Will Being A Jack-Ass Help You Become A Success? (About Being Different)
by Mark on 20/08/09 at 7:14 am
The Brand shouldn’t be bland. Consider this: “The unique selling proposition” is a thing of the past. The thing of the present, is C2C-marketing (consumer to consumer) – people flocking to people, people recommending people to buy from (and products to buy). Since you are ultimately your own brand, controversy could be something you may want to consider throwing into the mix. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of nice people that actually make a lot of money with the way they are. There is actually nothing wrong with being nice and sweet. However, being controversial does not mean you have to be a complete jack-ass (and doesn’t even mean you can’t be nice and sweet. It just means you can say “jack-ass” when you feel like it).
It just means, you can let your light shine and put less constraints on yourselves than you would maybe have to, if you were a salesperson selling products one on one. Using controversy to make your brand (that means: YOU) stand out, will do for you what it has done for corporations (remember the Italian fashion-designer Bennetton?) in the past: It will polarize your audience. And nothing is worse than indifference. The interesting thing is, that people are already different enough from each other as it is. If you show your brand to the world, you will already be rocking the boat with a certain percent of people anyway, without even intending to do so!
And by being controversial, you will “polarize”. Exactly, that’s a metaphor that brings magnets to mind. Some will stick, some will get repelled, but you gotta have in charge to begin with to become attractive to part of the market. Don’t go the marsh-mellow road. Be bold, be brave. Express yourself.
Being different does not mean, that you have to “fake it” or be exotic. It does not mean you have to wear a banana-skirt, provoke people, talk about super-controversial subjects (religion/abortion/death penalty). But it does mean, digging a little deeper into your own personality and finally daring to show it.
Play to your strengths.
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