#47 – 17 Mar 2023
It’s hard to feel seen when creating online.
We post, and we publish.
But we don’t get much feedback.
I’ve been thinking about how we stand out from the sea of sameness.
As an ex-accountant, marketing is not my strong point, so naturally, I’ve spent much more time there learning as much as possible.
We spend so many hours on our craft, creating our work, so we would like it to be seen.
We don’t want to upset the masses, so we play it safe.
But what if this is making our work invisible?
Today we’re thinking about being “remarkable”.
Listening to the Tim Ferriss podcast, where he interviewed James Clear, triggered this line of thinking.
Tim asked James to deconstruct the success of his mega-bestselling book Atomic Habits in terms of its writing and launch.
It’s sold over 10 million copies, so that’s a bid deal!
Firstly, there is always an element of luck. But putting that aside, there are things you can do which influence the outcomes.
So on the writing side, I think you have to operate with this assumption of, let me create more value than I’m going to capture.
The ultimate thing that drives book sales is creating something that is actually genuinely valuable to people.
And it has to be so good that people will talk about it.
James Clear
So many people overlook this simple fact.
The product actually has to be good.
And not only good but so great that people will talk about it.
This becomes a flywheel effect as the people do the selling for you.
James outlined how anyone with a big audience and a decent marketing plan can sell a large number of books.
That could be anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 copies.
But somewhere after that, you need more than an audience and a marketing plan.
You need word of mouth to really make your ideas spread.
That’s when 1 million copies or more becomes a possibility.
It has to be word of mouth.
And I think once you’re in the millions or 10s of millions of copies, the only way a book grows that much is people recommend it.
And I like Seth Godin’s measure for this, which says if you want word of mouth, you have to create something remarkable.
And that means that it’s worthy of remark, right?
That it’s worthy of talking about, so you have to start with that.
James Clear
So we need to be creating work that is worthy of remark.
Do you feel your work is worthy of remark right now?
I know I’m not there yet.
But this is good to know, as it pushes us to set the bar high.
We need to deliver as much value as we possibly can.
And an excellent place to start is by deconstructing the successes of those we admire.
That’s what I am doing here with the James Clear example.
By leveraging these insights, we can stand on the shoulders of giants.
James outlined three things to consider:
1. Am I writing something that is timeless or evergreen?
Things can take a while to get discovered online (refer to the Nathan Barry quote I shared in last week’s newsletter). So if you produce something evergreen, you increase the chance of becoming a hit. If you make something topical in the current affairs news, it will probably be forgotten in a year or more, and no one will care. So you will miss your chance.
2. Am I writing something that is universal?
The more globally applicable your idea is, the more chance of it taking off and spreading. For example, James’ book was on habits. Everyone is interested in developing good habits and removing bad ones on some level. Nobody online may care if you write about something only local to your area.
3. Does the topic genuinely fascinate you?
This energy will show through the quality of the writing. So you must be in alignment here. Otherwise, it will be bland. Or you may just burn out and never finish the project.
That quote from Morgan feels like great advice to me.
I got too confused, spinning around in circles, trying to pander to an audience I didn’t even have.
I hated it.
But once I started writing for myself, it was fun.
I was solving my problems.
And whaddya know, some people liked to come along for the ride!
Fantastic.
We want your craft to show as exciting, not dull work.
On being remarkable
James Clear’s conversation with Tim Ferriss prompted me to revisit Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow.
I am wrestling with this idea of not just creating a standard B-grade product but rather something remarkable.
This seems like quite the challenge for someone who had a somewhat unremarkable career in finance for 15 years, except for a two-year stint in London which was pretty damn cool.
My main struggle is that “be remarkable” sounds lofty in theory, but how to do it in practice?
We need to create a Purple Cow.
Let’s dive in.
What? A purple cow?
In his delightful little book, Seth Godin proclaims it’s time for a new “P” in marketing.
You may or may not recall the 4 Ps of marketing :
- Product
- Price
- Place
- Promotion
Seth’s new P is “Purple Cow”.
This insight came to Seth when he was cruising through the France countryside with his family. The picturesque paddocks of cows grazing captured their attention. How beautiful.
(Mmmmm, I really want to be in France right now)
They marvelled at how beautiful it was.
But as time passed, well only 20 minutes, the enchanting cows suddenly became boring old cows.
They all looked the same and blended into the hillsides.
Totally unremarkable.
Seth wondered:
A Purple Cow, though. Now that would be interesting (for a while).
A purple cow is remarkable. Seth took this as a metaphor to be applied to marketing:
Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It’s a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.
Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. Not slapping on marketing as a last minute add-on, but understanding that if your offering itself isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.
That cuts deep.
Is your product or service remarkable?
If not, it may be invisible to those you want to sell to.
I find this idea exciting. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of all the shitty D-grade products out there, which totally suck. Still, companies spend millions on marketing to convince people to buy them.
What if they spent those marketing millions on making the product remarkable instead?
Then it would speak for itself.
Think how good you are at ignoring online ads.
We pick them out subconsciously and skim over them.
But we don’t skim over a remarkable product.
You probably do this on your Instagram feed.
You scroll endlessly through your feed before STOP.
Hold up.
What’s that?
Something caught your eye?
And it caused you to stop scrolling.
Pay attention to the things that stop you scrolling.
Herein lies clues to what is worthy of attention.
Use this knowledge to your advantage and improve upon your own creations.
As creators, we don’t want our output to be boring. We want it to be remarkable.
The old rule was this:
Create safe, ordinary products and combine them with great marketing.
The new rule is:
Create remarkable products that the right people seek out.
Seth Godin
Remarkable products spread naturally. As people feel compelled to talk about them.
A brand (or a new product offering) is nothing more than an idea.
Ideas that spread are more likely to succeed than those that don’t.
I call ideas that spread, ideaviruses.
Seth Godin
That’s true how the best ideas spread like a virus, coughing and sneezing from one person to another. Yuk, not a sexy metaphor!
Why is it so hard to be a Purple Cow?
Fear.
As always, that sneaky fear creeps up on us and gets in the way.
Creating a Purple Cow sounds like the perfect option for all of us, and we can cut through the noise and dominate our little patch of the internet.
The Cow is so rare because people are afraid.
If you’re remarkable, it’s likely that some people won’t like you.
That’s part of the definition of remarkable.
Nobody gets unanimous praise – ever.
The best the timid can hope for is to be unnoticed. Criticism comes to those who stand out.
Seth Godin
Yep, that was me for most of my life.
The agreeable, shy and timid accountant.
Flying under the radar.
Keeping a low profile.
Living a mediocre existence.
Squashing my grand creative dreams.
Until one day, I couldn’t take it anymore.
Somewhere I had learned along that way that it was safer to fit in.
But fitting in was no longer feeling safe to me.
I could feel the weight of future regret before it had happened.
Back in the day, playing it safe was a good way to get by.
We worked in factories and followed the rules.
We kept our heads down and did our homework.
But now, with the power of the internet and technological disruption, the game has changed.
We no longer work in factories, so why do we still live our lives like we do?
There is some kind of industrial hangover effect pulling us back.
But we need to change our mindset here, as playing it safe in this creator world is a surefire way to failure.
We are no longer in our tiny hometown with a local business.
We are now competing with billions of people around the globe.
And fitting in is not a good way to stand out amongst billions.
In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing.
In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.
Seth Godin
Now I will be the first to put my hand up and say, “Yes, I have been playing it safe”.
This has cost me.
As it’s making me invisible.
Since realising this, I have had a change in perspective.
The fear of being shunned or criticised now dwarfs in comparison to the idea of being an invisible failure.
I need to take more risks.
And I’m sure you do too.
Have you been playing it safe in your work?
Are you trying to blend in?
Now is the time to stop that.
It’s time to start dancing on the edges of what’s comfortable.
This edge is where growth happens.
And people start to notice.
Those people will remark on your boldness to stand out when they would never dare to rock the boat.
This fact that most people are scared to stand out and be remarkable actually becomes an advantage to us, if we are willing to step up.
So it seems we face two choices: to be invisible, anonymous, uncriticised, and safe, or to take a chance at greatness, uniqueness, and the Cow.
Seth Godin
The new mindset – Being safe is risky
We often respond to our aversion to criticism by hiding, avoiding the negative feedback, and thus (ironically) guaranteeing that we won’t succeed!
If the only way to cut through is to be remarkable, and the only way to avoid criticism is to be boring and safe, well, that’s quite a choice, isn’t it?
Seth Godin
Learning from criticism and failure is how we do better next time.
And the more impactful our work is to a specific group of people, the more it will draw critique from other groups who do not “get” it.
And the truth is we will never know if our creative project will succeed or fail unless we try.
To experience the highs of success, we must be open to the lows of failure.
You might think your thing is remarkable, but your audience is the real judge.
So you have to ship your work and find out.
If you play it safe, hiding and never releasing anything, you are doomed to failure anyway – safe is risky!
And for goodness sake, don’t be boring:
The lesson is simple – boring always leads to failure. Boring is always the most risky strategy.
Seth Godin
In what way is your work “safe” or “boring”?
How could you disrupt this?
What if you did the opposite?
Being different is interesting.
Haha, a funny Seinfeld episode comes to mind, where George Costanza is sick of his life never going the way he wants. So he starts doing the exact opposite of his instincts. Before you know it, he has a new date and job.
Reflection
How can you apply the Purple Cow thinking and create something remarkable BEFORE you try to sell it?
Be less average and more interesting.
Fitting in is not a good way to stand out.
Reflect on James Clear’s three questions:
- Am I writing something that is timeless or evergreen?
- Am I writing something that is universal?
- Does the topic genuinely fascinate you?
Replace “writing” with whatever your creative endeavour is.
A quote to ponder
James Clear
Write something timeless.
Write something universal.
Write something that fascinates you.
And do all that with the intention of creating something genuinely remarkable or that creates value for people.
What happened this week
Newsletter selfies
I get it. We all hate selfies.
Cringe.
But they can serve a purpose.
I’m implementing some advice from one of my favourite creators, Kieran Drew:
One of the best things you can do as a creator is pay attention to what gets your attention.
Justin Goff is one of my favourite email writers, and he sends a picture every mail. I noticed I’d actually look forward to seeing his face at the bottom. I was curious about what he’d write.
So now I do it too.
Does it work? I bloody well hope so.
My open rates are now at a 57% average. I started at 32%. I’m not suggesting my cheesy grin is the only factor (I’m not Brad Pitt), but people follow people. It’s nice to put a face to the writing.
Kieran Drew
Kieran recommends modelling your mentors.
So now you’ll start seeing my mug at the bottom of each newsletter.
More bloody sickness
You may have noticed this newsletter is a few hours late. Sorry!
My household has had a few sickness rounds and two emergency room trips. Since we started sending our son to child care, it’s been one thing after another! If you’re a parent, you know what I am talking about here. Oh, the joys!
So I can’t quite get on top of things at the moment.
Final thoughts
Today’s writing background playlist was “Lowkey Tech” on Spotify.
Here’s my putting on a happy face. I may not look like it, but I am sick as a dog right now.
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Cheers!
