Your Marketing Isn’t Working Because It’s an Arrogant, Selfish Blowhard.

If you feel like no one's paying attention to you, go hang out at any sports stadium.

Because if you go to the stadium, you'll know what it's like to be smashed up against 100,000 assholes in blue face paint chanting olé! olé! olé! olé! And you'll instantly know what the main attraction is.

Not the game. The experience of being at the game.

And with that experience comes my favorite person of all: The beer guy.

As soon as you sit down, you're tripping over yourself to frantically flag down the beer guy for a wiener and a couple of cold ones. (For double fisting and other classy acts, of course.) The beer guy is the most sought after dude in the entire stadium. You know what kind of leg cramps that guy probably gets, running up and down those steps?

Now, contrast that with some blowhard in aisle 5 who suddenly gets up and starts yelling, “Hey everybody, pay attention to me! PAY! ATTENTION! TO! ME!” He might get an annoying stare or two before people ignore him altogether. Nobody wants to listen to that guy. And he certainly won't command the attention of the entire stadium.

The difference between these two folks is simple: One has something you want. The other just thinks he does.

And that's just common sense. Yet, it's not always common sense when it comes to business.

When most people market themselves, they put up a website and act like the guy in aisle five, screaming for the world to pay attention to them. “Buy my stuff!” “Sign up for my newsletter!” “Like my Facebook page!” But they haven't earned the right to be paid attention to.

You don't want to be that guy. That guy has daddy issues.

Rather, you want to be the beer guy. The guy everybody's clamoring over. The guy in demand. The guy who doesn't need to scream and shout for attention, because he's already got it. Why?

Because he's got something people want.

When you do anything for your business, consider: Is this something people actually want?

If you're sending out hundreds of old-school postcard mailers, are you doing that because that's what people want? Or because that's what you want? (Likely because you don't know what else to do, so at least this makes you feel like you're doing something, right?)

If you're shoving “newsletter updates” down people's throats, is that something people actually want? “Newsletter updates?”

If you're writing a blog post, is it information people will actually want?

In other words, WHAT'S IN IT FOR THEM?

If the privilege of doing business with you is all you've got, that's not good enough.

Start imagining the internet like a big giant stadium, and continually ask yourself whether what you're doing is something people will actually want, or if you're being guy in aisle 5 about it.

Because even the people chanting olé at least are entertaining.

But the only person paying attention to the guy in aisle five?

Is the security guard.

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