The 3 Things I Learned This Week: 3/3/17

So I took last week off from posting my "things I learned" articles. Honestly, I wasn't sure if people really cared (and I'm very confident many don't). However, a few people messaged me asking why I didn't post an article last week. So, here we are again. It's been a crazy busy week, but very productive. Here are my lessons learned for this week...

1) It's About Why vs. What and How

As a strategy and operations guy for the majority of my career, I've never really had to create messaging, marketing copy or sales pitches. To be honest, I was okay with that too. Not my cup of tea, so to speak. However, now that I'm building a business I find I need to figure this puzzle out. Everyone I pitch and talk to provides great feedback on our newkleus platform, however until now, they haven't really stepped up to say "Yes!". Well, reflecting over the past few weeks I realized I was always talking about the "what" and the "how" not the "why". So to the prospective client, the "what" and "how" sounded good. But they didn't see "why" they needed our platform at this moment. The "why" is what people care about. People buy products and services they can understand, and when they can see "why" it will help solve their challenges.

2) Tragedy of Choice

It happens in every business at every level. There is always too much work to get done, not enough funding to go around and not enough resources to deploy. This is a fact, so don't fight it. In this however, you have to make choices - the tragedy of choice. Some projects should not be started, some should be killed and some should be prioritized above all else. Unfortunately some initiatives are motivated by politics, some are pet projects and some are based on ROI. I prefer those with high ROI, but I'm odd that way. This week, I finally implemented this advice for myself. I had to say "no" to a few things. This is hard for me at times because I like to help others. I also heard from prospective clients that our project with them needed to be pushed a bit. You never like hearing that, of course. But they are running a business / organization and they are making their own tragedy of choice decisions. Not everything can or will get done. So, going back to #1 above, you really need a super, insane "why" in order to engage.

3) The Power of Storytelling

This week I dug deep into the art of storytelling to help hone our pitches and I stumbled across StoryBrand. One of the words of wisdom was, "cut 90% of your content out of your materials and off your website". Wow, I thought that was a bit much and the exercise has been tough. However, when you step back, 90% of the content is the "what" and "how" not the "why". As someone with a film background (worked at Sony Pictures for 5+ years and made a few feature documentaries), it has been nice to move back into the storytelling world. It's a challenge, but the process has been great and the results are starting to show.

Enjoy your weekend and keep making life great. #gratitude

Previous week's articles:

• The 3 Things I Learned This Week: 2/17/17
• The 5 Things I Learned This Week: 2/10/17
• The 5 Things I Learned This Week: 2/3/10
• The 5 Things I Learned This Week: 1/27/17