Relationships

Your Heart Has Eyes

Garth Beyer

Visual acuity isn’t enough in relationships. It’s not enough when solving problems (or creating new ones). It’s not enough when setting out to create your own business.

Greatness can easier be claimed once intimacy is accepted, engaged, brought forth.

When all we look at is what’s in front of us, we miss a lot.

A co-worker of mine is incredible at being intimate. I always say she has two sets of eyes. One set to see what’s in front of her and one to see how what’s in front of her is. It’s a second, deeper level of seeing.

We can open our eyes, but the best work gets done when we open the eyes of our hearts.

 

Stay Positive & There’s Always More To See (No Microscope Or Telescope Needed)

Match Making (Pitches, PR, And Relationship Principles)

Garth Beyer

Connection

I wish I could say I failed to research people before I met them and I lost out on an opportunity because of it, but it’s not true. I may have missed pieces of information about a person that, hindsight 20/20, I could have used in conversation with them (like telling Seth Godin I’ve seen a photo of his action figure riding a pink angry unicorn), but typically I’m able to bring up two points in every conversation.

1) Something they’ve done that I admire

2) Something of theirs that we can both connect on

These two points are essential to match making with journalists, PR teams and clients, as well as someone you’re going to have coffee with.

When you’re applying to an agency or any job, you do your research on the company: their history, their clients, their goals… anything and everything you can find online or in their brochures (are brochures still a thing?).

Why would you treat a journalist you’re pitching to, a client you want to do business with, a friend of a friend you’re meeting for the first time with any differently?

You don’t.

A journalist will be more likely to cover your story if you start by acknowledging a piece they have written (check box #1) and how you two both love the book she referenced in that story (check box #2).

Not only do you establish a connection with the person, you add credibility to yourself, you show you care because you wouldn’t take the time to research and prepare if you didn’t, and you build trust with that (now) special someone.

The twist is the two check box process works to your advantage in another unique way. It shows you whether or not you want to work and connect with this reporter, that agency, or this guy’s friend.

If they’ve created nothing remarkable and you can’t find a node to connect on, are they a person you want to be investing in?

 

Stay Positive & 7 Billion People In This World, You’ve Got The Right To Be Picky

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What The Successful Believe In

Garth Beyer

Keep On Keeping On

It’s only Tuesday and I’ve been reminded

1) relationships are everything. They build and attract new business. They provide insight you would have not received (or you would have learned the hard way) had you not made the connection. You will know if you’re on the right track in work and life based on the praise from those you’ve connected with. Nothing is more energizing than an hour spent turning a stranger into a friend or an hour spent with someone better than you.

2) you must have a definition of what’s good enough. Too often we work toward perfection and either never ship the product or we ship it too late. When it comes to logos at Aly Asylum, they have to pass the tattoo test. “Would you tattoo this logo on your arm?” If the answer is yes, then it’s good enough. Ship it.

3) ignore the naysayers. It’s on you to establish a mental and emotional filter, to allow and accept personal and helpful feedback while shutting out the negative, the criticism, the feedback many will call “constructive.” It helps to surround yourself with people who have a sort of forwardness to their personality. They act as a reflection of how something is, not how something should be or isn’t.

Now let’s get on with the week, develop some relationships, ship something daily, and shun the trolls.

 

Stay Positive & Keep On Keeping On

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Why I Ignore My Most Magnetic Posts

Why I Ignore My Most Magnetic Posts

Garth Beyer

Metrics Match The Message

The posts I’ve written that have gained the most traffic in the shortest amount of time were all how-to posts. Going through my archive of more than 1,200 posts, you’ll see I don’t write many of them. Why?

It’s easy to write posts that guarantee a spike in traffic, that have a giant (and often vague)  promise to boost your website analytics.

“How to attract a thousand unique visitors a day” and “How to start a multimillion dollar online business” are great examples of instant traffic posts.

I could write how-to posts every day for the next month and gain more traffic than I have had in the last year, but I don’t. I only write them when I can expand on the meaning of each step, when it’s pure fun for me and when it involves more direction than actual steps (because of reasons here).

Let’s point out that there is another type of post that may have less views, but is far more “successful.” It’s a type of post that gains a lot of attraction over a longer span of time because people are interested more in the story being told than the quick turnaround tips so many ego-centric writers present.

These popular posts are written as evergreen content. Content you can come back to, play off of, learn from again and again. When writing about steps, they are steps that can apply to business, to relationships, to work, to art, to life and so on.

These posts are often work to read and process because they challenge the reader to think differently, to try something new, to push themselves. These posts arn’t so much a read and then click over to my next tab… they are a read and come back again later to read again and think about again and play off of again.

The best art and relationships come from the blog posts, the ideas,  the pieces of work you ship into the world that one person views and then interacts with, not that a thousand people view and don’t interact with.

I ignore the most magnetic posts because they don’t represent the story I’m telling.

 

Stay Positive & Make Sure Your Metrics Match The Message

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Surprises

Garth Beyer

GROUCHO

It’s sort of tacky to start this way, but… everyone loves surprises.* Your friend, your customer, your girlfriend, your client, your dentist – they all love surprises. The reason being is that they know what they are getting from you and giving in return.

The relationship, a dentist, for example, is a simple transaction: give your dentist money, the dentist gives your teeth a cleaning and you some sound advice on how to take care of your teeth.

Then throw in a surprise and see how the relationship changes.

You give your dentist money, the dentist gives your teeth a cleaning, you some sound advice on how to take care of your teeth, and a $25 gift card to Red Mango. Not because you didn’t cry through the fluoride, but because your dentist simply can.

Guess who won’t be changing dentists anytime soon?

If you’ve been won over by a surprise, well, I don’t need to explain why they matter or the personal result of them. If you haven’t been won over by a surprise, go surprise someone and see how the relationship shifts.

Still not sold on surprises? Look at the following two examples.

1. Birthday

2. Birthday surprise

 

Stay Positive & It’s Not Rocket Science**

Garth E. Beyer

*If you’re shaking your head in disagreement, you’ve just had people who don’t really know you try to surprise you. Look at the meaning behind the attempt and not the actual surprise.

**I would argue rocket science is getting much easier to do. Alas, an argument for another day.

Why It’s So Hard To Connect

Garth Beyer

We wear too many accessories. Too much cologne. Too many patches, badges, and pins. We can’t connect using these mediums. Just because you share the same band as someone, doesn’t make you connected. It’s simply a visual effect, a momentary lapse of our barrier.

Look at what you wear, look at your desktop background, look at your Facebook profile. Trying to connect to someone by asking them their “favourites” is like selfishly stating that you’re going to have a ham sandwich two weeks from now. Just because you will, doesn’t mean you will have someone else to eat a ham sandwich with you. There is no connection in it, or in favorites, emblems, and markers.

The stylization of our lives, in comparison with others, is just a way to calculate the possibility of having a better time in the future – it, in no way, guarantees there WILL be a future.

The internet is playing a dictative role in preventing connections. Yes, you read that right. In one sense, on face value, the internet is corrupting the connection (or in many cases, preventing it completely). It allows us to emblematize ourselves and to show our aspirations, but it’s where all talk and no action happens.

The internet has sucked us into what I plainly call, The Search. The internet strives off of us being on it. And when you think about what we search for on the internet, we can Google a question, but we’re not looking for an answer. No. What we are looking for is a connection to the people who are asking the same question and a connection to the people who are answering that question. (Neither of which – the question or the answer – can provide. They are again, merely symbols providing an illusive connection.)

Because of The Search, we’ve been programmed to think that there will always be someone we can “connect” with better. So we ask different questions, search for different answers, IM this person, comment on this post, etc,. We explore the social networks, follow people, “like” pages, and view profiles to see if the person or group will be a suitable match.

And, of course, once we find someone. We begin our search for the next person or group without creating a real connection.

This in turn, plays an effect on our real world, the unplugged world. For years people would advocate that you never settle for anything but the best: in relationships, in friendships, in partnerships, in business, and so on. Now the current trend, the dominating idea in the physical world, is that there is always someone who you can “connect” with on a greater level.

The Search mentality equated with the online world, has now become the mentality of the unplugged world. This leaves us with the reason why it’s so hard to connect with people.

– continuation of post is open for discussion –

 

Stay Positive & Maintain A Positive-Realist Mindset, The Online World Is Not A Utopia

Garth E. Beyer