Anne H. Janzer's Blog, page 41

Dollar Shave Club’s Billion Dollar Value

Unilever just bought Dollar Shave Club for a billion dollars. A billion dollars.

When I first wrote about Dollar Shave Club in the book Subscription Marketing, it was still a scrappy startup. That was early last year. Now, it’s part of Unilever. How did it get there, with a $1 billion price tag?

Hint: It’s not about the blades.

Without knowing the details of the deal or the financials, I suspect that the value of Dollar Shave Club lies in its subscription base, and its relationships with its subscribers.

Dollar Shave Club is a great example of a company that practices value nurturing, adding value beyond the sale of the box or the blades. Dollar Shave Club works on building customer relationship in everything from the hilarious videos to the packaging of its boxes and the entertaining bathroom magazine (The Bathroom Minutes) that comes with the monthly box.

In an interview on emarketer, Adam Weber of Dollar Shave Club describes the importance of building the relationship beyond the blades, using content (the magazine) to build community:

It helps transcend a transaction relationship and makes our members feel like they’re part of a bigger community—part of something more than just buying razors.”

The Value of Value Nurturing

Today’s news serves as a strong rebuttal to those who feel that “value nurturing” is somehow a luxury extra, and that marketing should be spending all of its time getting new leads and sales, leaving the rest to chance.

In nurturing value for the customer, you are building value into your own business. Just ask Dollar Shave Club.

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What Inspires Your Writing?

Getting To Know Your Muse

Inspiration may appear in dreams. New ideas or complete phrases might pop into your head when you’re doing the dishes. Or, you’ll be in the shower when you suddenly think of a wonderful approach for something you’re writing.

Our best ideas seem to come from places beyond our intentional control. That’s probably why the Greeks personified inspiration in the nine muses. Cognitive science suggests that these muses reside in the complex circuitry of our brains.

The last blog post discussed two inner systems involved in writing, The Muse and the Scribe.

We spend most of our time with the intentional, effortful processes of the Scribe. We often identify with its narrating voice telling us that we’re in control of our actions and our writing.

The Muse operates below the surface of conscious thoughts. It remains in the shadows until those moments it contributes ideas.

Because of its vital role in writing, I’m going to shine a light on the elusive Muse. This post and a few that follow will share lessons I’ve learned from observing my own Muse. The usual disclaimers apply: your results may vary.

When the Muse Runs Away

The Muse doesn’t always enjoy the limelight. We may learn important lessons from its absence – the times that it refuses to show up when needed.

As an English major in college, I steadfastly refused to take any creative writing classes. I knew, deep in my gut, that I could not handle writing creatively on deadline and for a grade.

I already understood something about my Muse: she’s sensitive to criticism. Perhaps hyper-sensitive. Jumpy. Tetchy, even.

The idea of being graded was enough to send her into hiding.

I’m not alone in this regard: harsh criticism from others can deter us from creating.

Not everything the Muse produces is wonderful; the Scribe’s job is to evaluate and filter those contributions before putting them out into the world. And you must be careful; if you are too self-critical, your Muse may head for the hills.

Many years after college, I enrolled in a Continuing Education poetry writing class — a class I would never have taken as an undergraduate! I was older and more confident in my writing skills.

The Muse started showing up regularly between classes, dropping complete lines of poetry into my head as starting points for poems.

The exercises in poetic forms offered welcome constraints within which the Muse could operate, while providing shelter from criticism. (“It’s not a great sonnet, but hey, I wrote a sonnet!”)  And, instead of grades, we had discussions and feedback.

The class created a safe and welcoming environment for the Muse to participate.

Lessons about Approaching the Sensitive Muse

Honestly, many of my Muse’s brilliant ideas aren’t worth pursuing. (Shh… don’t let her know I said that.)

But that’s okay, because some of the ideas are good. If I shoot down every suggestion the moment it pops up, she goes silent.

My Scribe’s job is to filter and evaluate the contributions in such a way that the Muse still feels welcome.

Here are a few strategies that I’ve come up with for making the Muse a regular participant in the writing process.

Quiet the critic: Shut down the criticism when seeking input from the Muse. You may have to filter out many ideas before hitting on one that works. So, be kind and encouraging. When you come up with a mediocre idea, defer judgment and say to yourself, “That’s a possibility, and I wonder what else would work?”

Be prolific: When looking for subtitles for The Writer’s Process, I challenged myself to come up with 100 possibilities, fully expecting that most would be horrible. I’d only need a three percent hit rate to have a few good choices! Setting up this situation gave the Muse permission to associate and explore freely, without worrying about being shot down early in the process.

Work in phases. Separate information gathering from drafting and editing. Leave time for the Muse to contribute, before you have to filter and judge.

 

For a detailed description of how the Muse participates in the writing process, see the book The Writer’s Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear.

Other blogs in this series:

Writing Fast and Slow describes the inner processes of Muse and the Scribe.

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Writing Fast and Slow

What a Behavioral Economist Can Teach Us About Writing

In this post, I’m going to blatantly steal the concept of two selves from Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow to explain our inner writing processes.

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is a wonderful introduction to the vagaries of human decision-making. The book outlines a fictional construct of two distinct mental systems that guide our decision-making:

System 1 is the “thinking fast” system. It relies on gut feelings, shortcuts, habits, and heuristics to make decisions quickly. Sometimes it works well, but other times … not so much.  For example, System 1 is terrible at assessing probability.
System 2, the “slow” part of the title, manages the intentional thought processes that consume mental effort. System 2 is responsible for computing math problems or giving someone detailed driving directions.

We need both systems to survive in the modern world filled with choices constantly demanding attention. We use the quick System 1 to conserve mental energy for important decisions.

Problems come from using the wrong system at the wrong time — over-analyzing unimportant decisions or using mental short-cuts to respond to complex situations requiring thought and care.

This two-party model is  so useful for analyzing human thought, I’ve decided to adapt it for the process of writing.

But, with apologies to any economists reading this post, we’ll use more interesting labels for our inner writing systems: the Muse and the Scribe.

The Muse and the Scribe

The act of writing involves a thousand small decisions: what to write about, which words to use, how to phrase things, and when to let go.

You have (at least) two inner writers in your head.

Sometimes you get a flash of insight or spurt of ideas, and you can barely get them down on paper before the thoughts dissipate. These mental processes seem beyond our intentional control.

The Muse maps to that intuitive and creative system – it’s the “writing fast” part of the process.  The Muse comes up with ideas and inspiration.

The Greeks had nine muses for the different arts and sciences. I have just one.

The Muse sends us flashes of thought or phrases that drop into our brains. It typically skitters off quickly, leaving us to remember and write down the insights. When the Muse stays present during the drafting process, the ideas seem to flow straight from the brain into the world.

But most of the writer’s time is spent researching, structuring, carefully composing sentences, and revising.

The Scribe is my label for the the deliberate, intentional mental processes involved in writing. In ancient times, scribes were the people who wrote things down. I like to imagine my inner Scribe slaving away in a scriptorium, copying manuscripts.

The work of the Scribe is typically slow and purposeful. It crafts grammatically correct sentences that readers can parse. The Scribe sets and abides by schedules, makes plans, and gets the words down. Without it, nothing gets done.

The magic of writing happens when the two parts work together – when we get good ideas and can make something from them, or when the Muse suggests an elegant turn of phrase while the Scribe is drafting. The best writing requires both systems.

Working with the Two-Part Model

Understand and respect the differences between the systems, and you’ll be on the path to better writing.

The Muse is creative, the Scribe is critical. The Muse is easily distracted, while the Scribe is focused. Clearly, these inner players need different environments and processes.

Understanding the dichotomy, you can call on the right system at the appropriate moment. For example:

When you can’t come up with any good ideas, the problem isn’t a lack of creativity. Instead, you need to find ways to welcome and invite contributions from the Muse.
When you get a great idea in the middle of the night, or in the shower, it’s a message from the Muse, who is finally getting a chance to say something while the Scribe is off the job.
And when the writing goes beautifully, you’ve managed to get both systems working together. Congrats!

For more on the roles of the Muse and the Scribe, see the the book The Writer’s Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear.

Through the end of July, The Right Margin is running a contest to give away copies of The Writer’s Process. Enter by liking the Facebook post about getting unstuck in the writing process.

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A Five-Star Review by IndieReader

The Writer’s Process earned a five-star review from IndieReader. Here’s the take-away:

IR Verdict: Full of science-backed suggestions for solving nearly any writing problem, THE WRITER’S PROCESS is a worthy addition to the collections of aspiring and experienced writers alike.

Read the full review on IndieReader.

 

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The Magic Moment for Value Nurturing

The moment when someone signs up as a customer, your relationship with that person shifts.

If you come from a traditional marketing and sales environment with a linear funnel, you might ring a gong to mark the deal and hand the customer off to another part of the business.

But if your business depends on long-term customer relationships, recognize the fragile beauty of this moment. Here’s your chance to set the groundwork for the relationship going forward.

During hours and days after the initial sale, switch your focus to value nurturing — investing in the value experienced by the subscriber or customer. From this moment forward, the task of marketing shifts to making the customer happy and successful. And first impressions count.

Use the initial interactions with customers — the welcome email, online receipt, or onboarding messages — to invest in the future:

Helping customers find success
Building trust
Communicating your values and story
Setting the tone for the ongoing relationship

Today’s post looks at two examples I’ve encountered recently of companies turning ordinary transactional emails or communications into something special.

Slack’s Magic Link

“Check your email for a confirmation link…”  We’ve all seen that message many times.

The email confirmation link is a standard part of the onboarding process for many services, and for good reason. Sending a confirmation link to an email address validates that the person signing up for the service is associated with the account that they’re claiming.

But the confirmation step can be a barrier between the new subscriber and the service. If the recipient delays opening the mail, the link may expire. The necessary security measure can become an annoying hurdle from the customer’s perspective.

I made my first foray into Slack recently, signing up for the WriterHangout group. Instead of the usual, bland instruction to check my email, Slack told me to watch for a “Magic Link” in my email.

The Magic Link concept made me curious. The email itself arrived immediately, so I clicked through.

Behind the scenes, this appears to be another confirmation email. But the presentation and style of the message sets the expectation of a different kind of enterprise software company.

By approaching the ordinary in a creative way, Slack encourages its customers to get over that initial hurdle, while setting up an ongoing relationship.

Buffer’s Awesome Welcome

Buffer is a social media sharing and scheduling application. After using the free service, I was enticed by the scheduling and analytic capabilities in the paid plan. So I signed up for the “Awesome” plan.

Two emails arrived right away.

The first, signed by co-founder and CEO Joel Gascoigne, welcomed me to the Awesome plan. Written with a personal tone and style, it set the groundwork for an ongoing relationship.

He also  reminded me that I could cancel at any time — a gesture that builds trust. Buffer is not trying to trap me into a subscription.

The second email was a receipt for my payment — an essential and usually boring transactional email. Like the first, this one felt personal.

The email included a picture of the Buffer team at a work retreat, showing me the people behind the service. It ended with this quote, guaranteed to warm the heart of someone who preaches value nurturing:

We will also do our best to provide great value for you day in and day out.”

Both emails welcomed replies. So I took them up on the offer. When I replied to the receipt email, the team responded quickly, reinforcing my trust that the company is listening to its customers.

Buffer clearly embodies the practice of value nurturing. It’s taken two mundane, transactional emails, and used them to build the relationship.

Lessons for Marketers

What happens the moment a customer signs up with your product or service? Are you taking the opportunity to start building a relationship?

Examine every ordinary transactional email you send to new subscribers or customers. See if there’s anything you can add to build trust, accelerate customer success, or otherwise begin a beautiful relationship.

Interested in more?

Read the related post on value nurturing:  When Marketing Adds Value: The Case for Content.

Download the free chapter on value nurturing from the Subscription Marketing book.

Get the Subscription Marketing book.

Image by Evan Kirby on Unsplash

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Confessions of an Unlikely Control Freak

During the course of writing a book, you learn a great deal about yourself as well as your topic. You confront demons of doubt. You learn how to power through distractions and procrastination. You dig deep and discover insights you didn’t even realize you had.

As the book makes its way through publication and launch, the lessons keep on coming. You might find that you suffer from the imposter syndrome, or that you love writing but dread marketing. Many people discover that the childhood dreams of being a published author are products of a bygone era.

In doing an interview with Roger C. Parker about the process of writing and publishing two books, I had a startling realization:

I’m an impatient control freak.

No one who knows me well would describe me that way – at least, I think they wouldn’t. I tend to be easy going. My kids might even say, out of my earshot, that I’m a pushover.

But when examining my reasons for publishing books independently, impatience and control were my main motivators.

Who knew?

In my own defense, I’ll lay out the reasons for these personality traits, at least when it comes to publishing.

Publishing and Impatience

My first book, Subscription Marketing, was written expressly for marketing professionals. The book’s premise is that business model changes – namely the growth of subscriptions – hold implications for how marketing engages with customers.

I set out to write the book because I didn’t find anyone talking about that topic in a dedicated way. I felt I had the opportunity to fill the gap and wanted  get the book out quickly. (Also, I wanted the research and examples to be relevant when the book first came out.) Sending proposals and working with a publishing house would take months, and the opportunity would be lost.

The fastest path to publication was to publish the book myself. From finished, proofread draft to getting the book out in the world, both in printed form and ebook, took only about a month.

Kabam – instant gratification, relative to the world of book publishing.

As any psychologist will tell you, instant gratification can be addicting. This first experience set my expectations for how long it should take to go from final proofing to production.

I got hooked on the speed of publishing independently.

The Need for Control

By publishing that book independently, I retained control over many important elements of the process, including:

The editor and proofreader who worked on the book
The cover design
Which style guide the copyeditor and proofreader should use
The interior design and layout
The price of both print and digital editions
What content I could give away as free chapters for promotion
When the book would be published

Authors working with traditional publishers do not always have this level of control. They may not agree with the cover design options presented to them or the editor assigned to them. Some authors I’ve spoken with had extremely tight timeframes for drafting the book. Others were restricted in how much content they could give away as book marketing. Few had any input into the price charged for the finished product.

This kind of control is also addictive. So when I set out to write The Writer’s Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear, I again chose to publish it myself.

From Author to Publisher

One book consultant has suggested that that authors should use the term independently published rather than self published. At first, this sounded like marketing spin. On further reflection, though, there’s logic to the designation.

In the course of publishing these books, I have taken on many of the activities of a publisher:

Purchasing and assigning ISBNs
Hiring editors and proofreaders
Hiring cover designers
Creating a marketing and publicity plan
Making distribution, pricing, and format decisions
Recording audiobooks

My consulting business has become, in part, a publishing house with one author.

I share these thoughts for those of you who are struggling with the decision about how to publish your books, or what course is the best. My choice represents only one path of many. Your decision should depend on many factors, including your skill set, your willingness to take the reins and make tough decisions, the type of book you’re publishing, and the market you hope to reach.

If you do choose the self-publishing route, beware: you may discover that somewhere, deep inside, you’ve got an inner control freak.

 

For more about the journey of writing a book, read The Writer’s Process.

Find a transcript of the interview with Roger on his blog post.

 

 

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Behavioral Writing Sciences

In 2002, a psychologist (Daniel Kahneman) won a Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences. Yes, you read that correctly. A psychologist won a prize in economics, by studying the imperfect, human variable in economic equations.

Kahneman is a pioneer in the field of behavioral economics: a mash-up of psychology, neuroscience, and economics. It examines how people make decisions in the real world – not an idealized marketplace populated by completely rational humans. The theory is that a better understanding of decision-making biases might help us lead happier, more successful lives.

Why stop with economics when we could do something similar for writing?

The writing mind is not entirely rational. The quality of our work is often determined by non-rational and non-linear thought processes that fuel creativity.

We would all be better writers if we understood the processes that make us tick and the ones that derail us.

Behavioral Writing Sciences

Schools and universities teach the mechanics of writing: grammar, vocabulary, and the essay form. Creative writing classes teach character development and story structure. But most literature and composition courses lack instruction about the most powerful writing tool of all: the brain.

As students and working writers, we are left to figure out how to put everything together without understanding what’s going on in our heads. We observe our behaviors and come up with rituals and routines, hoping for the best.

In my ideal world, universities would teach seminars in Behavioral Writing Sciences – the equivalent of behavioral economics, but for writers. These classes would equip students with an understanding of the different mental systems involved in the complete, end-to-end writing process.

Here are a few potential topics for these seminars:

How to overcome the feeling that we have nothing worth saying or fear of the blank page
How to silence the inner critic when writing a draft
How to welcome and sustain that critic when revising
During revision, how to step outside our own perspective and see the text with fresh eyes
When proofreading, how to see what exists on the page, rather than what we believe we said
How to fit the contemplative act of writing into a busy, interrupt-driven life

You Already Know What Works, But….

If you have been writing for a while, you already have insight into your own behaviors. You know whether you thrive on deadlines or wilt under pressure; whether you can write in a crowded room or need total isolation. Experience teaches you that good ideas strike when you’re away from the desk. Perhaps you have developed writing routines to summon inspiration.

So why do we need a field of behavioral writing sciences? I can think of two good reasons.

1. We need faith in our processes.

Cognitive science tells us why our practices work; why good ideas strike at inconvenient times, or why we cannot focus on our writing in specific situations. With science backing us up, we are more likely to stick to our best habits, and have faith in our processes.

2. Awareness is the best defense against writing obstacles.

We may realize that we work best with adequate time to prepare and incubate ideas, but then set ourselves up for failure or stress by putting off starting the process.

Or, we feel discouraged by the banality of our first draft and stop working on a topic, rather than trusting in struggle as part of the creative process.

If  we have studied the steps of the creative process or understand the power of incubation, we can see these situations more clearly, and take steps to stay on track. We’ll create schedules that allow time for incubation, or turn off the inner critic to promote creativity.

Consider this an open challenge to English departments everywhere to collaborate with their psychologist colleagues on the teaching the mental processes of writing.

If this interests you, take a look at The Writer’s Process – my personal take on the cognitive science behind the writing process, written by an English major who spent a lot of time in psychology classes in college.

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A New Writing Book by Steven Pressfield

Short version of this review (for people who have read The War of Art)

Steven Pressfield has another book out, a follow-up to The War of Art, titled Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t.
It’s free (until June 30) in online formats here.

Enough said.

Long version (for everyone else)

There are a few, select books that we keep and treasure. They live on a special bookshelf so that we might refer to them again. Perhaps we keep them nearby simply so we know they are there. We recommend them to people—special people at the right time—with confidence that the messages will make an impact.

Steven Pressfield already has one book in this category: The War of Art. It’s a manifesto about beating resistance and finding the courage to make art, to write. Now he’s publishing another book that extends the message: Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s a free download? Seriously.

Everyone Wants to Read Pressfield’s Stuff

Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art has already influenced a legion of writers. He also maintains a website that nurtures and supports thousands of other writers, at stevenpressfield.com.

It seems almost unfair that he should have yet another book that earns a spot on the permanent bookshelf. But he’s done it, and I have to recommend it.

The book starts out talking about advertising, which seems odd at first. But it’s relevant. Remember the title: if The War of Art was about getting yourself to create, then this book is getting outside of yourself and writing something worth reading.

From advertising, the book moves on to fiction, screenwriting, nonfiction, self-help, and even pornography, drawing on lessons Pressfield learned in these fields. In bite-sized chapters, he steps through stories that reveal fundamental truths about writing stuff that people actually want to read.

The book is heavy on biographical detail, which may or may not apply to your situation. But it’s also rich with spot-on advice about structure, genre, the hero’s journey, and storytelling. Eventually, he brings it back to the inspirational, philosophical voice of the War of Art:

“… our passage through the varying disciplines of this life, if we’re truly paying attention, is an education in editing out the ego, in stepping away from our fear and self-concern and aspirations for recognition, for material rewards, and for earthly payoffs, until we move into the realm of the gift, where what we offer is for the reader’s good and not our own.”

That passage right there—that’s why you read this book.

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Thinking Like a Journalist

When it comes to marketing for subscriptions, the admonition to “think like a journalist” is great advice. Journalists understand their readers and foster long-term relationships with them. That’s what brands need to do, as well.

So I was thrilled to have the chance to talk with Phoebe Chongchua on her Brand Journalism Advantage podcast recently. We chatted about subscription marketing, value nurturing, brand journalism, and how growing up in an opera theater prepared me to focus on subscription relationships.

Listen here, or on iTunes.

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Business901 Podcast: Subscription Marketing

I had the pleasure of visiting with Joe Dager on the Business901 podcast week. We had a lively discussion covering topics such as:

How new sales funnel feeds itself
Aligning with your customers’ values
Sharing and authenticity in an environment of radical transparency

Find the podcast on iTunes or on the website here.

 

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