In my years a copywriter, I’ve never had a business card before. Never saw the need for one.
But recently, I started doing more face-to-face networking in and around Chicago, so I figured I needed something to give to the people I meet.
The above is my first attempt. Yes, I designed it myself.
I’ve love to hear your feedback. (I’ve already heard some great tips from my pal Wayne Buckhanan).
Thanks!
“It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.” – Jim Rohn
The economy is front, middle and back page news these days. Debt ceilings, the declining dollar and defaults are all we keep hearing about.
And lets face it; the economy is in shambles. Experts across the country and around the globe are saying that a crisis is unavoidable at this stage.
Now I’m no economics expert, but I’m forced to concur.
The truth is, you and I can’t do much about America’s economy as a whole. The problem is just too big.
I’m not saying that to convince you to throw up you hands and take a fatalistic mentality. Quite the contrary. Any good coach will tell you not to get caught up in things you have no control over, but to focus on what you can control.
So here’s the question that really matters: how’s YOUR economy?
You can get bogged down about the macroeconomic situation, but you should be more worried about protecting your personal microeconomy.
2011 has been my most profitable year yet as a copywriter. While so many of my colleagues are complaining about taking a hit, having difficulty finding gigs. On the other hand, right now, I have a waiting list for clients who want to work with me.
I’m not saying that to brag, believe me. I bring it up because if I can do it, so can you.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t give you a few insights into why my economy is not currently reflecting what we’re seeing in the economy at large.
1.) I’m continuing to give. So many businesses are clenching their fists, holding back what they could be sharing, for fear of being ripped off. Or, instead of taking the time to nurture leads and develop relationships, they are rushing the selling process.
Give as much value as you can. Giving information (in a strategic fashion) will firmly establish you as an expert, as an individual or business that cares about it’s customers and communities.
2.) Positioning. Don’t get caught in the death spiral of commoditization. You absolutely must be unique, especially during a downturn like we’re facing now. If your competitors can honestly make the same claims that you make about your business, you can only compete with them on price. You don’t really want to do that, do you?
Find your own unique selling proposition/competitive advantage and make sure your target audience knows why you’re a smarter choice than the other guy.
3.) Don’t react in fear. Define a plan of attack and be proactive. What do you want to achieve? Who do you want to work with? What account are you aiming for? What do you have to do to get it?
Fear is killing your competitors.
Remember: “The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.” (George Bernard Shaw)
4.) Find out what your audience wants and help them get it.
5.) Don’t be afraid to negotiate confidently.
By all means, seek to understand the big picture. But also understand that no matter what the economy at large is like, there are always some people who are winning. Put yourself in a place to be one of the victors.
Education has never been more important than it is at this moment. Your parents always told you to get your education. Every year your teachers prepared and encouraged you to continue down the path to higher levels education.
Repeat: education is more important now than it has ever been. But not for the reasons that have been drilled into your mind.
I was watching television the other afternoon during one of my rare couch-potato moments. My brilliant wife pointed out that there was an advertisement for a college or university during every commercial break. Apparently getting a degree is big business these days.
The lessons you learn when you understand what’s really going on here can transform your business.
Let’s get right to the point, shall we? Here are 4 crucial insights:
1. People value education. But why? Do they want to know more for the sake of knowing more? Of course not! People want to learn so they can get what they want. More. Faster. More easily.
Why does anyone go to college? If this were Family Feud, the number one answer would be “To get a good job.” Simply put, people seek educations to get what they want in life.
2. Schools are rarely short on students. Good schools have people fighting to get in.
3. Some of the most trusted individuals in any community are its teachers. Professors are acknowledged experts in their fields.
4. Educators shape the way their students understand the world.
Now, I’m not telling you to go back to school. In fact, I believe the way the modern school system is structured is radically flawed.
Can you see how the 4 lessons above can apply to your business?
I’ll say it one more time: education is more important than ever. Your potential customers are constantly looking for information. Why? So they can get what they want. More. Faster. More easily.
How do you differentiate yourself from the competition? Better yet, how do you rise above the rest of the pack to become, not the best, but the only person your prospects want to deal with?
The most powerful way to accomplish this feat is to become the educator in your niche. Establish the University of You!
By setting yourself or your company up as the source of quality information and/or training, you have gained all the advantages that Harvard or Yale have. You are the expert. Trust is easier to gain, even from skeptics, because of the credibility you’ve built. Your “marketshare” of people seeking knowledge in your field will increase naturally and dramatically.
And you will have the opportunity to really influence the people you communicate with. Think about it— who has had a greater impact on your life, a teacher/mentor or a salesperson? (Not to diminish the importance of selling!)
There are more benefits to educating your prospects than can be covered here. If you’re ready to start reaping those benefits, consider the “Ivy League” approach to doing business. No degree is required. Just start taking action today.
While I’m posting social media conversations on my blog, here’s a few tweets that I exchanged with a guy I follow yesterday:
IJR: The world has become such a easy place to market to; sell them lies and they will buy it… Give them truth and they will shun it…
Sell them lies: Diet pills, shakes, body braces, etc and they will buy… Sell them truth: More vegs + exercise and they will shun it
Me: it’s not necessarily truth they shun. It’s WORK.
The world is so easy to market to, not because people buy lies (although they do), but because they want ease.
That’s why grown men buy clip-on ties, why most of us don’t cook food from scratch. Make life easier & marketing gets easier
—–
Marketers and salespeople can use deception to get sales, no doubt about it. A lot of people do. It’s a bad idea, but it can work in the short-term…
For that reason, a large percentage of us automatically distrust salespeople and think of advertisements as mostly fantasy (or at least puffery).
But truth sells, too. It’s a little harder to dig out truth than to make up stories, but truth-telling is a much more intelligent, more sustainable business model.
“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”
So goes the basic introduction into what’s commonly known as the butterfly effect.
Taken from the title of a paper written by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in 1972, the concept has gained significant popularity and made in impact in our culture.
Aside from movies and books, you’ve probably heard discussions about the butterfly effect in one of two arenas: personal development or in business improvement.
Despite all that you think you may know about the phenomenon, chances are that you have probably been misinformed.
You’ve been taught, to summarize, that the butterfly effect speaks to the reality that one tiny change has the potential to create massive change. Even the flapping of an insect’s wing can unleash the power of a tornado.
The application is that small improvements you make in your life and business can create tremendous, life-changing results.
A more accurate term for this truth is kaizen, which literally means “continuous improvement.” Seemingly insignificant but continual incremental advancement in your work has a compounding effect and will create much larger development. Always getting better, little by little, turns good into great.
The butterfly effect is an expression of chaos theory, and the end results are not at all related to those you can expect by putting kaizen into practice.
Sowing Seeds
You don’t have to be a farmer to understand the law of sowing and reaping. Plant a seed, get a harvest.
Tend to the soil and enhance the environmental conditions, and you’ll reap an even more impressive harvest.
This agricultural axiom is proven to work and relied upon around the world to produce most of the food we eat.
It may not have been clear before, but these two concepts are not the same. They’re not even really related. Let’s make some comparisons.
1) The butterfly effect, by definition, is extremely unpredictable. A beautiful butterfly in South America is depicted as being capable of affecting disastrous weather on another continent.
Small changes can create much different outcomes, but there’s no real way to know what those outcomes will look like. An extra handshake after a meeting could win a new account for your company, or it could set off a series of events that cause a stock market crash. You can guess what will happen in terms of probabilities, but you can’t know for sure.
As we’ve noted, we’re delving into chaos theory here, which boils down to a mathematical attempt to describe the unknowable.
On the other hand, the law of sowing and reaping is highly predictable. Planting tulip seeds will produce tulip plants.
2) Rightly understood, the butterfly effect is completely out of our control to initiate, improve or direct. Every move you make causes a change in the atmosphere akin to the flapping of the butterfly’s wings. And every other creature on the planet has the same effect on you. Again, the results are random and irreversible.
While this may be how the universe actually works, the butterfly effect is not something you can invoke to “manifest your desires.” You have no capability to interact purposefully with this process.
Sowing and reaping is the opposite. The farmer decides what seeds will be planted, you can fertilize, water, increase exposure to sunlight, etc., to impact how the seed will grow. The plant can be uprooted and moved, or chopped down and destroyed. That’s the prerogative of the sower.
3) The butterfly effect is a scientific/mathematical term, but when it’s discussed in personal development conversations, the tone is more metaphysical or mystical. Positive thinking on steroids.
The law of sowing and reaping is a verifiable scientific fact. Easy to understand and apply.
Which seems to be more worthy of your attention?
Bottom Line
While imprecise use of terminology in this case may not have major detrimental effects on success in business, fuzzy thinking does.
By all means, make incremental improvements in yourself and your work. Compound your efforts and success, and think positive thoughts. Little things do have big potential.
But always seek to understand the ideas that you’re buying into. Clearly defining vocabulary is always a winning proposition. You may find that you’ve been making statements (or agreeing with the statements of others) that you’d actually disagree with if you clarified the language.
If you still think you can rely on the butterfly effect to create the success you’re looking for (like in those time travel stories), you may still have some thinking to do on the matter.
Stick with what’s proven. Start planting some seeds, and take care of the ones you’ve already put in the ground.
Focus is an essential element for success in business.
What do you NOT do in order to become even better at what you DO do?
Is your laser-focus on what matters in your business forcing you to abandon superfluous projects and pursuits?
Take a look at my latest article on the Evolution blog, “Who I Am Not.” Understanding and embracing who you are not, what your business is not, and who your customers are not will transform everything.
Change your perspective, change your approach, change your results.
I think I’m in the wrong business…
These guys are selling $2 bills for ten bucks!
I’m not going to talk about the 9/11 World Trade Center “bombing” or “conspiracy” (at least not today). Nor will I address quantitative easing, hyper-inflation or the plummeting value of the American dollar.
I just want to briefly talk about selling $4 worth of money for $10.
Do you believe someone is getting the short end of the stick in this deal? Is someone ripping someone off?
The fact is that this is a mutually profitable transaction for everyone. Both the company selling the bills and those who buy them are getting what they want. The sellers are creating revenue and the buyers are getting commemorative collectibles.
I think everyone knows what they’re getting into in this deal. It’s not like the older brother tricking the younger sibling into trading her dirty, dull quarter for his shiny new penny. Those who make this purchase know they’re paying 2.5 times more than the monetary value of the product.
And they’re happy to do it.
Good copywriters and marketers have been said to “sell money at a discount” to their clients. But I gotta admit, selling NEW money at a marked-up price is somewhat new to me.
Knowing and embracing your identity is a major aspect of achieving real success. As a matter of fact, understanding who you are, as a human being or as a business, may be the most important step you can take to make sure that you experience success on your own terms. (If being a millionaire is not one of your goals, people may look at you as successful, but that’s someone else’s definition).
If knowing who you are is essential to getting what you want in life, the other side of the coin is acknowledging and accepting who you aren’t. You may not think about it very frequently, but it is something you need to consider. With that in mind, let’s consider this idea from three angles: recognizing 1) who you are not, 2) what your business is not, and 3) who your customers are not. Then acting accordingly.
“It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.” – Og Mandino
You’ve probably heard one piece advice more than any other over the course of your life. “Be yourself.” Your parents, teachers and good friends have probably said it on numerous occasions to keep you on the right track. It never gets less true or becomes less valuable.
In the context of this discussion, we can rephrase the statement. Don’t be anyone other than yourself.
Know your goals and aspirations. Don’t be afraid to chase after them or pay high prices to attain them. I’ve said it before, and I think it’s apropos: dreams are never too expensive.
Know your values and morals. Adhere to them no matter what, and be bold in standing up for what you believe. Yes, it will cost you, but integrity is worth it every time. Don’t bow down to pressure to conform to anything that violates your conscience.
Remember that being a copycat is usually a bad idea. Modeling exemplary people is fine, but never surrender your individuality. You are one of a kind.
“When a man’s undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once.
“Many a fortune has slipped through a man’s fingers because he was engaged in too many occupations at a time.”
These are the words of legendary showman P.T. Barnum (from his booklet The Art of Money-Getting). Smart guy.
Think about this: Ferrari doesn’t make family cars. They’re not trying to either. They just make the world’s most iconic sports cars.
Apple is not Microsoft. Neither is Google. Each company likes it that way.
Whether it is explicit (like Whole Foods– no un-wholesome food) or implied, what your business is not matters. What you don’t do makes a difference. This is true for a few reasons.
1) Taking a strong stand for something you’re against will put you on the same “team” as others people with the same opinion. They will more readily relate with you, like you and buy from you.
2) Deciding what you don’t or won’t do will make you a specialist. Being great at one thing or in one area is almost always better (and more profitable) than being decent at several things. Like the brain surgeon. General practitioners are well-paid and highly skilled, but the neurosurgeon can become world-renowned, in-demand and can earn far more than his less specializing peers. Specialists are in a class of their own.
All because they don’t do everything. The key word here is focus.
3) Choosing what you don’t do protects you from wasting time. There are things that you don’t want to do, or don’t do well. Why waste time talking about them with prospective clients? Do you really want to spend your time and energy working something where your results will be less than your best work?
This is very true for me. I am not an artist, graphic designer or HTML expert. It’s good that I know that. I have the can either learn these skills, or avoid situations where they are part of the deal.
It’s also good for potential clients to know, so they don’t have the wrong impression. They can save time knowing that I am not the best choice for every job. I know where I’m gifted, and I’m aware of my limitations.
Your business will see amazing benefits by knowing and making known what you are not and what you abstain from doing.
Knowing who you customers are not is huge when it comes to providing them with products and services that they want and need. It will help keep you from creating products that flop. You hear that the foundation of marketing is knowing your customers. Understanding who they are not has great advantages.
Lifetime is “Television for Women.” They know the majority viewers are not men. They don’t try to speak to men. The shows, movies and whatever the heck else they provide is designed for adult women. Similarly, the commercials that run on that channel are designed for female buyers. The people who make the commercials and buy the advertising time slots know who’s watching, too.
When your business is what it is, and isn’t what it isn’t, that fact alone will go along way in determining who your customers are not. You’ll still have to look deeper to find out more. The better you understand your market, the better you’ll be able to serve them. The better you serve them, the greater success you’ll have.
You can think about your target customer in terms of gender (like Lifetime), age (do they still sell Sixteen magazine?), economic status (Rolex and Walmart), and a great number of other distinctives.
Getting to know what your customers are not is part of getting to know them. How well do you know the people you want to sell to?
Succeeding in business is difficult when you’re shooting in the dark. Flip on the light switch by getting in touch with your prospects and customers.
Who told Aesop that “slow and steady wins the race?” Furthermore, why do we repeat this cliché as if it makes any practical sense?
Sure, we dress it up to sound nice. We try to make a point by telling a cute story about a tortoise and a hare. But in the real world — you know, the one that we grown ups live in — this statement is only a half true.
How many races do you know of in which “slow” wins? Steady, sure. But slow? I can’t see it.
What if the rabbit didn’t get cocky and take that nap? The turtle would have had his shell handed to him in that race.
Fast and steady makes a lot more sense.
How many of Aesop’s other fables do you suppose have hidden kernals of untruth lurking in them?
There has been some great feedback on my post “5 Judo Moves Every Copywriter Should Know.” If you haven’t read it, please do so. I’m more than 99% sure you’ll be able to get at least one benefit from it.
So, how ’bout a sixth move to add to your judo repertoire?
Ancient Roman poet Ovid said that “Nothing is stronger than habit.” George Santayana is quoted as saying “Habit is stronger than reason.”
So, if you can attach your product or service to a habit that exists in your marketing, you have a tremendous advantage: there’s a force of nature working on your behalf!
For example, you don’t see most cigarette lighter manufacturers do much advertising. They don’t really need to. They’ve attached their product to a habit/addiction. Smokers are going to smoke, and they need matches or lighter to make that happen. All a company has to do is put lighters where smokers can see them, and they’ll sell.
On the other hand, there are companies that create habits around their products or services. What percentage of people buy the same toothpaste every time, without even thinking about it? I bet it’s a pretty high number.
A researcher at Duke University published a paper in 2006 which found that over 40% of the activities we perform every day are habits, not conscious decisions. We’re not nearly as analytical and rational as we like to think we are!
Can you think of any ways you can use the force of habit as one of your best salesmen?