That Swiss army knife is great, it has everything in it, and it can do just about anything — if you don’t happen to have any real tools around. The multi-tool sacrifices the ability to do any one thing great, by trying to do everything. Unfortunately, the same is true of a lot of marketing pieces. Anxiety about not missing anything leads to cramming in every last little thing a company can do, so we overload the copy. We think we’re communicating (and therefore selling) the value of the company, but we’re often just causing confusion. In the end this makes messaging less memorable. Each piece of marketing collateral should be serving a purpose, a particular function within your selling process. Don’t try to make every piece do everything. Instead, try to make each piece effective in its given role, and don’t be afraid to hang your hat on the one thing that your company does best. Otherwise, you may end up with a stack of Swiss army knives and still not be able to hammer in any sales.
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Left Brain + Right Brain = My Blog
This blog is chock full of joyful drawings and a few musings on personal branding, startups, creativity and being a beacon.
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"I adore your doodles... I swear looking at those bunnies lowers my blood pressure, calms my mind and makes me smarter. Who needs meditation when there are bunnies?"
~Caitlín Mowbray - Meditation Teacher, Astrologer and Soul Provocateur
Have a nice day 2.0
A friend of mine has taken to closing his email with statements like “I’m having a great day, because I chose that.” or “Have the day you choose.” At first it struck me as a little bit of a heavy dip into the self-help genre, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I know for myself there have been times when how I chose to react to an event or obstacle made a huge difference in the eventual outcome. My friend’s email salutation helps remind the folks that he interacts with that choosing to take a positive view and to separate stimuli from disposition are habits that we can learn and practice. The more people who put the habit into practice, the better the world becomes. It’s a prosumerist’s “Have a nice day”. And it just might be viral: today my morning status update on Facebook was “David Cohen is choosing to have a great day”, and it may seem corny, but I have to say that typing it in and hitting submit felt pretty darn good. Now here’s the tricky bit – a few moments ago, I had a lousy phone call, and learned some disappointing news. Instead of sulking I decided to write this post, and in doing so I got back into that positive mindset that I felt when I wrote that status update this morning. My great day is back on track – because I chose that. Pass it on.