Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
Clients? Members? Customers? Friends? Bypassers? Fans? Impulse buyers?
The people you interact with for business success. What do you refer to them as?
The answer gives me insight into your business model. Changing the answer, then, means changing your business model, and, by extension, your level of success. Chris Brogan has friends. Seth Godin has members. Edelman has clients. The Blackhawks have fans.
Stay Positive & People Foremost Love Being Friends And Members
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‘What’s missing?’ isn’t specific enough. The real question you’re looking for is ‘what connection is missing?’
You don’t lack ideas. You lack your connection with those who have them. Perhaps a special dinner is in order.
You don’t lack courage. You lack connections with those who dance with fear. Perhaps a summer seminar is in order.
You don’t lack resources, hope, business skills or a precondition for taking risks. You lack the connections.
I don’t believe in inabilities. You are the sum of all of your connections.
Stay Positive & Go Build Your Tribe And Tell Me Your Goal Still Can’t Be Achieved
There are people in the water swimming in place, waiting for a boat they want to climb in.
It’s your responsibility to build that boat.
Stay Positive & Go Find Yourself A Crew
Garth E. Beyer
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I’m guilty.
Being a millennial, I have to accept a sliver of the blame for the continuous downfall of the music industry. However, going into the world of journalism, print media, and digital PR, I hope to apply what I learned from the downfall of the music industry so that other media industries can adapt and overcome.
I am not applying what I have learned to specifically save any piece of a media industry. No. I am aiming to create a new business model for them to adapt and prosper with. I’ve understood a few factors that I think other media industries can learn from the music industry to help them progress through the 21st century.
The first is that there is a lack of great music which often gets confused with “commercial.” You can find great music all day every day, there is evidently a surplus. That’s because so many musicians try to be great in the commercial sense. When really, when a musician releases music that is remarkable, worth talking about and passing to a friend, then you have great music. Other media industries need to realize what it is that gets talked about. Is it the products they create for the mass, the commercial, the revenue? Or is it the products they create for the passionate individual, the human inquirer, and the loud mouth?
A second factor involves looking at how musicians are making their money, not how the music industry is making money. Most musicians make little to nothing from selling CD’s, selling their work on iTunes, or any other form of technological distribution. They make their money from playing at venues, going on tour, collaborating with other musicians to play at a huge festival, and asking for direct donations from fans (most recently utilizing Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sources which I call devotedfanfunding). They don’t sell music anymore, they sell an experience. Once other media industries realize that producing content isn’t what will get them to survive, we may see them pick up and push forward, refusing to meet the same demise of the music industry.
The last variable is built from the previous experience concept. Other media industries must focus either on an individual or small group of like-minded individuals, tribes. You can no longer market to the mass; it’s proven ineffective, especially in the music industry. Think about all the music that is out there, presented to billions of people, yet the music industry is still crumbling. The factions of the music industry that are prospering are those groups which have faithful fans. People come together to connect with other fans, synchronously sing the lyrics, and exchange what next event of the musicians they will be going to. It’s the tribes that are keeping the music industry alive, shifting, and possibly raising it back on its feet.
Other media industries need to realize these paramount shifts, these core variables if they wish to keep their industry going.
It’s not about getting clothes clean anymore, every detergent does it.
What makes you choose one detergent over the other?
Who has heard about the lizard brain? No one? Well I’ll have to change that.
The lizard brain is what makes us not do what we say we are going to do. It’s what stops us from checking tasks off our to-do list, it stops us from writing the book we want, stops us from sending that application in, it stops us from living a meaningful, adventurous, exciting life. The lizard brain can also be referred to as the Amygdala, the part of our brain which registers fear. This fear has a voice and it tells us to compromise, to play it safe, to stay where we are comfortable. This reference to the lizard brain was coined by Seth Godin, author, marketer, and revolutionary starter.
During this mass media age, I believe Seth Godin to be one of the most insightful and helpful authors to us digital natives. Seth Godin has written more than 14 books that have all been best sellers and translated into over 30 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. Even if a five-mile wide meteor struck the earth today, you could still say that Seth Godin has made a larger impact on society.
You may think this author is important because you imagine him to be the motivating type. He is no more motivating than a rock. He is however a person who can bring you to understand why you do what you do, rather, why you don’t do what you don’t do. He explains in his most infamous book, Linchpin¸how the closer you get to delivering something, to accomplishment, to taking a risk, the harder the lizard brain works to stop you. This ability, to make us aware, is what makes Seth Godin so important.
If it’s not clear already, Seth is an idol of mine. Heck, I flew out to New York to see him and wrote about that experience here. Seth has taught me how to build a tribe, inspired me to keep shipping, and has helped me realize the inner workings of my brain and ego in such a simplistic manner. I continue to read his books and build off his ideas and will do my absolute best to get a one-on-one interview with him over the holidays because I am planning a trip to NYC. I truly owe it to Seth for getting me to where I am today. (HT to Seth Godin)
Side note: If anyone has someone they can introduce me to through email/phone/person that either lives in New York or has other contacts in New York, I would greatly appreciate it. I plan on spending the summer in New York to find an opportunity to become more of a writer and to connect with some of the most brilliant minded people. Michelle being one of them, she’s something special! Thank you!
Stay Positive & People Help People, Who Help People, Who Help Other People, Who Help More People …
Garth E. Beyer
I have never seen or heard of these until I went to Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event and had one.
Then I had another, this time the milk chocolate kind, as opposed to the dark chocolate.
Then I had another, the same day within a span of four hours.
Then I grabbed two more and put them in my journey bag, I gave a third one to someone else and grabbed a fourth to eat while I grabbed a fifth one to eat on my way out of the event after I finished the one I was holding.
I then presumed to eat the two that I stored in my journey bag throughout the evening. Note: By “one” I mean the two chocolate peanut butter cups in the “one” package.
Total: 16
Depressing? I could fight and say they were organic although it doesn’t help my case too well. (More on organic in a moment)
To say they are delicious is an understatment which is something people often say about Reece’s peanut butter cups.
However, to say that Reece’s peanut butter cups are the most delicious ones in the world would be half-true. (As is the case for Justins) They are the best if you ask the niche audience that they are marketed to and consumed by.
Whereas, if you ask the niche group Justins markets to, they would say Justins chocolate peanut butter cups are the best.
What I’ve learned about products, not just chocolate peanut butter cups is that:
1. You can always improve but what you can improve on may not be exactly the product itself, the chocolate. It may be the shipment, how the ingredients are grown, the graphics of the wrapper, the mission statement on the box or in this case, the audience you are targeting.
2. All in all, precision meets profit. You can always find a niche market to make a profit, especially in organics. In other words, there is always a way to make it different for that special tribe who likes it that way.
Justin’s chocolate does just that. They reach out to the audience who doesn’t buy just cheap chocolate.
Afterall, for some people, going big means buying not just buying any kind of chocolate. If they are going to go big buying chocolate, they are going to spend an extra 40 cents or a dollar for the good chocolate, the rich chocolate, the organic chocolate, the chocolate that makes them feel they are benefiting the world by eating.
This is a small niche audience and Justins makes their chocolate different so it’s target is precise.
Stay Positive & Thought It Was Worth Sharing
Garth E. Beyer
Is there something you have had too much of?
