Business

Usefulness Is What’s Remarkable, Not Constant Content

Garth Beyer

Remarkably Useful

Content isn’t king, usefulness is.

You can tell an amazing childhood story, and it might be great content, but it might not be useful.

Analyzing all the reasons iscream is better on a cone than in a bowl might be interesting, but it’s not useful.

You may think social media is the most important part of your business, but the truth of it lies in how you use it in a way that is useful for others, that solves their problems.

After all, that’s why anyone puts anything in a search bar: to find an answer to a problem.

Showcasing usefulness is where a lot of businesses, bloggers and PR pros miss out on their opportunity to connect with a new customer or client.

The web is definitely not short of storytellers, but is short of teachers, and even shorter of teachers who put their readers, their clients, their customers, their students first.

Is what you’re doing, creating, writing useful to others? Or is it just fluff, buzz and other stuff?

Something to ask before you create something or hit “publish”: what’s in it for them?

 

Stay Positive & Rank High In Search By Usefulness, Not Content

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Fabrics Of Our PR Society And Economic Culture

Fabrics Of Our PR Society And Economic Culture

Garth Beyer

I had lunch with a Madison PR pro today, and she mentioned how awesome Madison’s PR industry is. No surprise there other than in her reasoning.

Madison Public Relations

In the past if you worked at one agency and wanted to switch to another (a competitor!), you often didn’t for fear of burning bridges, being viewed as a traitor or you didn’t want to lose the friends you made because people at agency A just don’t get close with people at agency B.

But now – and I argue it’s not just Madison – there is no burning of bridges. In fact, there’s little competition. Where there was once disdain, there is now complete respect for one another. Agency B is happy to have people come work from Agency A or C or D or E…

This, of course, isn’t just the way the PR industry has shaped up to be; it’s how the world of work and art is. We are living in a time where success is leveraged by gigs, resources, remarkable work, and constantly changing – but always consistently occurring – partnerships and projects.

Agency A won’t survive if it refuses to connect with those at agency C, and vice versa. Survival may be met by an individual, but success is met by a team, a community.

Our culture – not just the PR culture – is based on innovation, inspiration and connections between people (and agencies).

The wellness of our economy is dependent on the value people like you and me and PR pros and mechanics and Etsy owners create.

It’s easy to become absorbed by the work of the industrial revolution. It’s much more difficult (but ultimately more rewarding) to absorb ourselves in the people around us. At least, we must, if we wish to succeed in business.

This isn’t just a revolution in the PR industry, it’s a revolution in every industry. I’m just happy to see the Madison PR agencies recognize this. Just one more reason to love it here.

 

Stay Positive & People Are Everything

5 Don’ts Of Business Success

5 Don’ts Of Business Success

Garth Beyer

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1) Don’t ask a group of people to do something you won’t ask your friend to do. Make better surveys. Target the right tribes. Create evaluations people get something from.

2) Don’t think the conversations others have are the ones you want to have. Not everyone cares about what you care about.

3) Don’t start with the product then come up with a story for it. If you don’t have a story to start from, then go out and experience more.

4) Don’t stand in front of your product. Get behind it, engage in the conversation that’s happening, be part of the avant-garde users.

5) Don’t put the spotlight on those who dislike you, your business or your product. Instead, put and keep the spotlight on your best customers.

 

Stay Positive & Simple, But Easily Forgotten

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Successful Entrepreneurs

Successful Entrepreneurs

Garth Beyer

Successful Entrepreneurs

You can label a handful of people as successful entrepreneurs, but it does damage to one’s perception of what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur.

A group of businessmen and women may be labeled as successful entrepreneurs, but they are all successful in different ways. They all accomplished their goals of starting and running a remarkable business differently.

There are no manuals for becoming a successful entrepreneur because there’s no one way to do it. Everyone does it differently.

The best way to market, the best way to start a business, the best way to get on the NYT bestseller list is your own way, the way YOU invent.

Even if you mimic the work of Gladwell or Godin, there’s only one Gladwell and Godin; there’s no room for you. That’s the way it ought to be.

Decide now that you’ll be a successful entrepreneur, but don’t expect to get there solely by following a step-by-step guide (because there isn’t one).

 

Stay Positive & Go Create Your Own Guidelines To Becoming A Successful Entrepreneur

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The Most Important Mindset For Building Your Skill Set

The Most Important Mindset For Building Your Skill Set

Garth Beyer

Mindset, Skill set, Success

There’s a particular mindset that makes you indispensable, a true linchpin.

It is a commitment to see a project through.

I’ve had (emphasis on past tense) team members who started a project with me, but then ran away when real work was in order.

We’ve all had people tell us they will do something, then fail to do it.

I’ve made my own mistakes of sitting back, too. A perfect example is Curb Magazine.

As managing editor, I’m involved in the entire process of making a magazine from scratch. From philosophy ideation, all the way through the launch and distribution of the final product. I work with four different teams (editorial, online, creative, and business) to reach distribution.

After we submit our design to the press house, and before distribution, the press house gives our publisher a proof copy of what they will print. Instead of getting involved in the last proofing process (the last chance to make any corrections to the magazine), I let my other team leaders handle it.

I didn’t see the process through, and, as a result of leaving the rest of the project to them (and no insult to their talent), two words are missing at the bottom of the first page of my story in the printed version of the magazine… all 10,000 of our one-time printed version. #lessonlearned

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All of the skills businesses, companies, agencies, and leaders look for… they all make up the mindset of one’s commitment to a project, to their work, to passion.

When you get in the habit of seeing things all the way through, there’s no doubt you learn and strengthen all the skills employers and team members look for.

When you don’t follow through, you bring everyone down and hold yourself back.

 

Stay Positive & They’re Not Kidding When They Say Success Is A Mindset, Not A Skill List

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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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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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