When “staying in your own lane” is bad advice
“I’m dead.” I said this to Olly multiple times on Tuesday night as I sweat not only my guts but also my eyeballs, heart valves, hopes, and dreams out onto the mat rolled out in our lounge. Of course, I’m not actually dead because I’m writing this email to you, , but OH MY GIDDY AUNT it was touch and go for a few minutes. The app I hook up to my television to do my workouts just introduced a new feature called Fiit Club which involves a group of people joining the same online class and being scored on a live leaderboard. The more effort you put in, the more points you get, and it’s all based on your heart rate monitor. (It’s a super smart app and I love how innovative their technology is. Not to mention convenient for a woman who wants abs but doesn’t want to leave the house to get them.) Usually, when I exercise using this app, I’m the only one setting the benchmark. There’s only one ‘lane’ so to speak. I think I’m pushing myself hard down it, but how would I really know when there are no other lanes to compare mine with? The entire concept of Fiit Club revolves around competition. (A word that’s got a bad rap in the entrepreneurial world.) Suddenly, I wasn’t the only one setting the benchmark. When I could see that Anna was a few points ahead of me, I burpeed like a mad woman to try to catch her up. And then FLIPPING SUSAN came along and overtook me which had me swearing at the television like a coyote mid-lunge. When you’re slogging that hard, seeing yourself go down the leaderboard puts some kind of rocket-fuel up your backside. You thought you were doing your best, but actually, you weren’t. The whole concept works because you’re constantly being driven to do better. The initial driver is external – the other people on the leaderboard, but the secondary driver is internal – your mind. If these people are getting more points, then I can, too. Body, keep going. Show me what you’re really made of. That’s why it gets my goat when the internet preaches to ‘stay in your own lane’ and ignore what people around you are doing when it comes to business. Why? Why would you ignore the external driving force? I LOVE looking around at what others are doing. Not only does it inspire me because I get a better understanding of what I enjoy consuming, it makes me wonder what I can do/create/deliver that’s BETTER. It encourages me to discover what I’m truly capable of. Staying in your own lane is smart – but how do you even know you’re in a lane worth staying in if you haven’t compared it to others? How can you contribute new insights to a conversation if you don’t know what’s already been said? How can your brand intentionally stand out if you’re not aware of what it’s trying to stand out from? The point isn’t to compete with others. It’s to get inspired to compete harder with yourself. You can’t truly do that if you put blinkers on and ignore what’s going on around you. So, sure, stay in your own lane, but only when you’re sure it’s the best lane for you to be in.
Would you wear this?
Back in secondary school (a.k.a. high school), the art department organised an evening fashion show and the year 9 students had to create their outfits for the runway in art class. Year 9 = around 14 years old. The theme was Brighton Rock. One of my friends decided to dress as an enormous helter-skelter and had a sign on her front saying “50p a ride”. One of the teachers should probably have vetoed that but I guess naivety can be considered a fashion statement? I, on the other hand, plucked out the tiniest, slinkiest piece of black material I could find, stitched myself into it, wrote something on it in gold glitter, and paired it with my mother’s black leather knee-high boots. I think my mother should have vetoed that. And then there was the highlight of the show. We’ll call her Levi because that is her name. She went as a stick of rock. Totally on-theme. Her costume was made out of bright pink cardboard which spanned the length of her whole body. A fierce look. The ‘models’ entered from the two wings of the stage, walked to the front, descended a couple of steps, and then strutted down the runway in pairs (apart from the girl in the helter-skelter costume, who had become the width of a car). Everything was going well for Levi. The pink was poppin’. That is, until she had to walk back up the steps. Because of the way her costume was made, she couldn’t properly bend her knees. So as she tried to step up, she face-planted right onto the stage. And while she did a great job mimicking a flapping salmon, the poor girl couldn’t get back up again. And to make it worse? THE PERSON WHO WAS WALKING WITH HER SIMPLY STEPPED OVER HER AND EXITED STAGE RIGHT. So Levi was stranded in front of an audience of older students and parents with cheeks as pink as her cardboard. And if you’re convinced someone must have come to help her escape from this costume calamity, you’d be oh-so mistaken. Her only option was to use her arms to slide herself off stage. (And then probably contemplate moving school.) What a way to make a lasting impression. These days, the only fashion shows I watch are on Project Runway. Come on, it’s an amazing show. DON’T JUDGE ME. Anyway, the same comment comes up every season. Your work must have a point of view. Fulfil the brief… but make sure we can see who you are as a designer in the garment. It’s just the same with your brand. It must have a point of view. Perhaps multiple points of view. Because that’s not only how we can see who YOU are within the brand, it’s how your best-fit clients can recognise themselves. It is supposed to polarize. It is supposed to ruffle feathers. It is supposed to challenge that damn status quo. It is supposed to intrigue some and repel others. It is supposed to make people think in a new way. It is supposed to expose something deeper. One of Apple’s points of view is that technology should be a blend of innovation and art. One of Patagonia’s points of view is that everything they do should be eco-friendly and ethical. One of Cards Against Humanity’s points of view is that humans have darkness within them that can be turned into fun. There’s a cool quote by Diana Vreeland: “Most people haven’t got a point of view; they need to have it given to them – and what’s more, they expect it from you.” Do you think this was about fashion or brands? In reality, it doesn’t matter, because it applies to both. So… If you have a strong point of view but you’re not sharing it: >>> Consider whether this point of view is really something you can get behind. Because if it is, why aren’t you sharing it? If your point of view is the same as a hundred other service-providers and isn’t differentiating you: >>> Consider what drives you nuts about your industry and ‘the way things are done’ and come up with your own unique way to change it. If you’re not sure what your point of view even is: >>> Consider what you want to stand for, what you want to stand against, and how you see the world. What within your answers are you scared to say? This is the starting point. Wear those points of view with pride! I’m *sure* they’ll look better on you than a stick of rock costume would.
Hate, Ikea, and a bloke named Dave
I think his name was Dave. All it took was a phone call and he was in and out of the house in less than 3 hours. I don’t think I told Olly (my other half) what I was doing, but that’s nothing new. We’d just moved from a one-bed flat to a three-bed house, which meant we needed to buy another bed or any guests would have to sleep on the floor. (Given my track record with blow up mattresses deflating in the middle of the night, sometimes in fields, I felt a bed would be more reliable.) Ikea had the perfect one. It was a day-bed, which meant for the 99.7% of the time we didn’t have guests, we could slide one half of it underneath the other and use it as a sofa. Or a dumping ground for our clothes. Same-same. As you probably know, pretty much everything from Ikea comes flat-packed. Now, I’m not averse to some furniture assembly. In fact, I have fond memories hammering together a bookcase at midnight, and when we ordered a new bed for our own bedroom I got so excited to lie on it I constructed the entire king-size frame on my own before Olly got home from work. But this day-bed came with a collection of Google warnings. There are so many small pieces! You’ll need at least 2 people! It’ll take you a whole day to put together! I had ZERO excitement for spending a Saturday putting this together and risking an argument with Olly when he inevitably read the instructions wrong and I had to correct him. So, I called Dave to do it all for us. And it was glorious. Ikea just released a new ad campaign titled “We Love The Things You Hate” and its four short animations focus on what their customers “hate” before positioning their additional services, like furniture assembly, home delivery, and a crèche, as saviours. Simple. Smart. As small online business owners, we can get so wrapped up in pains and desires, features and benefits, and adding ALL THE THINGS to our products and services that we often over-complicate our messaging. Sometimes hitting the money-spot can be as simple as considering what your best-fit clients hate most right now and positioning your service as the saviour.
Your cabinet of curiosities
I was a bit young to be waving a real war sword around the dining room, but if my grandparents were going to leave it in the giant, old fireplace, what did they expect from a kid who thought pushing boundaries was her calling? Then there was the “yard of ale” glass that took pride of place on the wall which I always wanted to drink from but never managed to. (It really was a yard long, and given how much I struggled with strawpedos in my teenage years, I don’t think I’d have hacked it.) In the lounge, the other fireplace was surrounded with strange black (and kind of creepy) side-profile pictures of our ancestors. Because… that’s normal. And upstairs, there was a life-size clay sculpture of my actual head which had unfortunately blown up in the kiln. (To this day, I don’t know why someone sculpted my head but it happened.) Basically, old people’s houses are FULL OF WEIRD STUFF. But you know what else they’re full of? Stories. If you ever run out of ideas for what to write / create / share next and then find yourself venturing outside your own life-and-business bubble and hunting like a truffle pig for: 1) Inspiration 2) Validation for your existence Then it’s time to open up your cabinet of curiosities. I read about this in Austin Kleon’s f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c book, Show Your Work, the other morning and had to share it with you. Especially because it’s so on-brand. *smirks* In 16th and 17th century Europe, many of the wealthy and educated had what was called a Wunderkammern, which translates to a “wonder chamber” or “cabinet of curiosities”. This served as a place to display the trinkets and treasures they’d collected from around the world. Jewels, art, books, artifacts, that kind of thing. The cabinet of curiosities was their way of saying to others: This is what intrigues and delights me, does it intrigue and delight you too? Unless you’re a pensioner, you probably don’t have an actual cabinet of curiosities in your home (although it will be peppered with items you could put in one). But it doesn’t matter, because you certainly have one in your brain. I’m talking about: The places you’ve been. The sights you’ve seen. The people you’ve met. The experiences you’ve had. The food you’ve tasted. The music you’ve heard. The quotes you’ve memorised. The influences you’ve let shape you. The decisions you’ve made. The mistakes you’ve lived through. The successes you’ve made happen. And the stories you can tell based on all of those. So sure, you can go searching for inspiration outside of your unique bubble… Or you can dig something out of your cabinet of curiosities and tell an intriguing and/or delightful story about it. When you do, you won’t just be telling a story, you’ll be sharing a tiny piece of your soul. And in an online world where it often feels like marketing is a transaction rather than an experience, a tiny piece of your soul could be exactly what people want, need, and are willing to pay money for.
Underground
There’s not much to like about the London Underground. It’s stuffy, gloomy, and there are humans everywhere (along with a few mice, but they’re cute). If you’re lucky enough to get a seat, you know around forty million butts have imprinted themselves there before you, and if you’re not lucky enough to get a seat, prepare to get acquainted with an armpit that does not belong to you. All that said, there’s one thing I DO enjoy when taking the underground. I can do it when taking the longest escalators in existence. I can do it when hovering on the platform waiting for a gust of wind to hit me from the tunnel and make my hair look either Vogue-worthy or a total shitshow. I can do it when hurtling along at who-knows-how-fast in the carriage that somehow got itself 50 metres below London. I’m talking about reading the ads. Ads are evvvvvverywhere on the underground. You can’t escape them for a split second. There’s so much space and so much opportunity to captivate the massive guaranteed audience, and yet, so few brands capitalize on it. Because they forget that the point isn’t just to get their ad noticed (easy) it’s to get their ad REMEMBERED (hard). There’s no internet underground, so unless you’re smart/weird enough to take a photo of an ad you’ve got to remember the brand and whatever the ad is promoting while being pummelled by hundreds of other ads. I was consciously consuming these underground ads when I was in London for a couple of days last week, and there’s ONLY ONE I can remember well enough to search online for more information. It was for Caspar, a mattress company. You know why I remembered it? BECAUSE THE MESSAGE WAS SO DAMN GOOD. And it was only four words long. “We have drift off.“ The simplicity of this makes me more excited than the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones. It’s clear AND clever, which is a winning combination in my house. Brand captivation is about strategy AND creativity. The work you do and the way you do it might not be original, but the way you talk about it should be. So if you have the signature service perfectly packaged, or the funnels all systemized, or the website copy structured like the templates say, but you’re still not getting traction with your best-fit clients, ask yourself these two questions: What is it about your brand that’s worth remembering? How can you communicate that in a more creative way?