Do what nobody else is doing!

Glue is recognized for innovative thinking and a way of going about business in your own style and character. As the CEO, or as I call myself, Chief Visionary, I too doubt when to leap on the crazy idea in my head and how that will be embraced by our captive audience – you know, marketing.

This is a true story that caught me in a moment of doubt.

I was reading “You can’t teach a kid to ride a bike @ a seminar” from the Sandler Sales program. [incidentally, a great book that anyone responsible for sales should read]. Sandler was discussing the gut-wrenching pit of making sales calls and how to “short-circuit the emotional turmoil.” The quote that caught my attention was:

“If the competition is doing it, STOP it right away. Do something else! It doesn’t matter what else. Just do something else.”
So here’s the cheesy metaphor. In my moment of self-doubt, I happened to have an appointment with CDI College in NE Calgary. The purpose of the meeting was to learn more about getting a Masters Degree in Counselling; something I have always been interested in, and the role I often find myself in with clients as we’re getting into their emotional business pain.

I forgot I had the appointment that morning and had caught a ride downtown with Jason, my husband. In my last-minute check of the address, I learned that it would not be in walking distance. Determined to keep the appointment, I called for travel instructions and the person I was to meet said it was “a 4-minute train-ride” from downtown. I was able to move the appointment to 3:30 to accommodate the extra travel time.

At 3pm I left my office, fully aware that I operating in last-minute mode, but such is life. I caught the bus outside my office and got on the NE train. Twenty minutes later (not 4-minutes) I arrived at the Marlborough train station.  I had the instructions to walk a block west towards the mountains. As I studied the environment, I realized I’d forgotten about the rustic ways of the NE industrial lands, and about the City of Calgary’s “icy roads are good” policy.

Between myself and my destination, was a long block of badly cleared road with no apparent sidewalk. At this point I’m already 5 minutes late. Fortunately I am not too proud to wear my winter stompers over business attire, so I had the right footwear for the job. I took to the north side of the road, along the edge of dirty, piled up snow. It was working well for me, and frankly, I get great satisfaction out of ’stomping’ as I walk. Then I had this moment of self-intimidation thinking “people probably think I’m idiot for walking on the road,” and in fact, I got the sense that cars were aiming for me. Despite how satisfying it was, I felt the inclination to ‘follow the norm’ and cross the street where there appeared to be an impromptu worn-in trail acting as a sidewalk.

Now on the south side of the street, following the footprints of many others on the impromptu trail, I started having difficulties. The footprints were iced-over and the trail was uneven. Even my awesome winter boots weren’t keeping me on track. Failure was imminent. Even knowing this, I continued on the path. I don’t why. It seemed the normal, right thing to do. I fell twice, delayed my journey by another 10 minutes I wouldn’t have lost on the other side of the road, and cursed the person I was supposed to meet who said it would take 4-minutes from my office. [Never give an analytical person exact numbers unless you mean them].

I arrived in the foyer of CDI College out of breath and ticked-off at both myself and the circumstance. Turned out that the person I was supposed to meet with was also late, and it wasn’t until 4pm that I was sitting in his office.

Sitting across from the program interviewer, it’s apparent that he has no idea why I’m there. He scuffles to find a piece of paper and says “…. you’re interested in Health Care Programs.” That seemed relevant to learning about counseling, so I clarified “I’m interested in a Master’s degree in Counseling.”

“Oh,” he says, “We don’t do Master’s degrees. You need to go to the University of Calgary.” My brain started backtracking to the series of events that brought me to that chair:

1. I saw an ad on Facebook on my personal profile “Interested in a Masters of Councelling?”
2. I clicked on the ad
3. It took me to a US site, that purported to have offices in Western Canada to offer the program
4. I clicked the ‘Western Canada” offices
5. I landed on the site that said “Give us your contact info and tell us what you’re interested in”
6. I did – I chose MASTERS OF COUNSELING
7. A day later I got a call from the man across from me inviting me to take a tour of CDI College.

If you know me, you know I didn’t read through every detail on the website or double-check beforehand to ensure I was meeting with the right person at the right place. And neither did CDI college. Balls dropped everywhere. We both felt dumb, though I will assume he felt dumber (granted, I didn’t get that impression when he suggested “maybe I had trouble using the drop-down menus”)

Now it’s 4:30 and I’ve gotten nowhere. My train ticket has expired and I have no change. It’s rush hour. Feeling defeated, I choose to go back by the slippery trail falling on my face a few more times before boarding the train once again without a valid ticket.

FAILURE.

So I hope you got the metaphor about how “taking the trail that everyone else is taking gets you nowhere.” I suppose there’s no chance of creating deep meaning about walking on the otherside of the road and changing the outcome of the meeting, but I did have my little ‘Aha!’ moment of avoiding the norm.

Would you believe that when I got back to my desk there was an email from Carol Rosdobutko, a Sandler Sales Coach with the subject line: You have to FAIL to WIN. Thank goodness, where’s my prize?

So I might as well pitch you since you’ve made it to the end of this post. If you’d like to stop being normal, contact me. I’ll show you how to market on the foundation of who you are. It’s what’s those other marketing companies call “your differentiating statement.” Naturally, we don’t call it that.