Love What You Do, Do What You Love- Part 1

Learn to Make Awesome Mistakes. How I wish this were a real course and how I wish you could sign up today.

If I could teach you how to make glorious mistakes, it would help you keep the spark in your business. It would keep you from stagnation. It would keep your business from becoming moldy. Those who say, “I will only try it if I know I can succeed,” will never succeed. Because making mistakes is the only way to success.

February is a month filled with passion. If a face can launch a thousand ships, then surely entrepreneurial passion has launched several thousand ventures. Entrepreneurs fuel their fires with the stuff. It is discussed in myriads of blog posts, and for good reason. Because if you have a business fueled with passion, that means that you are doing what you love for a living. Anyone can fall in love with that idea.

But if you are doing the same thing day after day, how do you keep it fresh? Things can get, well–so daily. For both lovers and entrepreneurs, it is the daily grind that wears the passion into the ground. And then there is all the other stuff. Running a small business is so much harder than anyone dreams it would ever be.

All this month we will be discussing ways to find joy the journey, even while you are working your tail off. Which brings us to Part 1 of this month’s series. Please open your Successful Entrepreneur Kit. You will notice that Mistakes come awkwardly juxtapositioned inside your Kit.

You will also notice that the first manual is called, “The Plan”. Table stakes. Every entrepreneur knows the value of planning. And every entrepreneur understands the peril. We secretly know the actual performance of the best and brightest minds rarely line up with the planned performance. So why do we plan? Because it provides a trajectory. It provides a destination. The margin of error means that most of us are exploring new territory every day. And that means that most of us are going to be making mistakes. Big ones.

We are here to encourage you to embrace the big ones. Big bear hug. Come on! Group hug! Prior to launch, you must plan to ditch the fear. You must plan to jump in even if you are shaking. You must plan to make glorious mistakes. Courage and flexibility must be part of your Plan. We are not aiming to do it wrong. Quite the opposite. Courage accepts the odds and jump in anyway.

Glorious mistakes are the only stepping stones to real success. We are not talking the safe kind of mistake where you have one foot on the shore. We are talking the glorious kind; the kind where the boat starts to drift away from the dock, where you have one foot on the boat and the other on the dock sort of mistake. If there is a constant in small business, it is that the riskiest move is not to move. Nothing worthwhile has ever been achieved by remaining unduly loyal to The Plan.

Years ago, one of my kids had a hard time making mistakes. We had to practice. We started to play a particular game on family night which would be the equivalent to high stakes gambling for an 8-year-old: Pass the Pigs. It was the right combination of chance, strategy, and guts. It provided many opportunities to lose all your pigs in a safe environment. The practice helped. She learned she would not die if she lost all her pigs. She learned that she would never have more points if she never risked losing at least some of them.

What do you believe about making mistakes? If you are risk averse, it is good to find out why. It is also good to find an environment where you can practice Risk Light. Try dance lessons or a new sport–something you do not know how to do–and something where you can be at least a little bit vulnerable. Surely falling on your rear will help you lighten up. (Imagine how boring life would be without the blooper reel.)

Plus there are many other benefits to making mistakes. One of which is, of course, laughing at yourself. (A big hindrance to success is taking yourself far too seriously.) Mistakes can also be gloriously productive. Mistakes can be art. Mistakes can teach things that the classroom never could, and in such a way that you will never forget the lesson. Mistakes provide us with the knowledge of what does not work–which knowledge is just as vital as knowing what does work. Mistakes improve our character, and at the least, supplies us with a good dose of humility.

The next time you see a blog post entitled, “The 20 Mistakes You Do Not Know You Are Making”? I recommend you skip it. Why focus on not doing? Focus on doing. Do not waste a minute focusing on all the rules you should not be breaking. Go ahead and break a few.

Learn how to make glorious mistakes. 

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection your visual graphics will make with your target customer. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Becoming the Real Deal – Part IV

Never before has there been a time so ripe with potential for those of entrepreneurial spirit. We have educational resources–more than we can use in a lifetime–only a click away. We can find and connect with like-minded individuals around the globe in seconds, using 140 characters or less. Fertile ideas are lying around everywhere, any of which can grow at any moment, given the right nurture and the right conditions.

It is the first time in history that we do not have to ask permission to create.

Thomas Edison said,

“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”

Many are still waiting for permission to become the Real Deal. Some are waiting for the foolproof formula, some waiting to complete the next perfect webinar, some for an experienced mentor to tell them exactly how to do it. They want someone to hand them magic pixie dust that makes stuff happen.

I hate to tell you. There is no magic pixie dust. No one has it. No one sells it. Even if you had a magic formula, you would only know it after the magic happened. Going forward? It is always crap shoot.

The real potential–the real magic that will make things happen? Is found right between your ears. It lies in how you think. Our businesses become a reflection of what goes on inside our heads. Truly the largest obstacle in entrepreneurship is not found in our circumstances, not the economy, not in perfect cash flow, but in our self-talk.

When you wake up in the morning, what do you say to yourself about the day? What voices crowd your thinking? What voices might be hindering you? Who or what is forming your path? Remember many of the voices in our heads are coming from outside our heads.

Your worldview is how you think–how you view reality. Your worldview informs your behavior and determines whether you feel confident, whether you feel the world is a safe place, and how well you connect with other people. It does not fashion our experience but interprets the experience for us. The voices in our heads are a formidable force. We behave according to what we believe. It is important to test the veracity of these messages and know where they come from.

It has been said a gazillion times that if you want to become the Real Deal, you need to change how you think. Think and grow rich, right? Visualization is and old technique and not without merit. But even if you can imagine your perfect skinny self, your bathroom scale does not lie. Even if we can imagine ourselves wealthy, our bank statement does not lie.

There has to be a better way to create our desired reality, and tame our inner beast. Here are three good ways to train those scary creatures:

Get some perspective. If you talked to your best friend the way you talk to yourself, would you have a best friend? Would your best friend say you were dumb? Would your best friend say that you are a loser because you did not win the contract? Of course not. You could be sabotaging your own success. Step out of your head for a moment and get some perspective. Be kind to yourself. Talk to yourself as you would talk to your best friend.

Know that action precedes feeling. So you do not feel brave. Welcome to the Club. (I am Weanie Club President. If you only knew how far I have come, you would be compelled to send fan mail and donations to my address here.) In 1880, William James was one of the first psychologists to discover that our emotions follow our behavior and not the other way around. (Lest you think he is old school, know that his two-volume tome The Principles of Psychology is still required reading for students in behavioral science.) His favorite way of putting this phenomenon was,

“You do not run from a bear because you are afraid of it, but rather become afraid of the bear because you run from it.”

In other words, if you want to be brave, do the things that brave people do. You will find more courage. If you want to be more loving toward that certain person that irritates your socks off, do the things that loving people do. You will find that you at least like them a little more than you did before.

Change your focus. Stop setting yourself up for failure. Setting realistic goals is tough enough. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the immensity of the mountain we must climb, and we get stuck at base camp. James Clear has written a marvelous article teaching us to focus not on the end goal, but on the daily habits that make the end goal possible. Not only can you be successful in this approach, but it is sustainable even after you reach your goal. Inch by inch, everything is a cinch. 

You, the entrepreneur, are the biggest asset in your business. Don’t wait for the alchemy of success. Don’t wait for someone to give you permission to be all you can be. Success is not found in wishful thinking, but in taking action, even if it is only small steps each day.

Pay attention to your inner beasts. Take care of them, harness them, and train them into action. They will empower you to be ready for every opportunity, and in turn, help you become the Real Deal.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection your visual graphics will make with your target customer. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Part 3- Becoming the Real Deal

A few years back, my daughter worked in visual merchandising at a big box department store in Chicago. I will leave the store unnamed, although I am quite sure you have been there or at one of its affiliates. I asked her one day, out of curiosity, how a big company goes about communicating its mission internally to its employees. “Quite unsuccessfully in our case,” she answered. “Our mission statement glows from every computer screen, but the employees just make fun of it.” Despite the continual glowing of the visual reminder, the mission failed to glow from the hearts of anyone whose task it was to make it come true.

And there you have it.

The biggest problem in branding is not the cost, although it does cost something. It is not the time, although it requires much thinking. It is not the internal management required to make the brand images consistent, as important as consistency is.

The biggest problem in branding is making Brand happen.

It is obvious that it is just as hard for the large company to carry out its intentions as it is for the small firm. Wherever the mission and vision of a company meets or exceeds the expectation of the customer, you create magic. But wherever mission and vision depart from the actual customer experience, you have the antithesis to business at best, and potential toxicity at worst.

Entrepreneurs start off with good intentions. Many understand the power of brand, and craft a well-defined mission, vision, culture, and story. But as they grow they tend to pay more attention to sales quotas than they do the customer. In doing so, they bypass the heart of marketing, and the pulse weakens.

What is this like? Let’s imagine a man named Jim takes on one of those reality show challenges to win a large sum of money. All he has to do is find a romantic muse, get married, and inspire his partner to say that he is the perfect husband at the end of one year. If he is successful, he will win a million dollars. But, if she does not claim he is the best husband ever? He will have to pay back every expense plus finance charges. If he takes the goal seriously, Jim will work hard to keep his muse amused. He will go out of his way to be everything she needs him to be, albeit with dollar signs in his eyes. He would study the behavior of good husbands. He would study his partner’s behavior, and make long lists of her likes and dislikes. He would check his calendar to determine all the right dates to send flowers. He would plan breakfasts in bed. He would plan to say the all the right things, and do all the right things, at all the right times.

But, six months in, his partner begins to feel as if something is up. She may not know anything about the contract, but senses something is off-kilter. Jim is a little too perfect. He has no sparkle in his eye, and no spontaneity–his words are a bit too scripted. She can’t quite put her finger on it, but the relationship feels a bit, well . . . . cheesy. Of course. It is cheese. It is not a relationship. It is all about Jim.

This story may seem a far-fetched example, yet many businesses do marketing in the exact same way. In the reality show of business, this exact scenario has played itself out so many times that consumers are now suspect of anything that smacks of an advertising overture. When a company only seeks a sales quota, and sees its customers only as a package of behaviors–as someone to convince to ‘click here’–it will not be long before that customer describes the relationship as plastic. Customers want real passion. They would rather experience serendipity than scripts. They can better endure anything–even a screw up–than a fake company.

There are a thousand ways to build real relationships with your customers. Knowing what your customers need and want. Staying true to your core values. Providing real value that you know is your best work. Setting up systems so you can deliver with consistency. Doing what you say you are going to do. Making it easy to do business with you. Respecting the customer as intelligent and worthy of your time. Being genuinely excited about helping them achieve their goals. By ensuring your customer has experienced your company in the way you planned for them to experience it. And these are just a skim from the top. 

A wise entrepreneur will craft their customer’s experience from start to finish. But business is not theater. It cannot be an illusion of real relationship to obtain a sale. It must be the real deal.

Are you looking to create real relationships with your customers? You cannot fake it. Truth will prevail. Experience is hard to argue with.  How do you help your customers best?

Put your customer first, and you will become the Real Deal.

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Part 2- Stepping Up

Does a brand make a company valuable? Or does a valuable company make a brand? If you take a look at Forbes List of the Most Valuable Brands, it is obvious that 100% of these entities have made a major investment in design. Each entity is a carefully coiffed company–with a look designed to turn heads and to create an experience.

“Of course,” you may say. “They are large enough to have the money to invest in their branding in a major way.”

But how did they get the money to invest in the company in a major way? Did design increase trust to impact their bottom line? Or was the company trustworthy from the start? It is certainly a chicken and egg question. But whether design is causation or simple correlation, I challenge anyone to make it to the top of such a list without it. If Coca-Cola needs design to get to the top, then it would be quite presumptuous to push the design budget to the back burner for any size company.

One thing is certainly true: a company’s design reflects its management and vice versa. Herein lies the trouble. It is common for startups to begin business by investing in everything but design and branding. This leaves a fabulous product without representation. Those who pull back little realize the peril of poor design. A business that is sending the wrong message–or worse yet, no message at all–is no business at all.

Why do entrepreneurs withhold the branding budget? Many misconceptions exist:

My company does not need design–we are too small. This belief is common among entrepreneurs. Planning your identity and business design is like laying the philosophical cornerstone of your business. It is like breathing life into a body, and giving it a soul. Before putting pencil to paper and beginning any design, an experienced graphic designer will ask many questions. They will want to know what you want to do, who you want to do it for, and why you need to do it. Clear answers to these questions are the bedrock of your marketing plan. Serious marketing research backs any good design. It only looks simple. Without clearly identifying these answers, you have no base from which to launch your efforts, and no hoop to confirm success.  No business is ever too small to invest in this kind of thinking.

Professional design is too costly. What if you have a fabulous product, but your design says ho-hum? Think how costly such misrepresentation could be! Count up the sales lost to miscommunication and misunderstanding! Next, think of how costly it will be to print several campaigns only to find out they connect with no one. It would be easier to roll down your window on the way home from work, and just throw your money out. Doing so would save you a lot of time too. There is nothing more costly than poor design–or no design at all.

Design will make me look bigger than I am. To clearly identify your market and speak to that market is to increase your chance of success. Too many sales can be a problem, yes, but one ripe with choices. You can always say no to a sale. You can raise your prices. Who would not like to work less and make more? You could also ramp up your game. George Lois once created a campaign for Tommy Hilfiger, early in his career. It is hard to believe he was once unknown. One week after launching the ads, Tommy was on the Johnny Carson show. His competitors asked, “Who does he think he is?”  Tommy did not yet know the answer. But he stepped up to meet his destiny:

“. . . it also drove me into such embarrassment.  I rolled up my sleeves and worked harder than I ever thought I’d work.  I knew there would be only one way to prove the naysayers wrong, and that would be to come out with amazing clothes, so I literally rolled up my sleeves and worked like an animal making sure that every button, every zipper, every button hole, every color, every fit, every fabric was to perfection.  George turbo-charged my success, and then it just took off.”

Did the branding make the man? Or did the man make the brand? Perhaps we will never know. But one thing I do know. The branding and the commitment to that branding brought out the best in Tommy. It challenged him to become all he could be.

Good design is a result of good thinking. It is always an investment–in your company and in yourself. I will continue to make the bold claim that design will supply a good ROI. “Of course,” you may say again. “You have a vested interest to say so. You are in design.”

My answer? Invest, test, and prove the return! Will the real Brand please step up to the plate? Step up to the work of creating a product that will knock the ball out of the park, and then create a brand that will reflect all your company is, and all that you are–one that tells the real story of all your product can do.

See the results for yourself.

Have you ever conferred upon your business the mission and vision it deserves? A business without a brand is like a body without a soul. Are your graphics simply a placeholder until you find more money or a better opportunity? You may never have that opportunity. Even a ship captain invests in a bottle of fine champagne to christen his vessel with a name before its maiden voyage. Your business is also a vessel, carrying its identity and its messages to a specific destination. What message is your business carrying? Is it intuitive where you are going?

 Say what is real. Yes, it is scary to launch and scary to commit to the journey. It does not mean you will never miss the mark.

 It means you have the audacity to become The Real Deal.

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Something about a sparkling brand new year inspires us to new beginnings. We envision greater things for ourselves, and this is healthy and good. We resolve, therefore, that January should be the month of resolve. The timing of this idea, however, could have been better. All of our days are merry and bright, and then blam! All of a sudden, we are not what we should be. How does this happen? Does it happen only in America? We suddenly desire a whole new outlook. We desire a whole new look. We feel empowered to take new opportunities when they arise. We seek to become all that we should be. And herein lies the trouble.

Should is a dangerous word. What, exactly, should we be?

The word resolution is a little easier. The root, of course, is resolve. Resolve is the firm determination to employ a specific course of action to accomplish a particular thing. Resolve is the very substance that gives birth to goals. Fortunately, we humans rarely run short of this commodity. It is rather the perseverance that is too often in short supply–and that is the stuff required to follow through.

But somehow in January we get a wild hair, and envision our future selves more courageous, more disciplined, thinner, and smarter. In our honest moments, it is quite clear that we are not that yet. But this angst of all that we should be is the very reason we resolve to become something different in the first place. How can we become something more without feeling like an impostor all the while we are becoming? It is the picture of the skinny lady taped to my refrigerator door that compels me to keep that very door shut. I still hate her.

Small businesses do not behave much differently from humans. They aspire to change as well–and not just in January. The wise entrepreneur holds change as  a continual strategy. It is evolve or die. To be or not to be. That is indeed the question. Very few companies survive the challenges of the marketplace for any length of time and remain the same as they were in the beginning. Fortunately, change is much easier for small business than it is for the large enterprise. The ability of the small company to turn on a dime will forever remain one of its strongest advantages over the corporate freight trains of the world.

But how do you remain an authentic business while you are becoming? How can we become something more without feeling like an impostor all the while we are becoming? We all know the value of authentic brand. Authentic means real. Authentic means an original. As in not fake. As in not pretending to be something you are not. How can you be authentic when you are in the now and the not yet? How can you believe the story yourself when do not yet know the end of that story? How can you be all you have yet to be? 

Here are three bolsters to get you over the hurdles on your way to becoming:

Accept change as a way of life. Remember we are all works in process. None of us is all that we should be. We must change to survive–both personally, and in our businesses. The healthy enterprise seeks information, but they do not accumulate data and knowledge simply to do it. They gather that information in order to use and apply ittoward continual improvement. 

Continually face forward. Successful businesses are not preoccupied with their strengths and weaknesses, as clearly as they may know them. Companies that go the distance focus on all that they can and will be. So you have had a some bad circumstances that have threatened to derail your progress. Now what? Successful entrepreneurs do not waste time looking down at their shoes or back over their shoulder. The future vision istheir reality. They live there, as if it were already here. They ask the question, “In light of this, what next?” They focus on the target.

Make the process the goal, and not the goal itself. In our moments of honesty, we understand that we are not always disciplined, not always brave, and we are not always willing to step outside our comfort zone. To achieve our goals, we must become something that we are not now. How have we ever learned anything new? We mirror the behavior of others who are all that we want to be. We do something new. If we find that we are always behind, we get our behinds out of bed a bit earlier. We have already learned the hard way that staying in it makes us a big behinder. We prepare the night before to accommodate the change. Real change lies in the process, not in the goal.

We have all met fake people, and we have all been disappointed by fake brands. Fakers are the ones who are pretend to be something they are not. Making an effort to become something more than you are at present is not at all in the same category. Making an effort to change for the better is called growth.

Do not allow what and where you are now to stop you from becoming all that you are destined to be.

Jim Rohn said, “If you do not like the way things are, you can change. You are not a tree.”

Thomas Edison said, “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”

Raising my cup to you. May 2016 be your year to become The Real Deal. Clink clink.

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Part V- My Favorite Thing?  

Everyone has, at one time or another, learned the hard way. All that glitters is not gold. Expecting X, we got Y. Expecting a meat lovers pepperoni pizza, we get ten measly pieces of pepperoni. From the cellophane window on the chocolate bar, we were expecting a lot of hazelnuts. We find out that the only hazelnuts in the whole bar were those right behind the little cellophane window.

When you think about the nature of the beast itself, most disappointments do not originate from the circumstance, but from our expectations. Because products so often fail to deliver, consumers have learned to distrust everything marketers have to say. All marketing sounds like, “Waa waa, wa wa waaaaaa”. (Say that in your best nasal intonation.)

Entrepreneurs have their work cut out for them if they want to sell anything at all. While we cannot control every expectation, and despite the general jadedness, it is still possible to divine the first impression of your product or service. (We talked about this in last week’s post, here.)

If you are an entrepreneur, managing expectations is your primary work. It is not easy. Let me explain with this example:

When my children were small, I would allow them to choose what they wanted for a birthday cake. Even though I am a graphic designer by trade, a cake decorator I am not. There were many times I was tempted to take a ball bat to the thing on the table. Frosting as medium and cake as sculpting material were never my first choice. Still, I enjoyed creating delight on their faces. Thankfully, children, and joyfully so, are forgiving by nature. Except on this one occasion. On his 5th birthday, my son wanted a rocket ship cake. Easy enough. I baked a flat sheet cake and used brightly colored frosting to illustrate a metal rocket ship complete with rivets and windows and flames. There. It was a rocket ship destined for Mars. But when my son saw the cake, he burst into tears. He was expecting it to stand up, as if on a launch pad–not flat on the table. And of course he did! He was five. And I had disappointed him so. But in all honesty, I did not ask him. If I had asked how he envisioned the cake, I could have coached his expectations back into the realm of reality and his mother’s capacity. It was a birthday blowout, and I am not talking candles.

We entrepreneurs prepare our products and services in much the same way. After all, part of the reason we started our business was because we wanted to have it our way, right? We prepare our product the way we want to prepare it, explain it the way we want to explain it, and package it the way we want to package it. All in a way convenient for us. Then because we have worked so hard to do it, we expect our customer to be happy with it, because it is blatantly obvious that it is the best product around.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture? It is common for us entrepreneurs to design things for our convenience and from our viewpoint, and call it good. We do not design for the customer. We design it for us.

Here are five ways you can avoid self-occupation in your marketing:

Ask your customer. Ask them what? Everyone knows that excellent customer service is essential in small business. (Fortunately, it is our easiest advantage over the mega-store.) You must find out what is it like to walk in their shoes. Go out of our way to find out how your customer would improve your product or service.  If you want to hit the mark, you must be able to see it.

Package your product in a relevant way. If you are going to build anticipation around your product, you need to package and deliver it in a way that provides clues to the contents. The shapes, the fonts, the color, the packaging, and any corresponding marketing must give an expectation of the reality inside.

Represent your product in an honest way. Claiming your product is the most amazing and best product in the marketplace is tempting but dangerous. Customers have already experienced many disappointments from false claims. These claims at best will only cause skepticism. Your customer is set up to be dissatisfied if the product does not live up to everything they have imagined in their heads, (think rocket-ship cakes standing straight up here). Instead, work continually to make your product the best product it can be.

Hone your customer service systems. We cannot expect to deliver great customer service if we do not have systems in place to make it happen. Systems help us meet the customers expectations, keep our promises, and do it consistently. We can then plan to exceed the mark. Systems will help ensure that you can do what you have set out to do.

Confirm you have hit the bullseye. It is not enough to intend. You must ask your customers periodically if you have done it. Meeting and exceeding their expectations need not be costly. The Customer Contact Council’s study confirmed that even where managers went out of their way to deliver over-the-top service, most customers did not perceive it as exceptional. Instead, these customers preferred the kind of service that solved problems and made their life easier, regardless of extra perks. This kind of service is easier to deliver.

We have spent the entire month discussing Brand as Gift:

In giving back to the world to make it a better place.

In doing all that you were born to do.

In preparing your best work, as if you were wrapping it up as a gift.

In choosing the right wrapping for your gift.

And this week, in setting expectations and keeping promises.

The beauty of all of this is that wherever your intended performance meets or exceeds the customers expectations, you have created a brand.

To be in business or not to be in business. That is the question. Small business survival is not determined by how well we conduct our business for ourselves, or how much money we make, but whether we are doing the right work at the right time and for the right persons. If you are doing what you were born to do, the whole world is enriched. A true brand is an expression of love, and a gift to all of mankind.

What matters is doing the work that matters. Rethink your Gift.

We wish you a happy and prosperous New Year. May 2016 be the year that you find your Gift and express it to the full.

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace.

Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer.  

Part IV- Rethink the Wrapping

Anticipation, n. The feeling of excitement, as if something is just about to happen.   

Used in a sentence:The business went under because there was no plan to build anticipation around the product.  Note- It happens all the time.

It is common for start-ups to put all initial investment into infrastructure, and end up with leftovers for Branding. There. I said it. Note- It happens all the time. We frequently hear, “I only have $X amount left–is there anything that I can do with that?”

Building anticipation for your product is called Branding. Budding Entrepreneurs come in to buy advertising, when they have yet to divine their Branding. It is impossible to create effective advertising without Branding. Oh, you can try. But it is easier to roll down the window and throw your money out.

It is such a common experience in the startup world to run out of cash right before the branding phase, that our company is launching an all-out guerilla war to stop entrepreneurs in their tracks and help them to reverse-engineer their game plan. My job is to help them think like a marketer. See the chart below? Advertising is the little red triangle at the top of the pyramid. Branding is everything else. Branding supports the advertising–not the other way around.

Branding is not a nicety. It is not an extra thing you do after you start a business and once you get to a certain size. Branding is your entire relationship with the very person who keeps your lights on. Nice. Lights are really nice.

If only entrepreneurs put as much time into creating customer anticipation as they spend crunching numbers! If only they stopped long enough to think about what their customer truly wants. They would not have to be just another pretty face in marketing land. They might find out that no one wants the product as they have planned to make it. They might find out–and in advance of production– that people would like the product much better if they tweaked this one little thing. They could avert the lethal blah blah blah marketing drone. They could spare the whole marketing department the suicidal thoughts that accompany the plastic world of stock photography.

Alas, despite the alarming demise of small business, the great majority of entrepreneurs decide to work on Branding later. They end up looking like a cardboard box.

If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, this is not the way you should present one. The whole experience is totally devoid of anticipation. Anything could be inside a cardboard box. If someone gave you this box, you might even decide to delay opening the package until after work. Even if you told me there was something valuable inside this box, I might not believe you. Because the verbal message is contradictory to the visual message. The packaging totally degrades the contents. I am not engaged. 

My opinion?  Cardboard wrappers surround many languishing businesses. Their branding does not do justice to their product. I once worked with a business with a completely wonderful product. Despite my urging to revamp their marketing, they decided to stay on their old path. Their old school delivery only resonated with an old school audience. That old school audience died off. Literally. The company sold out, and their original investment lost much of its potential and future opportunity for another entrepreneur. Sad.

Everything you do in business is branding. Every customer interaction expresses your brand. Many entrepreneurs market in pajamas. You would never go to a sales call in pajamas because no one would take you seriously. So why do your marketing in your pajamas?

The great news is that you can craft the exact expectation you want your customer to have. How can you build the right anticipation?You can do it by design. It is not marketing mumbo jumbo. It is finding a way to tell a story, and to tell that story in an engaging way about your product and service.

Last week we were thinking out loud about your product–thinking about it as if it were a gift. What if you were to upgrade the outside appearance of your business to match all that it really is inside the box?

Does the wrapping fit the gift?

With the help of a professional designer, you can figure out how to support the right message with the right visuals. Your marketing can create a sense of place, a sense of person, and plan for the customer’s anticipations.  Your marketing department can empower the sales department, making their work ten times easier. Your marketing can return ten times higher yield, all because you have planned to engage the customer!!!!

Engage. v., To occupy the attention or efforts of a person, to attract, to promise, or please.

Used in a sentence: When every competitor is shouting for the customers attention, Branding is the only way to engage your customer.

Branding creates the right wrapping for the right gift.

Big box or little box, rethink the wrapping. Craft the customer’s anticipation and watch the value of your product climb higher and higher. After all, they keep the lights on for you.

Like this article?

Read Part 1- Rethinking the Gift Economy

Read Part II- What Were You Born to Do?

Read Part III- Rethinking Your Product As If You Are Giving A Gift

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace.

Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Part III- Your Product, By Design

Design. How can such a tiny seven-letter word have an impact of such epic proportions? Design is perhaps the meekest of all business virtues, and yet, hands down, the most powerful. Ironically, it is at its pinnacle of power when you are not aware of it at all. The opposite is also true. It is the most loud and obnoxious when it is glaringly absent.

Design touches everything. Think about everything in front of you, right now, at this very moment. Every thing you see is designed, from the screen on which you are reading this post, to the website where you found it, to the pen and the coffee cup on your desk. Every part of every design affects experience. The design of a thing determines whether you perceive that experience as positive or negative.

Think of your favorite website. Every click of your visit is predicted, analyzed, and researched to create a fabulous experience. Good marketers do this as easily as breathing. And herein lies the difference between the business that outshines the competition, and the average shooting star business–you know, the ones that burn out just before hitting the ground? The successful entrepreneur plans the entire customer experience as if they were giving you a gift. The experience is designed to create magic–if at all possible–the kind of magic that makes you want to return again and again for more.

Let’s imagine you are planning a gift for a special someone this Holiday Season. Got that special person in mind? Good. You know what they like. You may have already gone out of your way to purchase a surprise, and make sure it is just right. It cannot be just anything. It must fit their personality. And it must be the perfect color and size. You spend time to wrap it just so. You think about how you will give it to them. Then you synchronize the whole experience–it must be delivered at just the right moment to create the maximum impact.

When the big day arrives, you cannot wait to present it. You make sure you can be there when they open it, because you care about what they think about it, and whether they like it or not. You are almost in pain as they slowly remove the ribbon. Your eyes are locked upon theirs. You are hoping to catch some nuance of expression, some clue of delight–or, catch the absence thereof if you are unsuccessful. If they do not like it, you will take care of it for them.

How many of us think of our customer experience in this way? How many of us have designed our entire customer experience, to the point that we are 99.5% sure that they will like what we have prepared? How many of us are super excited to present it? And are we presenting it in such a way that the presentation itself will delight them? How many of us hang out after the sale to make sure the customer is satisfied, even smiling?

For many small businesses, as long as the sales goals are reached, everything is awesome. But only if you live in a plastic world. If you want to stay awesome in business? There is something far more important than meeting simple sales goals.

When you prepare a special gift for your special someone, you design the entire experience. The same is true with your business. If you desire to provide the perfect customer experience, you must plan for it, as if preparing the perfect gift. This preparation is called a marketing plan. Your marketing plan chooses the who, plans for the what, the where, and the how. Most importantly, to provide maximum depth of experience, it carefully designs the why. 

Have you thought of your customer’s experience this way? Have you thought about designing your product as if it were a gift? Have you planned the entire experience around your customer’s personality, to show them that they are valued? How is your product wrapped? How is it delivered? It is important to present your product in a way that will set the expectation of all that is inside. (More on this next week!)

Customers are special people. They are so special, in fact, that you will not survive without them. Instead of focusing on your sales numbers, focus on them. Work to deliver true value in exchange for the trust they place in you and your company. That is what money is after all–a tangible manifestation of trust.

As you are scurrying about to create special surprises for the ones you love this Holiday Season, think about how you can apply that same mindset to your business. Rethink your product as if it were a gift.Design your product to delight.  Make your product all it can and should be and you may never have to worry about meeting your sales quotas again. 

Read Part 1- Rethinking the Gift Economy

Read Part II- What Were You Born to Do?

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Rethinking Your Gift: What Were You Born To Do?

Part 2- Finding your Gift

When I began writing this post, I was unaware I would be supplied with a living breathing illustration. Nor did I know that it would be someone near and dear to me providing the illustration. My message was blasted right back at me, and perhaps a bit too loud and clear, so timely that it is obvious that I need it as much as anyone.

For this reason, I am going to post the clincher right at the beginning of my article, (and you can read the rest if you like):

What were you born to do? Do it. Do it now.

I was getting ready to go outside for a bit of exercise last evening after work before the sunset had stolen away all remaining traces of light. My phone rang. My husband had been working diligently on our new old house. He was stressed and out of breath. He had been diligently framing a wall and had just shot a 16D nail through his hand with a nail gun. In my past, such news has rendered me a complete hindrance––as in, someone please shove me out of the way. So I knew I had achieved new heights when rational questions came out of my mouth, rather than screaming violently into the phone. “Are you alone?” “Are you bleeding?” “Do you need an ambulance?” I asked these questions without shouting. I amazed myself. After clarifying the answers of yes, no, and no, it was determined that I was the best ride to the ER.

It was your typical ER experience. My husband’s pain had not yet set in, so persons in labor, bleeding children, and anxious adults, (as demanded by the Hippocratic Oath), were allowed to cut in line. We spent most of our evening watching the parade.

But if you are going to shoot yourself in the hand, hey––do it like my husband. The way that nail embedded itself up to the nail head in the muscle of his thumb could not have been positioned more perfect. X-rays revealed no broken bones. Movement was not hindered. The framing nail slid in parallel with the muscle to the wrist, with only a small puncture wound visible on the surface of the skin. From his smiling face–albeit pale, (and yes he was smiling), no one would ever guess he was injured at all. (However, we are fully aware that it will get worse before it gets better.)

I suggested next time he needed a day off of work, to just to let me know.

How does this illustrate my point? Some people know what they were born to do almost from the day they were born. My husband is one of those people. Though I was not there, I believe he was born with an Ebony pencil in his hand. He has been drawing since he was old enough to understand the concept. He was born to make art. I have often envied such people, who knew so clearly–and sometimes so early–what they were born to do. But struggling to find your sweet spot does not make it any less of a gift. For many, finding your sweet spot is a journey of many years, of marching forward to the next opportunity, and of working diligently to connect the dots to complete the picture.

The point is to find your gift.

Why did you go to work today? If your goal is to get money, you need a new goal. If your goal is to find out what you were born to do, the money will follow. It never works the other way around. To go to work for any other reason than to express your gift is to fall short of what you were put on earth to do. It is to short the whole of humanity of something we all need. You have something to give us, and without your gift, we will all be lacking.

I just had a wake-up call. Why I have to be such a fickle person, and almost lose something of value to value it, is beyond me. But today I am thankful my husband can still do what he was born to do. This accident has made it clear, that he needs to make hay while the sun shines. He needs to make more art.

As a marketer, I will never encourage you to go for the money. I will never ask you how you can make more money, get more followers, or get more likes. I will always ask you how you can make more art. Rethink your gift. What has God given you to do to benefit the rest of mankind? This is the right time to find it. 

Now is the time to make more art.

Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Ecclesiastes 9:10

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Part 1- Rethinking the Gift Economy

Leave it to Americans. Just on the other side of this extraordinary Holiday, with the explicit purpose to gather together and thank God that our cup is not only half full but truly running over? No sooner than the leftover turkey sandwiches have vanished down our gullets with a wash of Pinot Noir, even the very next day, in the wee hours of the morning, we are filling our shopping carts with more stuff–stuff that we never knew we needed in the first place–and using all available knees and elbows to get it. Gheesh.

Americans have never been shy about blatant consumerism. And Entrepreneurs have never been shy about grabbing for more and more Holiday sales. Sales are not a bad thing. But I am not sure we are aware of how much our consumer culture affects us, even as we desire to avoid materialism. Our culture thinks in terms of transactions and possessions and deals. This for that. Even in the Season of Giving. That is why it is called a cookie exchange. Deep down in my heart, I know that it is better to give than to receive. But I, for one, will not be leaving the cookie exchange without an equitable trade. It is my peanut butter for your macaroons, or I am not going home. I am not any better.

I am also not sure that our robust first-world economy is a leading indicator that we are an advanced society. We are lagging behind in the gift giving department, even as the cash registers ring. Oh, we may not lack in GDP, or in Dow Jones average. Our lack is in our very philosophy of giving. How could this be?

Recently I read the book “The Gift” by Lewis Hyde. I know this book has been around a while. Have you read it? I paraphrase Lewis’s description of the Gift Culture:

When the Puritans first landed in Massachusetts in 1764, the colonists noticed that the Natives had a very different idea about “things”–about ownership, and about possessions. The Colonists thought the natives had extremely poor manners and called them ‘Indian givers’.  Even today, this term is still used in a very negative way. But let’s look at the meaning a little closer.

An Englishman is invited into an Indian lodge. Wanting him to feel welcome, the host offers him a traditional pipe of tobacco. The pipe is an ethnic treasure with a hand carved bowl and stem, and has circulated among the tribe for more than one hundred years. It stays in each lodge for a time and eventually is given away to another tribesman.  In a display of politeness, the Indian gives the pipe to the honored guest at the end of the visit. The Englishman is elated, and makes plans to send the ancient pipe back to the British Museum! He sets it on his mantle for all to see and admire.

A little while later, the Indians come to his house for a visit. The translator explains that if he wants to show his goodwill, he should light up the pipe, give them all a smoke, and then give the pipe to his guest at the end of the visit. For keeps. The Englishman is enraged. He cannot imagine the mindset that would expect it back. But to the Indians, to retain the gift, would be to consume it in its entirety. The Indian would call the Englishman a ‘Capitalist’.

To the Indians, if something of value came into your possession, you had an obligation to share it. To do otherwise was immoral. They believed that something horrible would happen to you if you held onto it, as you were getting rich at someone else’s expense. They believed the only reason you were given something of value was to promote the good of the whole and to strengthen the social fabric of the entire community. The objects were never viewed as commodities, they were never used as a system of barter, and they were never given with regard to what they might get back. It was a system of reciprocity–not an economic system. The very word reciprocity contains the roots “re” and “pro”, meaning back and forth. The person who held an item of value was simply a trustee. The important thing in their culture was to keep giving back. The shared gift did not diminish with use. It was the asset that was not shared that was lost. Thus, the social use of the gift system far exceeded the practical use of the objects.

These same Englishmen would have never survived if Squanto charged them for his knowledge. Instead, he freely shared it, and they survived together through the harsh winter.

When I read these things, I had to question which group was the one that was truly uncultured.

What if we applied all this to business? Your customers are not just a transaction. They are people with lives that go way beyond the workplace. Not everything you do for your customer has to involve a monetary exchange. You have more to give them than just physical product or the service you have for sale. In fact, you have much more to give. Of course, no one thinks of themselves as gifted, but we all have talents and abilities we can share. A bit of knowledge here, a bit of wisdom there, some life lessons learned. Sometimes the biggest thing you can do for your customer is the simplest: offer them a smile or word of encouragement. You never know what kind of a day they have had, or how a simple thing like treating people with the dignity and respect– something that every human deserves–will affect their day. And indeed the health of your entire community.

The Gift Economy is a whole different kind of economy.  It gives a whole new meaning to the word rich. What glorious bit of business wisdom have you learned from another business mentor that was given to you freely? What gifts have been laid at your disposal? What have you received that you did not pay for? Who might need what you have? What if you joined your local Chamber for the good of the whole, and not just for personal profit?

What if the things we possess are only given to us so that we might give them away? 

Pay it forward.

In the end, it is not the one with the most toys that wins, but the one who has given them all away. No matter what you give, the perfect gift is always wrapped with Love. What can you share today?

To whom much is given, much will be required. Luke 12:48

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer.