Don’t Be Boring

In the end, we all just want to be part of something interesting.

Let’s face it, the pandemic upended many things. Because we spent SO. MUCH. TIME. stuck in our domiciles, we were desperate for things to entertain us. Distract us. Give ourselves the opportunity to forget, even if for just a little while, all the craziness we were witnessing. How else do you explain how so many of us know what Carole Baskin did to her husband?

Fortunately, the explosion of streaming coincided nicely with our newfound need for entertainment. Thank you, Apple TV. Solid job, Peacock. Netflix was as reliable as the sun rising in the east. Thanks to them and more (I see you, Prime Video), we were able to turn our attention to this amazing world of quality content.

And then, we went back to work.

In doing so, we brought our desire for quality entertainment with us, and we’ve turned those expectations toward our attention to the businesses we interact with. We want to be entertained. We want to be inspired. We want to command C/command V (copy/paste) our entertainment experience into our work lives.

It’s high time we all got on board with being less boring.

If your marketing efforts don’t include a longer-form narrative about the personalities behind your business, if you’re not focusing on highlighting the things that make your Company interesting, you’re wide open for your clients to replace you with someone who does.

In many of my presentations, I talk about the importance of having a specialty. Something you’re really excellent at which makes you an expert in that field. Once you’ve developed the area of specialty you’re interested in, you’re then able to immerse yourself in gaining experience, and in that process is when you’ll achieve the expertise you seek. If you don’t get started finding your area of specialty, you’ll miss out on all the fun that occurs once you’re there.

I’ve given this presentation so often that I decided it was time I walked the talk.

I have more than 15 years of experience in building successful e-commerce strategies. I have many years of experience in retail sales, B2B enterprise sales and team sports. I love beer, and bourbon, and cigars, and outdoor recreation like golf, skiing, boating, hiking, and more. I live for live music. I am passionate about helping non-profits do the important work they do for their communities. I love kids. Could I make a career out of a mixture of these passions, while making the world a better place and educating, informing, entertaining and inspiring others to do the same?

It’s time we found out.

Last month, my wife and I took delivery of our fully customized Mercedes 2500 Sprinter van. With the conversion, we’ve essentially taken a delivery truck and turned it into a miniature RV. We’re both in sales, so the experiment will be learning how to co-exist as salespeople with hours of overlapping Zoom calls and Google Meet sessions during the workday while on the road. We both presently work from home, but on opposite floors. Can we make 60 square feet function as a traveling office while we chase our adventures? Only time will tell.

In the process, my hypothesis is we’ll be able to develop an affinity for our brand, and in the process create more opportunities to develop a client base in the vertical markets in which we’ve developed our specialty.

It’s one thing to prattle on about the importance of long-form content in developing your brand. Consider this my attempt to publicly attempt to give my own example of how it can be done. I hope you’ll follow along and become a part of our community. Maybe you’ll be inspired to try something similar for yourself as a result.

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