Just this week I was helped to think about something in a new way.

By someone I like and respect.

Direction versus Imposition.

I was made to think about the difference between direction and imposition.

The difference between guiding, and telling.

And it was useful.

Because I sometimes get this wrong.

Trust. 

Trust is the key.

For me, anyway.

This discussion opened my eyes to the fact that instead of addressing the problem.

(Why I don’t trust).

I can sometimes mask the problem by plopping another problem on top.

(Imposing instead of directing).

55 Years.

It’s good for me to take a look at this.

I feel ready.

And it’s only taken 55 years to acknowledge that I might need to improve.

Hey ho.

Most marketing content isn’t very good.

This, sadly, is a given.

Knowing how to be noticed.

Or apparently even caring about being noticed.

For good reason not bad.

Is rare.

Aim High.

But if we do want to ponder how to be noticed.

We can learn from others.

And when it comes to picking our ‘others’.

We should aim as high as we can.

First Things Last.

On the subject of getting noticed, headlines are important.

The first thing you say is important.

That’s the hook.

That’s what stops you from being ignored.

That’s what draws them in.

And even though it’s the first thing you want them to read.

It’s probably the last thing you should write.

So you can give your headline the attention it deserves.

Opening Lines.

So on the subject of,

“…when it comes to picking our ‘others’.

We should aim as high as we can.”

I suppose you can choose your opening lines as somewhere between:

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

and,

“We are delighted and humbled to announce that we won some work with The Lines Brothers last week.

Here, let me tell you about it…”

Or somewhere between,

“It was love at first sight. The first time he saw the chaplain, Yossarian fell madly in love with him.”

and,

“Hey how are you? I am reaching out to my network as I am researching applications of ethical AI. Do you happen to know any data scientists or businesses facing these types of challenges?”

It’s the difference between being immediately turned on and being immediately turned off.

It’s the difference between your eyes widening, and your head shaking.

It’s the difference between ‘Wow; what the hell is this?!’ and ‘Christ, here we go again!’

And whilst we mere mortals are neither George Orwell nor Joseph Heller.

And whilst writing in such intensely storyful ways is not quite right for, say, LinkedIn.

I see no reason to not to at least try to understand them.

To analyse them.

To aspire to be able to attract and enthral as they do.

I see no reason to not to at least try to be the best we can.

Try.

Most marketing content isn’t very good.

This, sadly, is a given.

Knowing how to be noticed.

Or apparently even caring about being noticed.

For good reason not bad.

Is rare.

There are many more Auteurs out there than the world experiences.

And that’s a shame.

It’s a shame because the only thing stopping the Auteur from blossoming.

Is the Auteur them self.

Colourful.

It’s a shame because Auteurs make the world infinitely more colourful for all of us.

And they inspire others to, like them, be their true self.

It’s a shame also because that self-suppressing Auteur, the one responsible for denying the world of their unique and inspiring self.

So that they themselves lose.

And the world loses.

Might actually be you.

*’Lost in Translation’ is great.

Peak Feelings are those intense, positive feelings you get as a business owner that really jolt you. 

Feelings that you’ll remember forever.

And I know that this definition of ‘Peak Feelings’ is accurate, by the way.

Because I just made it up.

From Business to Brand.

Anyhow, here are a few Peak Feelings I remember from Always Wear Red.

I remember them as Peak Feelings vividly.

Because they were almost physical.

And these Peak Feelings include the very moment I knew that Always Wear Red had moved from Business… to Brand.

Peak Feelings.

1. Honing and simplifying the brand so that we couldn’t simplify it any further (it’s hand written on the pad on the homepage).
2. When both Zoë Rocha and Ralf Little agreed to become shareholders.
3. Launching the website just before midnight on February 13th 2016.
4. Unboxing (most) made product.
5. The moment the very first stranger paid money for a thing we’d created.
6. Getting a hand written letter from a customer, saying thank you.
7. Processing the 2 returns. (That’s not 2% returns. That’s 2 returns. In 7 years).
8. Reading a two-sentence social media conversation about Always Wear Red. It went something like…

Person 1: “Is that an Always Wear Red beanie you’re wearing in that photo?”

Person 2: “I wish!”

That was the moment I knew that Always Wear Red was no longer (just) a business, by the way.

We were a brand.

I Quit.

Having said all that.

I’ve also written about why I am quitting Always Wear Red in 2023.

I’ll post that soon.

I recently updated my ‘About’ bit on LinkedIn.

It’s much better than it was before.

Here’s why.

How To Write About Yourself.

When I write about myself how I wrote about myself on my ‘About’ LinkedIn profile recently.

(See ‘About’: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellomychael/)

It felt like me sitting in a chair.

My chair.

And just speaking.

About me.

From my own perspective.

And that was that.

The Previous Version.

The previous version was different.

The previous version was me writing about awards and client benefits and experience and client names and bleah and bluh and nyeh.

That felt like me stood up, looking back at myself sat in the chair, and writing what I (thought I could) see from the clients perspective.

This approach sounds like the thing to do.

But it isn’t.

Because this latter approach is too sanitised and filtered and contrived.

And it’s pretty much what everybody else does too.

So if you write like this too then, obviously, you’ll disappear.

Sit Down.

If you want to know the best way to write about yourself.

So people know you and understand you quickly.

Sit down.

Sit in that chair.

Your chair.

And just speak.

One of the biggest mistakes marketers make.

Is that they keep telling people things.

Stop Telling People Things. 

Just telling someone something isn’t even a story.

It’s boring.

And whilst transferring information from ‘here’ to ‘there’ may very well be part of the task.

It’s 10% of the task.

90% is about how the reader feels having read your thing.

Do This Instead. 

The best way to stop marketers from just telling people things is this.

Ask the marketer to measure the thing they wrote not with this question:

“What did I tell them?”

But with this question instead:

“How will they feel, having read the thing I just wrote.”

Because if the marketer can answer this second question appropriately, precisely and well.

What the marketer wrote is infinitely more likely to be read, remembered, acted upon or passed on.

It’s a Start.

This isn’t the whole story of course.

Writing really well is really hard.

But it’s a start.