We often want change in our lives and continue to live in our comfort zone. In the past four months I have pushed myself harder to be outside of my comfort zone and it's taught me some very valuable lessons that many would've said "duh" to. We all learn and grow at our own pace. A pace that we set for ourselves and one that allows us to become better at a pace that works for us.
Often things in life don't become clear until you look back and have that 20/20 hindsight vision. This looking back teaches us a lot about the path we have chosen over the weeks, months, and years before depending on how far back you look. Over the past four years I had done what industry best practices have told me to do. You need to dress like everyone else, act like everyone else, and say the same thing everyone else does. What line of CRAP is that? Am I a lemming or is what I am creating unique, different, and getting people to talk? These are the questions I started to ask myself on a daily basis.
During the past months we have added English writers so I don't have to. It is not my strength and I truly didn't enjoy it. It is a strength they possessed. We have social media experts, graphic designers, sales people, customer service members, photographers, and videographers who are each expert in their field. It has been since we started to add these experts that our customers growth has truly taken off to a new level that we couldn't have reached otherwise.
I learned that my strength is writing software while being different than everyone else. I learned that I truly need to be ME and not something I am not. It has been with this change that I actually started growing as a person, the businesses we work with started growing faster than they were before, and most importantly I started being happier with the direction my life is having. I achieved this with many changes in my life. A few of these are:
- Stop being something you are not. We ALL are unique individuals which is a strength and not a weakness. Don't sell yourself short.
- Lesson Learned: People want authenticate (they want to deal with REAL people)
- Think differently. If "everyone" is doing X why should you? If X is the only way then yes doing X makes sense. Marketing is about not only standing out but being talked about afterward as well. This is where I have truly started to shine. As a most basic level a blog we used to write 4-5 per week at 2,000+ words. Now I write 1-2 blogs per week (sometimes more, sometimes less) and now are between 600-1,000 words. This change makes for faster reads but has also doubled our sales. That's crazy being shorter, more real, and you get more sales.
- Lesson Learned: People's time is limited. Don't waste it!
- Negative Nancy's. Sorry for anyone named Nancy (and one of our awesome content writers!). There are regretfully a lot of people that talk down people. I personally doubt they are ever intentional but for many they do so due to insecurities or trying to convince others about something.
- Lesson Learned: No matter how positive you are you cannot change them. They are the way they are by their choice. It is their "personal brand". Ignore them and let them fail on their own as the truth always comes to light.
- Honesty. Okay, we already have had this but it is worth mentioning. For many honesty, is a hard thing to do. It took me years before it became my core. It was and has always been being honest that allows us to help businesses grow.
- Lesson Learned: Don't change everything! Stick to your core values.
You cannot change everything around you. The one thing you can change is yourself. It takes a desire and commitment unlike no other. When you change and it is a real change people will start to flock to you. Being authenticate in every action of your life will turn you into the best person that you can possibly be. I love myself more every day by being who I am and our customers have all grown when we stopped doing traditional marketing for them (unless their brand needs traditional marketing).
