andydidyk.com

Here’s something that’s been on my mind quite a bit recently as I’ve been reading marketing blogs and thinking about how to improve mine. The best advice a marketing or branding firm can give their client is this:

“You’ve got to differentiate. You’ve got to develop a unique selling proposition (or promise) that is different from everyone else, and is laser-focused so that your audience knows exactly what you’re offering.”

It’s great advice for any business or any blog that wants to be “successful,” and I will continue to relay that advice when appropriate. However, while I believe those maxims are sound and necessary for business, I don’t really think that they are appropriate for the rest of life. I’ve run into too many people that seem to think this is the case.

To put it simply, when I hire a consultant at work, she or he had better be specialized. But when I take them out for lunch, I should hope that their lives are less focused and more diversified. People who are all about work all of the time are boring, and I don’t think I could ever live that way. In some ways, the blogging community (even “professional” bloggers) has helped mitigate this trend because a genuine experience with someone else has gained some value. But I think that so many people, in the name of “marketing” themselves or of “maintaining their personal brand” create a fake experience for others in business and in life.

I think I might be guilty of this to some degree. I have a background in sales, and continue to function in a sales role at n-tara. As a salesperson I’m very conscious of what others are experiencing, and I like to be professional. But I also like to take every available opportunity to be real with a client. To share something about myself and to ask them something personal. It’s not a tactic to build rapport (although it does have that side effect), it’s a chance to connect with someone in a real way.

In my career, I’ve met so many people that are intensely uncomfortable with themselves. So uncomfortable that they have to play up their work persona into what they think they should look like rather than who they actually are. It’s the same reason that people lie on resumes, and it carries the same results. In the end, no one, not even you, benefits from falsifying experience on a resume. The employer is robbed of his/her ability to make a good decision about whom they are hiring, and you are robbed of the chance to truly find a match for your real skill sets and interest.

Where is all of this going? To this point, I think. It’s good for a blog to have a focus so it is valuable to others and is differentiated, etc. But right now in my life I don’t have that intense of a focus, and I’m telling the world (and myself) that it’s okay to be that way. Maybe the blogging community, like the rest of life, can be a good place to learn and distill what your passion really is, and to inform oneself about what you do and don’t know. I’m going to try it.

I hereby give this blog (and myself) permission to be unfocused for the time being. To largely stay within my areas of interest and experience, but to be genearlly absent of the typical top 10 list of improving your direct mail campaigns, small business brand, or whatever. What’s really of value to anyone who visits here is exactly what is truly of value to me when I visit anyone else’s site – my (and your) unique perspective on life. Everyone sees things differently, and we can all learn from each other. What I can’t learn from is someone who squashes their own personality in the name of creating a more “successful” blog.

Alright, good rant.