The Client Letter
April 24, 2013
The Northland
Partly Cloudy 28 Degrees
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I’ve been working on the design of “Jason Leister 6.0” this week and have been asking myself a lot of questions.
It struck me after working on an Incomparable Expert Package that there’s a quick test you can give yourself regarding your answer to the question, “What do you do?”
When someone asks “What you do…?”
Does your answer make you feel a bit uncomfortable because it’s a little bit over the top?
Does your answer make you think to yourself, “Holy crap, am I talking about me? Can I really say that?”
If not, then you probably need a better answer. Here’s the reason:
In college, our teacher always made us record our playing so we could go back and hear our performance from the perspective of the LISTENER.
I guess you could say that was my first experience with living the “copywriter mindset,” where you step into someone else’s shoes and make your decisions from that perspective.
Often times I’d do something in my playing that would be completely unnoticeable on the recording.
I thought I had said something. It just didn’t come through. So if no one can hear you, are you really communicating?
I realized that if my ideas were going to come through the music, then they had to be BIG enough to come through. And often times this FELT to me like it was over the top.
Eventually, you realized that this awkward “is this over the top?” feeling was the price you pay for making an IMPACT.
Go over the top. That’s the feeling you’re looking for. Why? Because that’s a clue that you’re saying something real in a way that’s going to get noticed.
It’ll separate you from the pack pretty quickly. Because most people won’t have the guts to do it.
People are looking to be excited, and inspired, and empowered by having you around. You can start providing that value with your answer to “What do you do?”
Helping people “go over the top” is something I do better than almost anything else.