Success

You Need A Sexy Website Revamp

Garth Beyer

The design of your site isn’t as important to those who view it as it is to those who provide the content on it.

That’s the truth.

You can have a really ugly website your market audience still uses. You might think it has an extravagantly negative impact on their experience and if you could just have a sexy website revamp, you would attract more customers/readers/clients/subscribers. That’s just not the truth.

An ugly, but usable website doesn’t have that large of a negative impact on a customer (unless well designed websites are what you’re selling).

The real negative impact is on you and the team who stands behind the brand, the business, the blog.

How can you be comfortable publishing a professional and well-thought-out article on a website that looks janky? How confident can you be answering the phone and talking to people who got the number from your hideous website?

Yes, design to a degree matters to your target audience, but never as much as it matters to those contributing content on it.

 

Stay Positive & Your Site Doesn’t Just Showcase Your Brand, It Builds The Confidence Of All Those Behind It

For Some Safe Is A Selling Point

Garth Beyer

It shouldn’t be surprising there are safe products out there (safe, successful ones, mind you ).

Think of a clothing line that doesn’t want to be edgy, trendsetting or risky. Think of a business that has no true uniqueness about them. Consider a service that does nothing more than their competition does. Again, they are still successful. Think Craftsmen or Ford or Lands’ End. Safe is there selling point or so I’ve lead you to think.

The reality of it is you don’t need to take huge marketing risks or product design risks if what you’re selling isn’t the product. Perhaps you’re not really selling anything special. Perhaps you’re simply standing up for something.

Ford stands up for being tough.

TOMS stands up for giving.

Seth Godin stands up for… well, standing up.

If you don’t want to stand out, by all means, stand up for something. Playing things safe for nothing won’t lead you to success, but playing things safe for something larger than yourself will.

 

Stay Positive & What Do You Stand For?

Your Business Is Boring (Or Maybe Just You)

Garth Beyer

Before proceeding, I must note, personally, I never get bored. Bored is a choice, as you will read, whether you’re a business or an individual. I may find myself in a boring environment, but I keep myself entertained. It’s been three years since I said I was bored. Something I’m proud of.

The coffee shop I used to go to daily; it got boring.

The job I have; it’s gone down the hill to boring.

A big client I’m working with right now; the brand is boring. (…reason I have them as a client.)

I quit talking about an old favorite restaurant; boring, boring, boring.

I’ve let more friends I can count on two hands go; they were boring.

Dare I say, you might be boring too.

You might be boring if you’re not learning new tricks of your trade. You’re certainly getting boring if you’re playing things safe. Boring doesn’t just happen. Boring isn’t some sort of natural roadblock on the path to building a successful business. Being boring isn’t a prerequisite for making a breakthrough in the market. Boring is a choice.

You choose to avoid risks and stay in your comfort zone. You choose to remain out of the conversation of friends. You choose to show or, in most cases, hide your personality.

If you’re bored, what do you do? You do just about anything that will make you not feel bored, right? The same goes for customers, for friends, for clients. If you want to lose customers to your competitors (and fast!), be boring.

Do just about anything to not be boring and there’s no way you won’t be talked about, interacted with, referred to. Isn’t that your goal?

 

Stay Positive & If You Don’t Try (Something New), You Will Fail (By Becoming Boring)

Appeal To The Masses, But If That Fails

Garth Beyer

–  Create a gadget for everyone to carry with them.

–  Write a cook book everyone can read.

–  Design a sweatshirt everyone will wear.

–  Build a desk everyone can use.

Good luck… However, if none of those tasks work out and you find yourself incapable of appealing to the masses, perhaps, just perhaps try some of the following:

–  Sketch something only a few may appreciate.

–  Design an app only a few will love.

–  Write a blog only a few will read daily.

–  Build nightstands only a few can get their hands on.

While scarcity practically multiplies your success rate, so does personalization. Make something only a few will love. I’m not sure where anyone got in their minds to be successful you have to appeal to the masses. I’m not even sure why some businesses and individuals make it an end goal.

It also pays to remember you can only stretch yourself out to so many people. Do you think you can appeal to the masses? Better question, do you even want to?

 

Stay Positive & It’s Okay Better If You Don’t

Grow Instead Of Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants

Garth Beyer

What makes you feel a sense of self? Rather, what makes you not question what makes you feel a sense of self? What is it you do that you never regret taking the time to do? What are you okay with failing at?

Is it okay with you to prioritize some other activity over what you’ve just responded with?

We have to take our joy, our pleasure, our passion seriously. We can’t let perfection stand in the way of creating our muse. We can’t let critics steer us on a different path with only their voice. Most importantly, we can’t let ourselves be sold short… by ourselves.

If you’re concerned about time, you’re wrong about what you’re passionate about. The theory of relativity isn’t just something Einstein scientifically proclaimed, it’s something he felt while he worked. Time is relative for everyone, but nearly non-existent when we’re doing what we love.

It needs noting time can become irrelevant when you do many different things, not just one.

The important actions to take are the ones we feel we should, not the ones we think we want. It’s rare, but now and then I feel I should pull out a canvas and my paints to create an ugly piece of art. I do, I lose track of time, and I know nothing will come from my painting endeavors, but in that moment I did what I felt I should do, not sit back in the recliner and play video games, what I think I wanted.

Are you okay with blowing off what you feel you should do? Does it not bug you when you do? Are you ignoring it how you feel when you do, using what you think you should do as an escape from the feeling of what you feel you should do?

So many are. We need to stop.

 

Stay Positive & Sure, Seek Giants Out, But First Become One

 

What Are The Chances

Garth Beyer

The chances are whatever you tell yourself they are.

Most great work never happens because there’s a chance of failure, there’s a chance someone might not like it, there’s a chance no angel will invest in it.

The innate decision to declare what the chances really are to you is what I dub Pulling Wisdom.

When you get your wisdom teeth pulled (it’s now seven hours post-operation for me), before any work is done the surgeon tells you all the risks. He even lays them out to you in a list you have to read and sign off. He says there’s a 10 percent chance of this happening and a 1 percent chance of that happening. You may feel drowsy and some people vomit after.

How is this process (that so many people go through) differ any from launching a new project, starting a business, writing a book, creating a new mobile app?

You can tell yourself there’s a 10 percent chance this particular group of people won’t like your art and a 1 percent chance that you will get an investor to fund everything you dreamed up. You may feel fear along the way, you might fail, and yes, some people vomit after.

Pull out your notes, write out the risks of your venture, state what the chances of this or that happening are and then sign off on it.

There may be people who are more qualified to be a surgeon than you, and I would never suggest you pull your own wisdom teeth out, but no one is better at getting what you want than you. No one is better at turning ideas into actions and actions into art.

The risks are the same for everyone. You just have to sign off on it.

 
Stay Positive & Keep Motivated With Lots Of Iscream Along The Way

The More Different You Get

Garth Beyer

the scarier it gets.

Weekly I sit down and chat with people carrying around bright, innovative minds. They pitch ideas and ask for my feedback. The majority of ideas are similar to ones already in existence. The trouble seems to be in differentiation or finding the hole, the angle, the niche of their idea.

The further away they get in our brainstorming session from what they already know exists (and works! [and is safe!]), the more scared they get and the quicker they dismiss the idea as “not as good of an idea as I thought it was.”

Niches are the creativist’s worst trap. Asking someone how they will differentiate their business is really asking them how much uncertainty and fear they can dance with.

Sometimes I wonder if what you decide to do with your business is not what differentiates you from others, but that you just do something with your business… that is what will differentiate you from others.

 

Stay Positive & Business Isn’t Like Sports, Oddballs Get Picked First