Processes are difficult. Processes show you’re in it for the long run. Processes are as much branding as branding is a bundle of processes. The more processes the more remarkable. Even the word in plural form is difficult to say. Difficult is good. Difficult isn’t an event. Nor is success.
Stay Positive & Remember Every Process Needs A Purpose
Does responding to complaints, peeves and criticism establish a successful connection? Does it build brand loyalty? Does it lead to a developed friendship. Does it equate to a sure future positive interaction?
A successful connection on social media is when someone shares their dreams, their stories, their hopes and memories and jokes with you. It’s when you can engage in conversation, knowing you’ll converse again in the future. It’s when you look forward to interacting again.
A business who only responds to complaints on social media isn’t building their brand, they’re just keeping it still, stagnant, stationary.
And you know what I say about standing still.
Stay Positive & Suggestion Time
If I tell you how much I hate having helicopter leaves stuck to my car? How can you turn that into a successful connection? Tweet at me @thegarthbox
If Twitter ceased to be and whether or not something new took its place, would your business, your brand be doomed?
If Facebook finally got old, if people quite trusting businesses who use it for sponsoring ads, if millennials ditched it and you were left with the other kind of seniors, would your business, your brand still strive?
If the social media medium you rely most on disappeared tomorrow, would you need to revisit and redo your branding strategy or have you developed a plan that’s medium-versatile?
While there’s no guarantee any of the current social media outlets will dissipate, there is a guarantee that a new one will become hip. It will only serve you success if you build your business, your brand in a versatile, universal, liquid form that can fit the shape of any new social online medium.
Better to build in adaptability than to be swallowed up by the next big thing.
Stay Positive & Be Ready To Ride Any Currant That Comes Your Way
I’m not particular to “what if” situations, but I’ll make an exception here.
What if you looked at all the barriers, all the red tape, all the content creation you have to do to get ranked high on Google search results as a way to challenge yourself, to prove your or/and your business’s value, to exceed expectations the gatekeepers have set for you?
What if, instead of trying to find a loophole in the search engine’s logic, instead of posting ads on craigslist to pay people to click your links, instead of trying to skip ahead in your journey, you play the game and play it better than everyone else who is playing it.
We’re all just about past the age when we are impressed by those who hack in the untraditional aspect. We’re more impressed by those who can hack success while playing by the rules.
Anyway, the system rewards those who stick around for the long run. Rather than cheating or flipping the board over on the winners, why not see if you can get to their level first.
Stay Positive & Do Not Pass Google, Do Not Collect $200 Adsense
“If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.” – Algernon
The Importance of Being Earnest is by far my favorite play. I’ve read it twice and quoted from it multiple times over in my writing. (Also bias in the sense Oscar Wilde is my favorite poet.) I was finally fortunate enough to see a live rendition of it last night, and the show reminded me what makes a play or any artform remarkable.
People never talk about perfection and if they do, they are lying.
From a three hour-long play, only two actors made one mistake each. They merely started a word and, half-way through, restarted the word. There was a millisecond moment they questioned whether the word they were saying was the right word or not.
Again, over the span of three hours and thousands of words, only two moments reminded the audience the actors are human, and those two moments make all the difference in a remarkable show and an unremarkable one.
Jugglers, Actors, Humans
The reason jugglers attract such a crowd is they are in a constant state of risk. Even the most professional jugglers in the world still drop what they are juggling. If jugglers were perfect, no one would be impressed. The same goes for a playwright. The same goes for any form of art.
Slight noticeable errors are what we all relate to; it’s part of being human. When a minimal error is made during an act, it reminds the audience just how difficult, incredible and remarkable the art you’re doing is. As Earnest would suggest, it is mixing pleasure and science.
If anything were perfect entertainment (pleasure), it would go without being talked about. People talk about great experiences, sure, but never perfect ones and if they do, they are lying. (Consider giving them dental floss and reminding them lying through their teeth doesn’t count as flossing.) When an error is made, science complements pleasure.
The universal relation of humans is we may all strive for perfection, but we will never reach it. Any reminder of this concept, say, a slip of a word during a three hour-long play is what makes art of any kind, remarkable.
Stay Positive & Do Something Remarkable, Anything Except Perfection
If I signed up for everything my friends and acquaintances asked me to, I would be spread out, seriously vulnerable and broke. If I gave whenever asked to give, I’d have nothing left to give. Out of time, of money, of resources. I have to say no to people I care about more often than you may think. I’m not necessarily a hard sell. I’m just selfish. I have to be.
For those I say no to, I wish I could help, but I can’t. For those I say no to, let me suggest something new and give you a newsflash. Newsflash first.
Newsflash: You don’t need my help, my tribe, my resources to be successful. You have the power to gather your own tribe and create a strategy for success.
Something new: Do the hard work. Don’t seek out the people who can make your success happen with a wave of their wand and don’t seek people out who you can piggyback off their success. Do the hard work of developing your one page marketing plan, the hard work of seeing it all the way through, the hard work of starting out small and growing over a long period of time.
If you’re not in it for the long run, why are you in it?
Stay Positive & Enjoy The Journey, Really, Enjoy It
In fact, if you go to pitch to a client, they’re likely not to notice if you had two more strategies than planned. What’s the point when you can say quality over quantity?
The thing is there’s so much evidence showing those who do more (without sacrificing quality) succeed faster, grow more, and move forward past those who just do enough. On top of that, the most important judge knows if you did all you could do. That judge is yourself.
Wouldn’t want to get on the judge’s bad side, right?
