The Client Letter
April 29, 2013
The Northland
Sunny 41 Degrees
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I was never really the popular kid in school.
I wasn’t geeky enough to get totally ignored, but I was geeky enough to not really fit in anywhere.
The farther I get from those early days, the more I realize life in the real world is a lot like high school.
You have the popular kids, you have the geeks, you have the folks who just need attention, and you have the people that no one ever notices.
I made a big mistake when I got in the marketing business. In an effort to attract clients, I started trying to act like the “popular people.”
It should come as no surprise that this costume didn’t fit me very well.
So I tried on another costume… and another one.
Wouldn’t you know it, the costume that ended up fitting me best is the one that I was naturally wearing the whole time.
That’s the costume of the thinker, the hard worker and the helpful teacher.
That’s me.
When I finally figured out I could just quit all of the shenanigans and wear that costume, that’s when I came up against the next issue:
My costume “adventure” was over. Now all that was left was hard work. Eek!
Do I do the work or do I pretend I’m still on the search for the silver bullet costume?
You don’t get anywhere if you spend all your time trying to figure out which costume to wear.
You only start making progress when you actually PICK a costume and start “doing the work.”
One of the benefits of struggling with this for so many years is that I developed the ability to help others figure out what costume fits them best.
Here we are on a Monday. It’s a perfect day to pick a costume and get to work.
Pretty soon, word gets around about your WORK. And that’s when you start getting attention for the costume you wear most naturally.
That’s also when people start noticing you and calling you a “genius” or something else that makes others think you had some secret to your success.
The “secret,” of course, is to solve real problems for real people for a long enough time that you truly make a difference.
That’s what the world calls VALUE.
That’s what they will pay for.