive & All In A Day’s Every Day’s Work

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Grow A Pair

Garth Beyer

I feel like I’m somewhat qualified, if not required to finally say that.

In the past, I thought telling someone to grow a pair was ignorant, rude and insensitive. Now, though, I wish someone would have told me earlier on. This realization came after I took a phone call earlier today.

An acquaintance of mine sent me a message on Twitter asking if I could spare a few minutes to talk to him about connecting with professionals. He’s in NYC this weekend and set up meetings with an NBC correspondent and a couple of other journalists. (Most need to be told to grow a pair and go make these connections, alas, this friend did not. If you are someone who needs to be told to grow a pair and go schedule meetings with your idols, then be prepared to get told to grow a second time. Read on.)

Without questioning further, I told him I had time this afternoon. He called. He called because he grew a pair and realized that he could use all the help he could get, he realized that while experience is the best teacher, you can still be prepared for the lessons.

He explained his worries, his largest concern being that he would make the NBC correspondent feel as though she wasted her time. A real, natural human concern.

I talked him through it, gave him the rundown of what to expect, ideas for what to ask and the single best way to make her not feel as though he wasted her time. (If you want to know, call or email me.)

Once I hung up, a particular AC/DC song began playing in my head. This acquaintance, this, now friend, has the biggest of them all.

1. Grow a pair and meet with your idols and other professionals in your field of interest. Face to face.

2. Grow a pair and send an email, direct a tweet, make the call to those that can help you get the most out of that experience.

3. Remember that these people you are connecting with didn’t get to where they are now by never growing a pair.

 

Stay Positive & Go Ahead, You Know What To Do

People first.

Garth Beyer

Work second.

Why is this so complicated for professionals, marketers and other artists to understand?

People first not only in the sense of what you create for them, but in being an idol, a teacher and a respected professional.

Work for the sake of work or money will only get one so far. Work for the sake of doing what you’re passionate about and inspiring/teaching others who share that same passion – now that is remarkable.

There will always be people in your work life that seek what you have for free that will ask for free lessons or to shadow you. The easy move is to  charge them and give nothing for free. The much harder move is to be human and take each request on a case-by-case basis.

You’ll make more people happy and keep your profession alive that way.

By the way, being the only one in your profession really doesn’t make you that special. And if you’re going to have competition, it might be better to have close ties with them to begin with.

 

Stay Positive & So, Are You A Mentor Or Not?

Know When You Have

Garth Beyer

Every marketer, reporter and business person has a goal for those at the Pandorareceiving/purchasing end. Without a goal, it’s all just busy work. Yet, I see one big problem over and over again in their strategy to meet the goal: they don’t shut down their tactics to reach the goal once they reach it.

Pandora has a pop-up explaining that you can now use Pandora as your alarm clock. Who doesn’t love to wakeup to music they enjoy? The first few times I opened Pandora, I had to exit out of that same pop up before I could listen to music.

After the fourth time, I thought I would go ahead and use Pandora as my alarm. I didn’t really like my current alarm sound anyway. (This was, after all, Pandora’s goal.)

I set up the Pandora alarm and opened the Pandora app to listen to music again. Can you guess what happened? The pop up still came up advertising that I do what I have already done.

 

Stay Positive & Stop When You Reach Your Goal

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Assorted Links

Garth Beyer

1. Ian’s Shoelace Knot – the worlds fastest shoelace knot (watch) (talk about productivity!)

2. The secret to unleashing your creativity in 2014 (long read)

3. Barnes & Noble’s Sensible C.E.O. Choice (read)

4. Forget the Job Title & Show Up Fully — Lessons in Entrepreneurship + Business (read)

5.Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Louis C.K. (watch)

Long Form Vs Short Form

Long Form Vs Short Form

Garth Beyer

Long form

I made a not-so-pretty big mistake when I started my blog. I wrote long form posts, I wrote tall orders, I wrote laundry lists instead of a few bullet points. I wrote posts that would take four minutes or longer to read. That was a mistake.

For any business, a blog is essential, press releases are essential, newsletters and other forms to update people are essential.

Getting the length of them right – even more essential.

Now I can get away with writing a long form post. I couldn’t before because I didn’t have any true fans, no passionate customers, no connected friends to what I was writing about.

Think of the websites that you go on to read, whether it’s for news, fiction or self-help. Now filter through the authors and pick which ones you would read a five-minute post if they wrote it. Your list of authors dwindles, doesn’t it?

When writing anything, knowing how to write to your audience is everything, but knowing how also means knowing how long or how short you can make it so they will read.

New readers, new customers, new fans, new friends, new strangers – none of them will spend their time reading a long form piece from you. 140 characters to 200 words is about all you have to work with.

Let me make something clear. I don’t think the internet has made us incapable of focusing our attention on something longer than two minutes. I simply think that it’s more difficult than ever to have a true and passionate follower.

Well worth the work though.

 

Stay Positive & Tell Me Again Who Your Focus Is On

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Fear, Huh?

Garth Beyer

It’s completely possible for every person to bulldoze their fears, to be human, to test their passions and to connect with people who will too invest in the connection.

To suggest “people just don’t have it in them,” well, hell, if that’s not fear speaking up at it’s finest, I don’t know what is.

 

Stay Positive & Fear! I Call Fear!