Gennaro Cuofano's Blog, page 271
May 14, 2017
How a Startup Became the Greatest Tech Conference in Europe
March 10, 2017
5 Steps to Monetize Your Blog Without Spending a Dollar on Ads!
January 26, 2017
Five Must-Watch Business YouTube Videos in 2017
When it comes to business education, we all make huge assumptions. It seems like if you don’t go back to school and learn the basics from a well-paid Ph.D. professor, then you are not actually learning anything valuable.
Is that really the case?
In a world that changes at faster and faster pace, how can you find the best resources, without putting too much time and money into it?
How can you be sure to have an up to date education, worth your time and effort, without spending a buck?
My answer is pretty easy, YouTube!
What? Yes, YouTube! with its over one billion users (which by the way represents almost 30% of the total worldwide web population), it is the most valuable place where you can find any kind of information.
From how to speed read to how to make pasta, YouTube is the greatest library of knowledge (beware of the noise and funny cats videos though) you can ever find.
Having said that, for whoever is trying to make it in the business world, few valuable subjects are essential. The three most important ones I believe are:
Economics
Finance & Accounting
Sales & Marketing
Economics allows you to understand the bigger picture. In other words, particularly macro level economics makes you zoom out from your day to day business operations and have a wider perspective.
Finance and Accounting are crucial too for few simple reasons. Frist, if you are starting out on your own, initially you cannot afford to hire a person that works full time as data entry. Although nowadays there are many software that make your life easier (such as Freshbooks) it is critical to have a foundation of accounting. Second, having a basic understanding of finance will allow you to use the optimal capital structure for your firm.
Sales & Marketing will either make or break your business. If you don’t sell your product or service, it means that you don’t know how to market it. And if you don’t know how to market it, it means you never actually asked the most important question,
“Who is my customer?“
With no further ado, the five videos that will bring you from zero to essential in the above disciplines in the matter of few hours, zero money and no hustle!
January 14, 2017
How to Use AI to Start Your next Business
You are sitting at your work’s desk. There is a client’s invoice to process.
All seemed to work as usual. You are set for your routinely job tasks.
You are almost done with processing that invoice when your computer breaks down!
Now, what?
Ok no problem, you think, I am going to write this invoice and eventually give it to the accountant.
Good. You fill all the fields required by the same form you have been filling for years until you get to the bottom line.
There is a problem, though. The invoice you are processing is made of a set of services you performed for your client, which requires a simple arithmetic formula.
In fact, you have a line on your form that says, “consulting services = $1,527” and a subsequent line that states “add 20% as tax.“
Ok, you think, I should be able to perform this simple arithmetic calculation on my own.
The problem is in the last years you had delegated that same task to your excel spreadsheet that you always kept open in front of you. But now it wasn’t available.
What to do then? Simple, you grab an old calculator that you have in your desk’s drawer and finally perform that simple arithmetic operation.
Although, you have a high esteem of yourself, when it comes to arithmetic, a calculator, a device that you would never define as smart, it is way smarter and faster that you could ever be.
Yet the form of intelligence in that calculator is extremely narrow and specific. In other words, thinking about that calculator can teach you a new way of thinking, which is about the different forms of intelligence that exist.
The Era of Cognifying
Kevin Kelly, in his TED Talk of 2005 took an evolutionary perspective to the way technology evolves. If everything is becoming, what then are some observable macro-trends that are shaping technology?
In his TED Talk of 2016, Kevin Kelly went further and identified some of those macro-trends. One of the most striking ones is cognifying or putting minds within the objects that have been part of our daily lives for centuries, and making them smarter and smarter.
As Kelly puts it,
So your calculator is smarter than you are in arithmetic already; your GPS is smarter than you are in spatial navigation; Google, Bing, are smarter than you are in long-term memory. And we’re going to take, again, these kinds of different types of thinking and we’ll put them into, like, a car. The reason why we want to put them in a car so the car drives, is because it’s not driving like a human. It’s not thinking like us. That’s the whole feature of it. It’s not being distracted, it’s not worrying about whether it left the stove on, or whether it should have majored in finance. It’s just driving.
That makes us think differently also about our role as humans. In fact, rather than fighting back against the takeover of AI when it comes to tasks that we are neither good at nor willing to do, we should instead embrace it!
Therefore, the next business opportunity may be way closer and simpler than you think. It may be about adding AI to an object you have been using your entire life but never really thought of making it smarter.
In fact, as Kelly explained in the same TED, the first industrial revolution started when we began to electrify anything that surrounded us. Instead, according to Kelly the second industrial revolution already started. As he put it,
The formula for the next 10,000 start-ups is very, very simple, which is to take x and add AI
But if that is so simple, how can you begin to take advantage of that?
How to Use Kelly’s Equation (Business = X + AI)
The greatest mistake that most wannabe entrepreneurs make when trying to start a business is about thinking too complexly. The truth is that the next genial business idea may be there, but you lacked the courage to see it, just because it looked too simple to be true.
Take a pen. What is cool about it? Not much. Yet you take that pen, put some form of AI into it, and you get as a result a smart pen.
Take a bag. Who would start a business based on that? I guess none. Yet take that same bag, have it interact with your devices, and you get a smart bag.
Take a shoe. We wear them since thousands of years. Unless you don’t want to compete against Prada, there is no particular reason for starting a shoe business. Yet grab that shoe, add some AI to it, and you get the smart shoes, with automatic tightening!
What’s the point?
You may have had your next potential business in front of you all along but never managed to notice it. You may want to start asking yourself,
“What is the most trivial object I have been using throughout my life?”
Take that, add some form of AI and you have a business!
Related Resources
How technology evolves
How AI can bring on a second AI revolution
The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
December 28, 2016
Business Mastery | Five Must-Listen Business Podcasts in 2017
In the last years, the Podcast industry has boomed.
From San Diego to Shanghai we saw the rise of hundreds of podcasters.
In the US alone from 2008 to 2016 the podcast consumption grew at a double-digit rate, and it does not seem to stop.
What makes the podcast industry so amazing? Let’s dive into it!
What is a podcast?
Simply put, a podcast is the on-demand version of the radio. In short, during the 80s you had to rush to listen to your favorite DJ speaking through the radio; nowadays you can listen to your favorite show at any time, anywhere, with a single finger’s tap.
Is it worth your time listening to a podcast?
The most significant aspect of podcasting is the fact that you can listen to your favorite show while you are doing other things. On the other hand, you have to be careful how you use this amazing tool. In fact, although I do not recommend you multitask. There are certain situations in which, listening to a podcast while doing something else may enhance your productivity.
In short, certain activities do not get along with podcasting, while others do. The basic principle is to avoid those activities that use the same part of the brain than listening to a podcast requires.
In other words, it is important to prevent those activities that require deep or full attention (such as reading). Therefore, the more an action comes automatic, the better that is suited for listening podcasts.
Some examples?
walking
washing dishes
commuting
cleaning
at the gym (while on the treadmill)
If you need inspiration on when is a good time to listen to a podcast check out what other podcast lovers say on Quora.
On the other hand, I suggest a balance. Even though, those activities are “mindless” it is important to use them to be practice mindfulness. Therefore, the 50/50 rule applies.
Thus, fully focus on the mindless things you are doing for half the time. Use the other half of your time to listen to your favorite podcasts.
Now that we defined the best way to use this fantastic tool let’s see what the business podcasting world offers to you.
Our Top Five Selection
We are going to recommend five podcast shows that can boost your business acumen. Also, for each show, we are also going to recommend some exciting episodes. By the end of this article, you will have a list of podcasts you can listen thru the whole year.
Freakonomics
Stephen Dubner, the co-author (with economist Steven Levitt) of the most original economics book, Freakonomics, is also the author of the homonym podcast.
The uniqueness of this podcast stands in Dubner’s ability to address a major issue in the most entertaining way possible. Also, in many episodes, Dubner brings the economic theories to test them in the real world.
If you want to develop a real understanding of economics, away from the sterile world of academia, this podcast must be added to your library!
Below some episodes we highly recommend,
How to Be More Productive
How to Make a Bad Decision
How to Become Great at Just About Anything
How to Create Suspense
Should We Behave Like Economists Say We Do?
The Smart Passive Income
In Business Mastery | Five Must-Read Business Books in 2017 Pat Flynn’s book, Will it Fly was recommended as one of the best business books to read in 2017.
In addition to that, Pat Flynn’s podcast, The Smart Passive Income is an endless stream of invaluable resources that can help you boost your business and bring it to the next level!
Below some episodes we highly recommend,
How to Create Your Life Vision Plan
Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most Out of the Conferences You Attend
What I Wish I’d Known Before Starting My Own Business
Money and Legal Considerations for Starting Out
Mentors and Masterminds with Ellory Wells
EOFire
John Lee Dumas, the founder & host of EOFire (Entrepreneur On Fire), is among, the most successful podcasters in the world. Among his most successful enterprises, there is The Freedom Journal, a tool that helps you to set, implement and achieve any goal within 100 days!
With a total gross income of almost $2.5mln for 2016, you can understand the level of success that John Lee Dumas reached in only a few years. As you can imagine, he attributes part of his success to his ability to set, implement, and track his goals.
Dumas’ podcast is the manna for aspiring businesspeople.
Below some episodes we highly recommend,
How to become a niche marketing and sales systemization powerhouse with Matthew Pollard
Leverage your income and impact by turning your knowledge into an online course with Troy Dean
How to innovate and launch ideas that stand out in a crowded marketplace with Tamara Kleinberg
Escaping the nine to five with Amy Mewborn
Social media tactics to go viral worldwide with Rachel Pedersen
The James Altucher Show
When I first started to write, I needed someone that I could use as the source of inspiration. Although reading the classics helped me a lot, there is one person that I believe has an amazing story-telling ability, and that is James Altucher.
Not only I find his writing skills superb; this man also put together a podcast series, where he interviews many incredible people.What sets James Altucher (pronounced as he specifies “James I’ll touch her” but very fast) apart is the ability to talk about his life’s failures like none in the business world.
Saying that his life has been a mess is a euphemism (he made and lost millions several times), yet he tells it outspokenly.
Even though the audio of this podcast is not always optimal, it is very worth listen to it,
Below some episodes we highly recommend,
Scott Adams – How to Use Mass Persuasion Techniques to Become President of The United States
Seth Godin – Change Your Mind, Choose Your World & More Genius Advice
Chip Conley – How To Find Your Calling (what I learned by accident because of AirBnB)
Robert Cialdini – The 7 Techniques To Influence Anyone Of Anything
Jordan Harbinger: The Mindset We All Want
The Tim Ferris Show
In this blog, the name “Tim Ferris” showed up in many articles (from Solopreneurship 101: Finding Your Muse a La Tim Ferris (How to Find Your Business Muse in Three Easy Steps) to MBA or Start-Up? The three variables to take into account).
Therefore, Ferris does not need any presentation. His show is among the most useful in the world for few reasons.
First, Tim Ferris tests everything he does. In other words, when he gives you the advice; you can expect it to be real.
Second, his podcasts span across several disciplines; from business to dieting, there is a broad range of resources that Tim Ferris makes available to his audience.
Third, there are few people in the world with his ability to deconstruct world-class performers’ routines, and habits and make them available to you! It is a podcast you must have in your library!
Below some episodes we highly recommend,
Becoming the Best Version of You Matt Mullenweg:
Characteristics and Practices of Successful Entrepreneurs
Tony Robbins on Morning Routines, Peak Performance, and Mastering Money
The Tim Ferriss Podcast is Live! Here Are Episodes 1 and 2 (Kevin Rose and Joshua Waitzkin)
Tim Ferriss Interviews Arnold Schwarzenegger on Psychological Warfare (And Much More)
December 27, 2016
Business Mastery | Five Must-Read Business Books in 2017
Our world changes at faster and faster pace.
What was true yesterday, not necessarily is going to be so tomorrow.
Yet, in this scenario, it is important to be grounded in the real world.
In short, you want to avoid to get lost in the plethora of information, theories, and news that everyday bombard us, as soon as we open our eyes.
To do that you need an internal compass that can guide you through the business world so that you will never lose your path again.
This internal compass can only be built by implementing physical and mental habits that will make you more productive.
One way to shape this internal compass is through reading.
For such reason, I am going to suggest five business books that also our readers and fans, found extremely useful to build physical and mental strength.
Tools of Titans
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion ― by Timothy Ferriss, Tools of Titans
Many believe that reading is for wimps. Why would you be spending your time reading, when you can act?
While this is in part true. Action without reflection is like steering a boat that is about to go adrift.
In other words, it is important to act, but also to take the time to reflect and study. That is going to make your actions way more effective.
If you are looking for a tool that can boost your effectiveness in the real world, there is no better book than Tim Ferris’ “Tools of Titans.”
In fact, this is a book about health, wealth, and wisdom (the book is divided into three sections).
Tools of Titans is the distilled knowledge of over 200+ guests interviewed in over two years at “The Tim Ferris Show,” one f the best podcasts currently available for business and lifestyle.
What makes Tools of Titans unique?
Most of the content of the book is actionable. Ready for use. In other words, if you are looking to transform your life, that is an amazing way to start.
Furthermore, Tim Ferris does a great job in locating the best experts in each field. Therefore, whatever interest you have, you can now find a mentor thanks to Ferris’ work.
I suggest you go through this book with a notepad, and mark the pages you find more interesting (you will find most parts of the book interesting).
As soon as you have done reading it; start implementing and testing.
Homo Deus
Censorship no longer works by hiding information from you; censorship works by flooding you with immense amounts of misinformation, of irrelevant information, of funny cat videos, until you’re just unable to focus –by Yuval Noah Harari
Homo Deus is not properly a business book. Yet we believe it will benefit you in many ways.
Harari, the author, is a historian but most of all an avid practitioner of Vipassana Meditation. This is a practice taught in India for over 2,500 years, which main aim is to allow to see things as they really are.
There is nothing esoteric, mystic or religious about this practice. Rather, this is a way of detaching your mind from your thoughts and stop identifying yourself with your mind.
By practicing Vipassana, Harari also developed a way to see the reality, that will blow your mind.
What makes Homo Deus unique?
In the complex world in which we live it is impossible to predict what is going to happen tomorrow. Even though Harari’s account in Homo Deus explores the likely scenarios that will shape our world in the next century, this fantastic book does one more incredible thing,
It will give you new eyes that you can use to look at the business world like never before.
Antifragile
They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns) – by Nicholas Nassim Taleb
Our minds have not been wired to live in a complex world like that we created in the last century. In short, we evolved in a world where scarcity was paramount.
On the other hand, nowadays the opposite is true. In most western developed countries abundance is the rule. From food to information we have it all.
In short, the world we created clashes with the world in which we evolved. These mismatches make us vulnerable in many ways.
One of the greatest vulnerabilities is about how we interpret reality. Prehistoric humans had to understand each pattern around them to avoid extinction. For instance, when Mr. Hunter-Gatherer saw a moving bush, he knew it was time for him to run as fast as he could.
In fact, behind that bush, a dangerous predator could have been hiding. Even if that bush was only moved by the wind, it didn’t matter to Mr. Hunter-Gatherer. Indeed, the cost of being wrong was so high (death) that he could not afford it.
While this ability to find patterns allowed us to survive, it also makes us extremely biased toward the modern world.
The former trader, Nicholas Nassim Taleb, in his book, Antifragile, will show you how and why reality is not as we perceive it. Although his focus is about the business and economic world, Taleb immense culture makes him able to space across several disciplines.
What makes Antifragile unique?
While reading Antifragile, you will suddenly change your perspectives on many things. You will probably stop watching TV, and reading newspapers; while you will start reading classics. Yet the greatest change of all will be about a new fresh mindset,
You will become a modern skeptic
Pre-suasion
In large measure, who we are with respect to any choice is where we are, attentionally, in the moment before the choice ― Robert B. Cialdini, Pre-Suasion
We already spoke about Robert Cialdini in From Influence to Pre-Suasion: A Scientific Breakthrough of How Subtle Clues Powerfully Influence Our Behavior.
What makes Pre-suasion unique?
This book will show you how “invisible clues” can shape your decision-making ability way more than you think.
For anyone that operates in the business world the book will also do a crucial thing,
Pre-suasion will give you a toolbox to use right away to boost the reach and success of your business.
Will it Fly
The Riches are in the Niches ― Pat Flynn, Will It Fly
The San Diegan Pat Flynn is among the most successful social media marketers, bloggers, podcasters in the business world. With his community The Smart Passive Income, he has helped dozens of thousands of people to build and grow a successful business.
Furthermore, Pat Flynn will not only show you how to create a business but also how to validate it, which will make the risk of failure dismal.
What makes Will it Fly special?
Pat Flyn’s book, Will It Fly, is a tool that allows you to go from Mission Design to Validation, with a simplicity that only Pat Flynn is capable of.
At the end of the day,
You will find yourself in front of your desired audience without even realizing it!
December 19, 2016
Content Marketing 101: The Lindy Effect. How to Make Your Content Outlive You!
You are staring at your computer’s screen.
You don’t know where to start.
Ideas seemed to be so clear in your mind. When you sat down, that paper castle collapsed.
There is something about writing that makes it a very hard skill to master.
Your mind without writing is like a room plenty of clothes scattered around.
Writing is like taking those clothes and placing them in the proper drawer.
Many believe that the most difficult part of writing is the creative part.
But that is only a tiny part of the story. Like an entrepreneur needs an idea to start a business. So a writer needs creativity. But once the spark of creativity is on the rest is all about execution, patience, and dedication.
If writing is so difficult, time-consuming, yet paramount for any business, how can we make sure that the content created through our writing will generate a long-term return for the business?
The Lindy Effect
You are waiting in line at the post office. In front of you, there are two people.
One is a young fellow of twenty years, and the other is an old folk, he seems to be about eighty years old. In your mind, there is no doubt. The old fellow will die way sooner than the young fellow.
Of course, we are thinking regarding probability. In other words, we know that there are way more chances that the old folk will die sooner than the young fellow.
While this reasoning works a when we are in the domain of something perishable (things with a determined life expectancy); this kind of thinking becomes flawed when we switch to another domain, the non-perishable.
In other words, As Nassim Taleb, author of Antifragile explains, when we get into the non-perishable domain the probability distribution of something happening, change altogether.
In short, while the life expectancy of two people (humans fall into the perishable domain) follow a Gaussian distribution (also called normal distribution). When it comes to the non-perishable (such as the content you are about to create by pounding your fingertips on the keyboard), it follows a Power Law distribution.
What does that mean?
Practically speaking you are creating something that has the potential to live forever!
But how can we leverage on the Lindy Effect to create such content?
The Power of Content!
Over two thousand years ago, a man, from Cisalpine Gaul (a region that stretched throughout the Northern part of Italy) aspired to become a poet.
His name was Publius.
Publius was already quite famous in Rome. In fact, the Roman Emperor, Augustus, had commissioned him to write a poem.
Although Publius had spent the last years of his life, working and drafting that poem, it always seemed to him that something was missing.
The work never seemed to be ready for being published.
The years went by, and although Publius’ work had become encyclopedic, he didn’t feel ready. While visiting a town, called Megara, he got sick and not long after he died.
Before dying Publius ordered his literary executors to burn his work. But Emperor Augustus ordered them to disregard Publius’ wish.
That was how the most influential poem of Western literature was born. Indeed, that man was Publius Vergilius Maro (better known as Virgil), and his work was the Aeneid!
What can we learn from this story?
Three basic but incredibly powerful principles!
Number One: Press the publish button!
Arms and the man I sing, who first made way,
predestined exile, from the Trojan shore
to Italy, the blest Lavinian strand.
Smitten of storms he was on land and sea
by violence of Heaven, to satisfy
stern Juno’s sleepless wrath; and much in war
he suffered, seeking at the last to found
the city, and bring o’er his fathers’ gods
to safe abode in Latium; whence arose
the Latin race, old Alba’s reverend lords,
and from her hills wide-walled, imperial Rome.
Those are the opening lines of Virgil’s Aeneid.
A literary work, drafted by Vergil over two thousand years ago, still read and studied all over the world. We can not only expect this content to be still relevant for another one-hundred year. According to the Lindy Effect, we can look forward Virgil’s work to be “alive” for other two thousand years.
The great paradox of the whole story is the fact that Vigil did not want his work to be published. Once published it was a great success!
Even though we will never know for sure why Virgil didn’t want to publish his work, one can learn one great lesson.
Independently of how you feel about what you wrote it is still worth to post it.
In other words, creating content is almost like managing a Venture Capital Firm.
You are aware that most of the companies you invested in will be not successful. Yet if one of the companies you invested in becomes extremely successful you will be paid off.
Assuming you are not a famous author, but someone which is building his reputation, the cost of failure for publishing something unsuccessful is petite. None expects you to be the next Dostoyevsky.
If you don’t feel ready to create your blog, but need validation from others to know whether you are a good writer, then Quora may be a good place to start. Here you can help other people, while you refine your skills as a writer.
Number Two: Let readers validate your content, not your Persona!
Once you press the button “Publish,” it isn’t anymore about yourself. It is about the content you created.
When you receive negative feedbacks; when none really cares about what you wrote, that must not affect you.
Once again, you have to approach writing a la Chris Sacca. You are creating content like a venture capitalist is investing in Startups.
You believe in what you are doing, yet you know for sure that most of what you are going to publish won’t be successful.
Number Three: Create content like a scientist in a Laboratory!
A passion is a theory. Now you have to test your theory. The world is your laboratory. Construct the experiment that will test your theory. Then test and test and test and tweak and test more.
In the article “How To Quit Your Job the Right Way,” James Altucher got the point, which I believe is fundamental for anyone in business.
More specifically for content creators, we could replace the word “passion” in the statement above, with “article.” In other words, when you are about to create an article, you have a theory about what appeals to your audience.
Once you have that theory, you must test it. Once tested it you must tweak it until it reaches its maximum potential.
In other words, you have to avoid to treat an article, like it was a finished product. But rather as a “product” that you are testing.
Once you get feedback from your audience, you should go back to that article, and tweak it, until it reaches its maximum potential!
In other words, as James Altucher puts it in the same article,
Life does not promise you stability. IT PROMISES YOU A LABORATORY. In that laboratory you can experiment.
Wrapping-up
We saw how the Lindy Effect teaches us how powerful content creation can be. Yet to make it powerful we learned three important principles, from Virgil’s story:
Press the publish button
Let readers validate your content, not your Persona
Create content like a scientist in a Laboratory
December 16, 2016
Don’t Underestimate the Power of Your Brand Story
Guest post BY MICAH BOWERS – FREELANCE DESIGNER @ TOPTAL
This evening, when you’ve finished work, you’ll encounter a story.
Maybe you’ll seek the story out on television, at the theater, or in a book.
Or perhaps the story will find you by way of a friend’s text or a spouse’s rough day.
Either way, stories are inescapable, and we like it that way.
A story allows us to immerse ourselves in peripheral worlds among people, places, and things we know of, but may not have experienced. For anyone working in brand development, the power of a story is impossible to ignore, but how does one write an engaging brand story?
The Story Behind the Brand Story
In 2012, I was employed as a designer at a small graphics business.
I churned out project after project at a startlingly fast pace. One day, I took a step back and browsed through all the work I had done. Some of it was bland; most of it was bad.
I thought, “I must be a terrible designer. I’ll quit and become a successful screenwriter or a famous novelist. Those are good options.”
I bought several books on writing and began to practice. After a few months, I had two realizations.
1. “I’m an awful writer.”
2. “Maybe I could incorporate the things I’ve learned about writing into my branding projects.”
So I experimented, and a funny thing happened: My design work got worse.
See, I had no strategy for using a story in branding projects, and I wasn’t including my clients in the process.
My attempts at building a brand story caused confusion, and one client said to me, “I don’t think you understand the story we’re trying to tell.”
I felt dumb, but I kept trying. I went back to my writing books and began working on a strategy for creating compelling brand stories.
Now, after five years of trial, error, and refinement, I’m convinced that the most important part of a branding project is story development, for a few reasons.
First, a well-written brand story highlights connections between a business and the people it’s trying to reach.
Second, it prepares clients to promote their business with language that’s concise, authentic, and intriguing.
Third, it helps clients make business decisions that are consistent with brand values, and it equips the brand designer with context and purpose for developing a visual identity.
Lastly, it establishes a common language between brand designer and client, opening the door for an ongoing relationship.
The 3 Elements of Every Brand Story
My approach to writing a brand story is simple. There are three parts that should always be addressed.
1. Brand Storyline
2. Brand Message
3. Brand Themes
You may add other parts, but these three are foundational.
To help you better understand how to approach each part, I’ve included examples from a branding project I recently completed for business in my community.
BoHammer is a vehicle wrap studio, founded by Mike Goldhammer.
Goldhammer spent ten years installing wraps all over the Pacific Northwest, but after starting a family, he decided to focus his efforts on the Portland metro area.
When Mike and I met to discuss his vision for the BoHammer brand, two things became abundantly clear: The man is meticulous about quality, and he loves to talk about wraps.
These observations became my primary brand building blocks and led to the project’s big question: “How can I equip Mike with a story that both informs and entices people to seek out his services?”
1. Brand Storyline
“Ambiguity leads to ambivalence, the enemy of brands.”
A good story prioritizes information. This also holds true for a brand story.
Regardless of the number of virtuous qualities a brand embodies, there needs to be one, out in front, leading the way for all to see.
This is the brand storyline – one compelling sentence that cuts through the noise to confront the target audience and arouse one of two possible reactions.
1. “Amazing! I’d love to engage with a brand like that. Keep talking.”
2. “Sorry, that doesn’t sound like a brand I’d be interested in.”
These reactions are crucial.
Ambiguity leads to ambivalence, the enemy of brands.
The goal of branding is to reach the right people. Unclear messaging leads to confusion, and wasting time pursuing the wrong people is expensive.
A successful brand storyline has three main characteristics.
1. It’s concise. People latch onto things they understand quickly. Plus, keeping the brand storyline short makes it easier to remember and retell.
2. It’s expressive. People don’t remember what you say; they remember how you make them feel. The brand storyline needs to tell people how they’ll feel when they interact with the brand.
3. It’s intriguing. It isn’t possible for a single sentence to tell people about every feature and experience a brand has to offer. Instead, the brand storyline should stir curiosity that makes people want to hear more or move on.
Before writing BoHammer’s brand storyline, I asked five specific questions.
From experience, I knew these questions would give me a surplus of information to work with.
Use these questions with your clients, or create new ones that better fit your project, especially if you’re branding something other than a product.
Most importantly, remember that the brand storyline is meant to stir feeling, not act as an informational manual.
1. What are the two most important services BoHammer offers?
2. How would you describe the single most important service that BoHammer offers?
3. How does BoHammer improve its intended customer’s life? Please list three to four independent thoughts.
2. How would you describe the single most important service that BoHammer offers?
4. Will you please identify three to four instances where there is a need for BoHammer’s services but no worthwhile solution exists?
5. What feelings do you intend for BoHammer’s customers to experience when they’ve had a vehicle wrapped? Please list five to six feelings.
Mike answered with two, single-spaced pages of text.
That’s a lot of information to condense into one compelling sentence, so I approached it in phases. First, I edited Mike’s replies for wordiness and redundancy, trimming two pages into one. Then, I created a shortlist of the most important ideas running through the text.
Finally, I began the first round of drafts. This part takes patience, practice, and a willingness to ruthlessly edit your own poor writing.
Here are a few guiding principles to help you write a great brand storyline.
Keep it short. Aim for 25 words or less.
Introduce the two most important features of the product. If absolutely necessary, introduce a third feature, but no more than three features total.
Of the features introduced, only expand upon the most interesting one.
Don’t shy away from over-the-top adjectives and adverbs. Go big now, knowing you can edit the hype to more appropriate levels later down the road.
Don’t edit as you write. This causes writer’s block. Instead, write thoughts and phrases as they come to mind. Even if your words seem cliche or off-the-mark, they’ll serve as a useful blueprint for later revisions.
After several rounds of drafts and revisions, I established a brand storyline that complements Mike’s enthusiasm for quality and telling people about wraps.
“BoHammer wraps cars, and you ask, ‘How’s that work?’ Simple. We cover every inch of your car’s exterior with vinyl, and it looks like a high-end paint job.”
2. Brand Message
The brand message is a four to five sentence expansion of the brand storyline.
If brand storyline was a tree, the brand message would be its branches.
Where the brand storyline is a proclamation meant to reach a distracted audience, brand message is a richly detailed description of the experience the audience can expect to enjoy.
Though the brand message is four to five times longer than the brand storyline, it requires the same commitment to concise, expressive, and intriguing language.
My first step with BoHammer was to break the brand storyline into four distinct parts.
BoHammer wraps cars.
How does that work?
We cover every inch of your car’s exterior with vinyl.
It looks like a high-end paint job.
Then, I condensed and re-wrote to express three key ideas.
1. BoHammer’s installers are highly skilled, and enjoy the work they do.
2. BoHammer uses quality wrap vinyl for work that lasts.
3. When BoHammer finishes a wrap, the look of the car is transformed in a positive way.
These three ideas act as an outline for the brand message. To show how this worked for BoHammer, I’ve color coordinated the ideas and their corresponding sentences.
“BoHammer is a custom wrap studio proudly serving Portland Metro. We’re friendly, fair, and experts in our field. What’s a wrap? It’s like a gigantic, colorful sticker that covers the exterior of your vehicle, and we make it look like a high-end paint job. How? High-performance wrap vinyls and detail-mined installers with a passion for work that lasts.”
3. Brand Themes
With brand storyline and message complete, identifying brand themes is like watching dominoes fall into place.
It’s easy and satisfying, but care must be taken to avoid disaster before the big payoff. What do I mean?
Keep it simple. If brand storyline is the tree trunk, and brand message its branches, then brand themes are low hanging fruit, ripe and ready to pick. Think of them as phrases that embody mood and mission. How are they useful?
As customer facing slogans
As message building blocks for future marketing efforts
And as culture defining objectives that employees strive toward
With BoHammer, the work I did in preparation for the brand message flowed seamlessly into brand themes. Take a look.
Skilled installers. Enjoy wrapping cars. = Skilled and Happy
Wrap transforms car in positive way. = Bold and Classy
Quality wrap vinyl. Work that lasts. = Quality and Lasting
These word groupings – skilled and happy, bold and classy, quality and lasting – are the brand themes. But to be effective, they needed to be polished into a customer-facing readiness.
Depending on the audience you wish to reach, brand themes can be literal or metaphorical.
Since Mike’s biggest selling point for BoHammer is the quality of the work, we focused on language that paints a picture of long lasting transformation.
Here again, patience, practice, and self-editing are key, but notice how effortlessly BoHammer’s final brand themes mesh with the work done in the brand storyline and message.
Skilled and Happy = Highly skilled, happy to serve
Bold and Classy = Bold, beautiful, always classy
Quality and Lasting = Quality materials, lasting workmanship
Don’t underestimate the power of a story.
With the foundational elements of the brand story complete, it’s up to the brand designer to guide the project to its next logical phase.
This might mean springboarding into visual identity or delving deeper into the implications of the story.
For example, when Goldhammer decided to launch a new BoHammer website, I used the brand story to develop engaging copy and a set of custom, wrap-themed illustrations.
My hope is that more designers experience the clarity and creative energy that a brand story brings to a project’s earliest phases.
Story is a powerful branding tool, but trial and error is required to use it well.
If persistent, you’ll develop a unique voice, and your work will be infused with unexpected strands of meaning and purpose that thrill clients and the people they’re trying to reach.
This article was originally posted on Toptal
November 25, 2016
How to Create a Business That Fits Your Lifestyle
Solopreneurship 101: Finding Your Muse a La Tim Ferris (How to Find Your Business Muse in Three Easy Steps)
In the previous post on Solopreneurship, we saw how the entrepreneurial panorama is evolving and what we can expect from the future.
In the last century, the “Conglomerate Myth” grew exponentially. If you asked any entrepreneur how a business looked like, the answer would have been something along those lines:
“You raise a million dollar of capital. Employee a hundred people. Have your company grow until your reach thousands of employees and billions of revenues, only to see a slim profit margin!”
Yet this was the old world. Entrepreneurs and Solopreneurs have increasingly focused on solving problems, rather than growing. On the other hand, while solving someone else’s problem, you also want to make sure to have fun along the way and build the lifestyle of your dreams.
Tim Ferris is the emblem of this paradigm shift. The author of the revolutionary book “The 4-Hour Workweek,” entrepreneur and consultant in the early stage of companies like Twitter, Uber, and Evernote; Like him or not, Tim Ferris is a game-changer. From drunk dialing to psychedelic research he made the world his playground. In fact, he likes to define himself “a Human Guinea Pig!“
If I had to translate Ferris’ vision about entrepreneurship it would be something along those lines:
“Start small. Find your muse. Experiment and if it works make it yours!“
What Is a Muse?
That is how Homer, started his masterpiece, the Odyssey. Other poets, from Vergil to Dante Alighieri used the same invocation. In fact, the Muses were Greek goddesses that inspired the work of poets, literates, and scientists.
Finding a Muse is nothing mystical, metaphysical or mysterious but rather a way to connect to your creative self. From the entrepreneurial standpoint, a Muse is something more specific. As Tim Ferris puts it a muse is:
In other words, the muse is not only a way to find a venture that fits yourself but also a business that is intended to finance your ideal lifestyle. Let’s see how to create your muse in few steps.
Step One: Set Your Ideal Lifestyle
According to Tim Ferris, the first step toward finding a Muse is setting up in detail the TMI or target monthly income. In fact, the biggest problem for those who are employed but aspire to become solopreneurs is a change in mindset in the way they think about revenues and expenses. We are often used to think regarding annual salary and expenditures. But our estimates are often so inaccurate that we always miss our targets.
Therefore Tim Ferris suggests thinking in detail about your monthly cash-flows. In short, all the expenses that you are going to incur. Imagine, for instance, that you always dreamed of traveling the world. What does that mean? How many countries are you going to travel while setting-up your Muse? For how long will you stay in each country? How much would you pay off rent, travel and living expenses?
It might sound complicated at first, but once you set this up, your goals will be much clearer. In fact, Tim Ferris makes your life easier by making a great tool available: The Monthy Expense Calculator. In short, this tool tells you line by line what expenses to take into account. After you have to divide by 30 (to get the daily budget) and add a 30% buffer (you must be ready for any emergency).
The objective is to come up with a daily budget. Why? Because once you zoom in into the detail of your project, you realize that it is possible. For instance, I computed the monthly expenses that would finance my ideal lifestyle, and they turned out to be $3,350. Once we add the monthly buffer (an additional 30%) my TMI becomes $4,355. It seems a lof of money, doesn’t it? If we zoom in and divide this amount by 30 (to get the daily budget), it becomes $145. That’s it!
In other words, I know that my muse must be a low-maintenance business that generates about $150 on a daily basis. Although, I am simplifying things up because we are going to focus more on some practical examples of muses you can consult the whole step by step process of setting up your ideal lifestyle here.
Great, so how do you find a Muse?
Step Two: Few Basic Principles to Follow
Even though Homer needed the Greek goddess to find his muses, you don’t need any deity but only to follow few core principles.
Frist, make it automatic. Remember that the Muse must be a business that generates cash flow but also the lifestyle of your dreams. Therefore, you want to ensure the business will (at least in the long run) go automatically. In fact, EarPeace’s creator Jay Clark when asked by Ferris what idea he considered before starting his muse. He replied to be about to start a yoga studio but realized that was not going to make him happy in the long run. Why? The yoga studio was a “business trap,” with no way out. In other words, you will be better off in picking up a business that will run on its own and leave you untied.
Second, find a niche. For instance, in another case study showed on Ferris’ blog Dan Bradley explains how he started “Hewley L-Carnitine Shampoo” which generates #2,500-$5,000 per month. When about to consider the idea to sell fish oil, he gave it up because there was too much competition. Instead, he focused on a product where there was less competition but more potential customers. In short, he narrowed his market until he found the right niche. It may sound counterintuitive, but it is not. Why? When you pick a huge market, you also end up swimming in a red ocean, plenty of sharks ready to fight for a little piece of meat (profit). Instead, by niching down, you can find a part of the ocean that the shark cannot reach. Thus, although smaller, you will have an amazingly higher conversion.
Third, keep it simple. Bob Maydonik of “Square 36,” a muse that generates $10,000 to $25,000 per month, by selling oversized yoga mat, explains how he left the idea of making a free-standing pull-up bar because the manufacturing process was too complicated. Keep in mind that a Muse has to run smoothly on its own.
Fourth, minimize your financial risks. Chris Guillibeau, explains how on 1,500 responders to his survey, a staggering 36% started a business with $100 or less! Why is it crucial to minimize your financial risk? Simple, if your Muse won’t work you will have to let it sink. By reducing your financial risk, not only you are making your life easier if things won’t work out. But also feel less pain for your failure. Also, you will shorten the amount of time to recoup financially and mentally, and try out a new muse. Keep in mind that it may not work out the first time.
In conclusion, if you have a Muse, which is simple, automatic and has the little start up costs, you are almost ready to go.
Step Three: Praemeditatio Malorum
If you never picked up a philosophy book, I can understand that. Most of them seem only a bunch of useless fluffing that brings you nowhere near to your life’s goal. There is one exception to that, and it is the stoic philosophy. In fact, stoics where the only philosophers that used clear, understandable and practical anecdotes, useful in life. Here Tim Ferris gives a crash course in stoicism.
In the last decades, “positive thinking psychology” became hugely successful. Everyone started to believe that to be successful one must always be an optimist. But there is a huge drawback to that. Life is unpredictable and dangerous things happen quite often. When those bad things happen, your paper’s castle may be swept over very quickly. Instead, we want to build a solid psychological foundation. How?
Through the stoic “Praemeditatio Malorum” (or negative visualization).
In short, instead of closing your eyes and visualizing yourself as successful, you will take a counterintuitive approach. You will imagine what if your Muse will not work. What consequences would this have on your personal life? How would that look and feel like?
Imagine as many details as you can. Why will this approach empower you?
For few simple psychological reasons. First, it will lower your expectations. Our mind is way faster than our body. The mind is not bound to time and space. It can travel farther away. By practicing negative visualization, will be like attaching a leash to your mind. It will keep you focused. Second, it will empower you. Why? Often we do not take action because we fear the abstract consequences of an event. But when those results become concrete we do not fear them as we thought we would have. In short, what stops us is not the concrete, the known. But rather, the abstract, the unknown.
Once you take this last step, you will be ready to go!
If you don’t feel comfortable yet, below a bunch of case studies on Tim Ferris’s Blog:
The Four-Hour-Work-Week Muse Examples
