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Make your mission a part of your messaging.
You set the altitude of your mission statement. 'Have A Nice Day' is a mission statement, but so is 'Shit Happens.' The most profound mission statements are often the most simple. You've seen a great one on every map. 'You Are Here.' That's a mission statement, too. What's great about sharing a powerful mission is how advocates and champions come to support you. When you stand for something, you can become the channel for others to achieve their own [...]
Storytelling + Statistics = Case Study Formula
When I was waiting tables, I had a mnemonic trick I used to remember everyone's order without writing anything down: I would imagine their dish on top of their head. Halfway through a big round table of a dozen people, someone would say, 'Can you remember all of this, without writing it down?' and I cheerfully told them that I could remember everything, which earned me lots of tips. I remembered complicated drinks, side orders, and ingredient substitutions by [...]
‘Freelancing’ once meant ‘sword for hire.’
A 'freelancer' is literally a professional mercenary. Some kings and queens of the realm have their own sworn knights to fight for them in the joust. Other lords and ladies, and especially the rich merchants who want to set foot in court, have to rely on mercenary muscle. The 'free-lance' was a knight without colors in medieval times. For a price, you could hire this free-lancer to joust in your honor, and a victory would mean increased prestige for [...]
Writing your Anchor Brand Content
The human attention span is less than a goldfish. 8 to 12 seconds. That's how long we have, before we get distracted by something else. This isn't surprising, in a world where we are exposed to an average of 5000 advertisements every day. We have to be selective with our attention, just to handle the volume of demands. That's why it's so important to get to the point. Creating your Anchor Brand Content gives you a solid place to [...]
Spoiler alert: no blood in this unboxing video
Every newsletter I send begins with a Text Expander Snippet. I type ;hey into ConvertKit, and what comes out looks like this: { % if subscriber.first_name != blank % }Hello { { subscriber.first_name } },{ % else % }Hello my friend,{ % endif % } (If I know your first name, I tell you hello; if not, it says 'Hello my friend') Text Expander is one of those handy productivity tools that saves me tiny bits of time, multiples [...]
Questions for Virtual Speed Networking
I recently hosted a Virtual Speed Networking event in Bramble.live, an interactive virtual event platform. Here are some of the questions that participants asked each other in 5-minute speed networking sessions: What are you working on right now that's got you excited? If you could have anyone as your dinner guest, living or dead, who would you pick, and why? What is something you do to keep yourself balanced? What would your best friend say is your greatest quality? [...]