Seth Godin has a great post
about how the people around you
influence you.
I love this bit.
“The crowd has more influence on us
than we have on the crowd.
It’s not an accident that
breakthroughs in music, architecture,
software, athletics,
fashion and cuisine
come in bunches,
often geographic.”
This is why
the number one advice
I give to new writers
is to join a writing organization.
Surround yourself with the people
you want to be.
We often see entrepreneurs
who ‘do it all.’
Doing it all is possible.
Doing it all well
by yourself
isn’t.
Currently, my house is a mess.
The floors haven’t been swept
in months.
After 15 years in the house,
we still have primer (not paint) on the walls.
This is a conscious choice.
Spending time to clean
isn’t a priority.
I’m concentrating on
building the writing business,
and on my family.
Spending money to outsource
the cleaning
isn’t a priority either.
I’m choosing to spend the money
on businesses.
And that’s okay.
I’m fine (not happy but fine)
with the dirty house.
Because I’ve made the choice.
Accept that you might not do it all,
at least not now,
while you’re building your career or business.
Before I start writing every morning,
I state my goal for the day
and I translate that goal into dollars.
This gives me an extra push
to perform.
It turns out
that the money reminder
should work for everyone.
Oliver Broudy shares
in the September 2012 Men’s Health
“In studies from the University of Minnesota,
researchers found that
just seeing a picture of money
jerked our brains into Wall Street mode,
ramping up our math memory
and priming us to keep our eyes
on the prize.
In fact, on a sluggish morning,
the sight of a crisp fifty can be as motivating
as a blast of caffeine.
In a 2006 experiment,
for example,
people reminded of money
worked 70 percent longer at an assigned task
than a control group did.
And a follow-up study found
that the effect extends to the social sphere,
boosting our confidence
and immunizing us against the pain of rejection.”
Use the power of money
to drive you toward your goals.
A loved one
is always talking about
wanting to be at the top of his game.
The thing is…
he doesn’t want to do the work
to get there.
Sure, he works hard
but he doesn’t work
at the top of his game
hard.
He doesn’t invest weekends
or evenings.
He doesn’t hustle.
He doesn’t love his game enough
and want success enough
to do the work.
If I can see that,
everyone around him
must see it too.
If you want it,
TRULY want it,
you’ll work your ass off for it.
Facts often reassure the hesitant buyer.
However, if you’re targeting the impulsive buyer,
facts can hurt your sale.
As Clint Carter shares
“In a UCLA-George Washington University
brain-scan study last year,
ads touting specific product attributes
– facts, figures, or specific claims
– activated key decision-making brain regions,
including the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex.
Ads that avoided product attributes
and focused instead on sexual imagery or narrative
and other emotional triggers
led to significantly less activation
of the rational thought centers.
“When marketing bypasses
these parts of the brain,
you’re more likely to make impulsive decisions,”
says study author Clay Warren, Ph.D.”*
Know your target buyer
and refine your marketing/sales pitch to appeal
to that buyer.
*June 2012 Men’s Health
Insecure prospects are less likely
to buy.
So how do you reassure your prospects?
You box them in.
Clint Carter
with Martin Lindstrom,
author of Brandwashed,
share
“Instead of hanging on racks,
most of the shirts and pants are tucked
into wooden cubes
that look like grade-school cubbies.
“The more insecure we are
and the less we complete things
in our daily lives,
the more we like things to be boxed in,”
says Lindstrom.
Research from the University of Pennsylvania
backs him up:
People who felt the least control
over their surroundings
were more attracted to images and logos
bound by heavy borders.”*
Can you put your product in a box?
Can you put a border around that presentation?
*June 2012 Men’s Health
I didn’t watch Wednesday’s Presidential Debate
but I’ve heard from both parties
that Mitt Romney ‘won’ the debate.
Well… that’s what I heard
on the TV newscasts.
On social media,
I heard that
Mitt Romney wants to kill Big Bird.
I heard that
little kids are writing letters
to try to save Big Bird.
I heard that
kids are coming home from school
in tears
because a bad man wants
to kill their big yellow friend.
Who truly ‘won’ the debate
(or in this case, lost it)?
What are people going to remember
in one month
– Mitt Romney’s strong showing
or that he wants to kill Big Bird?
BTW… the biggest lesson from the debate
is to frame spending cuts as impersonally as possible.
Don’t mention that one of those jobs you’ll cut
belongs to a beloved employee.
In this case
you simply state you’re cutting funding to PBS
and you DON’T mention Big Bird.
Kenny Chesney is one
of the most successful performers in country music
He has sold over 30 million records
and has played over 70 stadium shows
(as big as a performer can get).
His concerts have
a Jimmy Buffett island living easy-going feel
but behind the scenes,
Kenny Chesney is anything but.
There are a couple of reasons
why he is so successful.
“One, I”m a little bit of a control freak.
Two, I’m a whole lot of workaholic.
If the catering sucks, whatever,
it reflects on me
because I pay for it.
That’s why.”*
That easy living persona
is branding.
Great branding doesn’t happen
without a lot of thought and work.
*June 12 Men’s Health
When I worked for a big beverage company,
the owner of one of the top brands
in the world,
we were given a powerpoint template
every year.
This heavily branded template
was to be used for all presentations.
ALL presentations
for the entire year.
This ensured that every presentation
a sales person gave to a client
was properly branded.
In contrast, I saw a presentation
from another large company yesterday.
Their brand didn’t appear anywhere
on the presentation.
I found it… unnerving.
I deal with big brands
because I like the reassurance of the brand.
Don’t leave branding to chance.
Develop a common powerpoint template
and ensure everyone uses it,
internally and externally.
Cascade’s current Tug Of War commercial
irritates the hell out of me.
In this commercial,
the male insists
muffin tins don’t have to be pre-scrubbed.
The female insists
they do.
A kitchen counselor arrives to determine
who is right.
Who cares?
The person who is right
isn’t always the person
who should win the argument.
For the time cost of pre-scrubbing a tin
(which would have taken
less time than their argument),
he proved he was right
but he also risked his relationship.
Unless he foresees daily muffin tin washing
or he doesn’t care about the relationship,
the price of being right seems way too high.
And in an argument,
there is ALWAYS a price to being right.
Make certain the rewards are worth that price.