Connections

Your Audience Is More Open Than You Think

Garth Beyer

When you create more connections, you’re bound to be more open. That’s something I love about the current state of society and the people in it.

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Part of me feels that I have Facebook and Twitter to thank for making people more open. Another part realizes that it is just a beneficial byproduct of the connection economy.

Yet, I see businesses and freelancers running with their arms held close to their chest so they don’t hit anyone, so they don’t make themselves open, so they don’t seem vulnerable. This is trite and counterintuitive.

I can barely begin to tell you how many people have told me things about themselves and their lives that they would never have mentioned eight years ago. Respectively, I owe it to them to be just as open (which is in our advantage).

It’s not a matter of mutual generosity, it’s more a risk at creating a symbol of trust.

This calls for you to reciprocate that risk. When you see that others are doing or acting as you do, you feel comfortable, you feel in place, you feel more willing to trust and invest in what that person is offering.

Just the same. If you want the business of those who are very open about themselves and their lives, you need to be open too.

This is why storytelling has become the largest importance of businesses, why brand matters, why sales are made on trust, not shininess.

 

Stay Positive & Open Sesame

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

Where To Start

Garth Beyer

That’s the question isn’t it?

You want to work for Twitter, you want to start a business, you want to kickstart your freelance career, or – in my case – you want to get into public relations.

Sure, you can read some books, bookmark some websites, favorite a few blogs and justifiably consume, but that won’t get you started. There’s no action to that; it’s passive learning and passive learning is preparation, not actual movement.***

The most solid way to start any journey is

with a conversation.

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An email, a tweet, a message is all that it takes to start. After connecting with @E_Humphrey, we conversed about the PR industry, we began interacting with each others tweets, and we even found out that we have a lot of the same connections in town.

And how did both her and I make those connections? It all starts with a conversation.

 

Stay Positive & Go Find A Mentor, A Friend, A Teacher

Garth E. Beyer

*** the exception is if you start a blog where you share what you learn (my pr box)

 

What Really Pays

Garth Beyer

–  Cash isn’t important to a successful career, connections are.The only money that matters is money that is invested. Whether you invest it in someone to give them a chance to show and grow their skills or when they invest it in you.

–  Time is only valuable when it’s either used to create honest art (not multi tasking, not clicking interesting link after interesting link, not taking halfass notes) and it’s only valuable when you interact with someone in real time (meeting for coffee, talking on the phone, skyping).

–   Having thousands of friends, followers, and visitors doesn’t mean you will instantly profit off of advertising. When it’s between making .002 cents off a stranger or $20.00 from a friend. I hope that it’s obvious what you should be making: friends or strangers.

–   When it comes to advertising, before anything, work on advertising yourself. That’s where the money is. (Or isn’t? Then you need to work on doing more creative work.)

–   Hard work pays off? Determination, motivation, perseverance, commitment… sounds like something you have to convince yourself to do that you just don’t want to.

What about connections, challenging fear, making yourself uncomfortable, revealing yourself, sparking emotional interactions, and taking risks?

Now tell me: What do you think really pays?

 

Stay Positive & Turn Strangers Into Friends

Garth E. Beyer

Subscription

Garth Beyer

I’ve made the decision to close off my blog to subscriptions. In particular, email/RSS feed subscription and for two particular reasons.

Yes, a blogger absolutely benefits from having subscribers. That’s all good and great, but by subscribing, you – the subscriber – benefit less. What?!

I used to be subscribed to about a dozen blogs and I would get updates on them every few days. After only a couple of months, I found myself deleting the emails; some without opening to see what the newest posts were about. The reason for this leads to the first reason why I closed off subscription to my blog.

I quit needing their particular form of motivation. I stopped needing their information, their persuasion, their enthrallment. In other words, while I never stopped loving their blogs, I found myself reading them for the sake of just reading them and not for the sake of them helping me or bringing me to make some action.

I don’t want you (my readers) to enter this lull or habit. In a sense, it can even be self-defeating; one is more interested in learning how to improve their life than they are in improving it. If it’s between you taking a risk to do something in your life and reading my post for the day, well, you know which one I would pick.

The second reason for ending subscriptions I only realized a couple of weeks ago after someone said, “I’ve been on your website. I don’t read everything you write, but I hop on their every now and then.” I went on to tell them that they shouldn’t feel guilty for not reading every day, I don’t write so the same person can read every single post. I have this idea that I am simply here when you need me. I’m not going to force you to show up by making you feel guilty or reminding you to read my content through subscriptions. If you don’t show, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it’s probably best you didn’t.

If you want to read what I have written, then you can type www.garthbox.com in your web bar or add me to your favorites bar. I’m looking for connections, not subscriptions.

 

Stay Positive & Let’s Connect (@)

Garth E. Beyer

Been Too Long Since Your Last Adventure?

Garth Beyer

It’s been awhile since I have updated you on my progress with A Manual For Daily Adventure.

7. Dance.

I had completely forgot that this was on the list. I happened to start dancing in my apartment the other night … yes, I was alone, that didn’t make it any less fun!

20. Try a new restaurant

Always.

72. Write on a napkin.

Two girls, one napkin with my number on it. Still waiting for the second girl to txt me, she was prettttttty.

22. Walk home from work a different way.

I did this and had to walk by a guy who walked behind trees in front of a church and began urinating …

25. Set aside fifteen minutes to write. About anything.

“15 minutes start now, Fear travels through your entire body. Pretty girls need that light, very subtle laugh, it is so adorable. Style has changed so much, and I mean gangnam style is almost becoming the norm. Personally I love mid-high fashion. Writing articles for my employer got really old pretty quickly. I didn’t see how it benefited me anymore. Note to self, don’t get a cappuccino, it doesn’t taste very good. There are about five men that come in the [coffee] shop every single day. I often wonder what they talk about and how they know each other. It isn’t like the five men who all play chess or anything like that. It’s an interesting group, almost as if they don’t want to go home. I’m writing so fast I’m making the water shake in the cup, it reminds me of Jurassic Park It so bad that writing doesn’t warm you up. The real reason for my shakes and fast writing is because I am freezing. How do you hit on girls in a coffee shop? Muffins are delicious … none are better than the ones from middle school but they were so unhealthy. The girl isn’t putting her jacket on for quite possibly the same reason as me. We look good 😀 makes me laugh. I think back to that damn spider. I’m sort of happy its cold again because it prevents the bugs and spiders from creeping on my window. Writing nonstop makes me think back to the writing test, and how you had to write fast. I always wondered why I never did as good with my essays as I thought. Boots are gorgeous on women. I wonder what other companies are like Johnny Cupcakes. John had written about how he knew its a good idea if he writes it down. Does a good idea ever arise from writing like I am now? Overcharging is crazy, it makes me want to bake my own food and pastries to bring with. Hey you might as well do the same with coffee. One girl out of 20+ at a coffee shop. [Unreadable writing] is exciting to make fun of other people. Where will I study abroad? I wonder about making an article in the Madison newspaper called the girl in a Cafe and it will be a creative piece talking about one girl in a cafe obviously. I can write about these girls all the time, when will I ever see them again though. Time runs out so what do you do? Well this exceeds my 15 min writing session. The only question left is will I talk to her before I leave? B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!”

Yes, I wrote all of that in pen. Writing is still my passion but I was too limited within the writing job I had. A second reason to not get a cappuccino is that it packs more of a kick than any other caffeinated drink I’ve had. I free wrote early that morning about a spider that I let survive on the edge of my ceiling above my bed, and then it disappeared when I woke up. I did in fact talk to her, she was one of the girls I gave the napkin with my number on it to.

27. Ask a friend for a book recommendation.

Girl with dragon tattoo.

40. Support a local business owner.

Farmers market and I no longer go to Starbucks, I go to local coffee shop!

41. Take your workout outside.

Run + pullups at the park.

42. Don’t send an email. Walk over to your colleague’s desk.

Easy enough. Exercise is hard to come by in a cubicle.

45. Look up. See the sky.

It was better than art. It was real abstract.

50. Consider the book you’d write.

A book on writing. I am going to use Seth Godin’s Ship It journal to do it!

53. Initiate conversation at the coffee shop.

Would you be surprised that I talk with the Baristas and pretty girls?

56. Sing loudly in the shower/your car/your backyard.

Happened to combine singing loudly with dancing.

57. Doodle.

It was terribly bad doodling, but doodles nevertheless.

59. Allow yourself 5 minutes of nothing.

60. Set out to scare yourself.

-sigh- I’m going to haunted houses …

71. For one day, don’t make any plans.

I’ve done this too many times, unintentionally. Why is it so hard to be booked up?

75. Clean. Throw out junk. Organize

On the phone the other night, a friend of mine said how cool it would be to go through absolutely everything you have and get rid of everything that you don’t vitally need. I laughed and said that is what I have already done.

Jumping at opportunities to check adventures off the list has created one great ongoing experience. It’s a hot conversation starter and motivator for others to do the same. 43 more adventures to have until I complete the list!

 

Stay Positive & Cheers To Adventures

Garth E. Beyer

Set For Life

Garth Beyer

A of couple months ago I was freewriting and an odd thought popped in my mind. True to the nature of the writing I was doing, I wrote it down.

A lot of people dont’ care about you, they just feel if they get enough people to just like them, that they are set for life.

I think I may have been upset that so many girls in high school led guys on, or that you can spend one wonderful day with someone, but never catch up again. The instances in life where you feel a connection with someone, but nothing happens after it are endless.

It’s a trick, whether conscious of it or not, and a very successful trick at that.

Its success is based solely on the precept that if they ever talked to you again, ever ran into you on the subway, or bus, or bike path, that you two could pick up conversation like you were long-time friends and can play catch-up.

I am no psychologist, although at times I like to think I am, but there is some psychological barrier that prevents you from despising the person that left you hanging, prevents you from completely ignoring that person when you see them again, and prevents you from acting like they screwed you over.

Want to be successful? Get a billion people to like you. It’s not hard; meeting someone once will do. While you may not “benefit” as much from leaving (not cutting) a connection you made than if you were to do the upkeep on the friendship, the connection is still there.

The way it ends up benefiting you is when you do run into that person who you shared a great experience with (get your mind out of the gutter), when you play catch-up and you find out that they had started a similar business to yours, or write on your beat in the features section of a well-known magazine, or are part of some influential group, you can pick up the connection you left as if it were just waiting for you.

So No. The majority of people, when they meet you, don’t care about you, no matter how great of a time you share or how connected you may feel to them. When they leave that connection, they don’t mean to insult you, they don’t even mean to use you (that comes later). Their focus is making connections and as many as possible.

As should your goal be. After all, the thing about these people is that they are set for life. They have all the connections they will ever need, whether they utilize them or not, they are there. Where are yours?

 

Stay Positive & Make, Leave, Then Leverage Your Connections

Garth E. Beyer         hey, it works

A PR’s Ethical Respect

Garth Beyer

An underlying principle to the work of a PR Specialist is similar to an old adage about love.

“If you don’t love yourself, how can you love anyone else?”

In this saying, the word “love” is interchangeable with any other word that enforces some form of positivity, amiability or professionalism. Working with PR, the most fitting word to exchange it with is “respect”.

It now reads,

“If you don’t respect yourself, how can you respect anyone else?”

Even a better question: How do you plan to be a successful PR Specialist when respect is simply a cousin of fairness, and fairness is a code of ethics that only authentic PR Specialists and Firms use.

What makes or breaks connections in business and in life can be pinned down to ethics, whether it be fairness, accuracy, honesty, or in this specific case, respect. Respect for oneself as well as mutual respect with a client is what stabilizes the connection.

While the bridge you build with another may not lead to a success, it is better to have a bridge maintained by respect than no bridge at all.