Weird dreams
Years ago, when I saw the first Will It Blend video, I thought it was a hoot. And I dreamed of one day, perhaps, just maybe, appearing in one.
Well, that day has come. Thanks, George. Nice work, Kels.
The dreaded asterisk
From a recent ad from DWR:
"It’s our Semiannual Sale, which means big savings on our entire assortment, even classics like the Swan Chair (1959) by Arne Jacobsen.*"
Entire. Even.
And then the asterisk.
Which says, "*Exclusions apply."
Whoa. Now what else don’t I trust about you?
The long slide to gone
I drove past a hobby shop yesterday. It’s hard to make out the awning, but it says, "Hobbies, Trains, R/C Models, Coffee, Lottery."
Bit by bit, on each declining day, it became easier to become more average, to add one more item, to sell a few more lottery tickets or another cup of coffee.
And then, the next thing you know, there’s some dusty trains in the back and you’re running a convenience store.
This place, just about every place, has a shot at greatness, at becoming a destination, a place with profits and happiness and growth. Along the way, it’s easy to start compromising your marketing, because it seems like in that moment, it’s expedient.
When this starts happening, the answer is not to do it more. Instead, it’s worth a full stop. Is this what you set out to do? Is compromising everything going to get you to a place that was worth the journey? Wouldn’t it be smarter to just stop selling trains and do something else (lottery tickets, even) but do it really really well.
We spend a lot of time talking about the ends and the means, but it’s also worth considering whether the journey is worth the reward. If you have to compromise what you do just to keep doing it, what’s the point?
Chaos Theory
Shortly after I posted about what you do vs. what you say, Scott sent me this collection of videos shot in high school classrooms.
I’m amazed and saddened by this. These teachers have a serious marketing problem and mostly, these kids are actively sabotaging their education… something many in the world would give up almost anything for. The teachers are busy saying, not doing, and the kids are caught in a terrible loop of disrespect.
The blog asks if cell phone cameras are somehow at fault here. I think there’s a significantly bigger question: what are great teachers and great parents doing to market education that’s clearly not happening in these classrooms? (Skipping over the more important question about what is happening at home that led to this in the first place).
Education is largely handmade, not mass produced. That makes it difficult to share best practices and to figure out how to turn mediocre classrooms into great ones. Maybe, just maybe, video of the best teaching will do as much to encourage some teachers as the cell phone video does to discourage the rest of us.
Watching and listening
More than anything else, I think prospects, customers and citizens watch what you do more than they listen to what you say.
Pat has a few more thoughts on what customers want.
The forces of mediocrity
Maybe it should be, "the forces for mediocrity"…
There’s a myth that all you need to do is outline your vision and prove it’s right—then, quite suddenly, people will line up and support you.
In fact, the opposite is true. Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths… whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it’s over.
If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it’s unlikely it would be worth the journey. Persist.
1000 true fans
This is Kevin Kelly’s best riff of the year, and that’s saying an enormous amount. Go read it!
Some people will read this and immediately understand. Others will read it and start waffling over the meaning of “true.” My expansion: you need to alter what you do and how you do it so that 1,000 true fans is sufficient to make you very happy.
Apparently, I invented the Everything Bagel
Go figure.
Today’s New Yorker reports that Dave Gussin invented the everything bagel in 1980.
Unfortunately for Dave, I worked in a bagel factory in 1977. I broke my finger and was almost killed (really) by a giant bagel mixer. Long, sad, noisy story.
When I wasn’t injured, I was busy baking bagels. Including the everything bagel. (We also made blueberry bagels, which are as bad as you imagine that they are, and green ones for St. Patrick’s Day). Since it’s being reported on the Internet, it must be true. Thank me the next time you’ve got seeds stuck in your teeth.
[For the avoidance of doubt, the purpose of this post wasn’t to claim that I invented the everything bagel. I did not, and didn’t mean to imply that I did. It was to point out that sometimes fact checkers get it wrong, and when common things are invented, they’re usually invented in many many places by many people. I’ve confirmed that the shop where I worked served everything bagels from the start. I was an early employee, but they pre-dated me. They probably pre-dated my grandfather, actually.]
How do I persuade you?
Do I show you a powerpoint filled with bullets?
Or give you a spirited sales pitch while looking you in the eye…
Perhaps I should send a very attractive salesperson.
Do I amplify my word of mouth and be sure you hear about my idea from three people you trust?
Do I minimize fear or maximize gain?
Are you best persuaded in a group, surrounded by your boss or your employees or your family or people you trust? Will it matter if those around you give me a standing ovation?
Can I persuade you over time, drip, drip, drip, or do you respond better if you feel an avalanche is coming?
Will you change your mind if I’m funny? Or if I scare you to pieces?
Perhaps there’s no way you’ll be persuaded. Perhaps nothing I can say will make a difference. However, you’ve told yourself that before and been wrong…
Will you buy if you get a discount? What if the price is high and going up tomorrow?
Do you want to be the first person to embrace an idea (or the last)?
Here’s the thing: unlike every other species, human beings make decisions differently from one another. And the thing that persuades you is unlikely to be the thing that persuades the next guy. Our personal outlook is a lousy indicator of what works for anyone else.