Think of yourself as a performer.
You’re performing your craft… writing for yourself or for a client.
You’re a virtuoso with words.
And in common with every other performer, you need to rehearse your work.
Think about it…
“Oh my goodness, the web changed everything!”
“Oh wow, social media changed everything!”
“Yikes, text messaging changed everything!”
All true.
But it’s not just new services that change everything. It’s not just about the software.
It’s also about the devices we use.
Take your pick. I cover the same ground in both the video and the text on this page.
Some people prefer video. Others prefer reading.
Still reading?
OK then. Let’s start with a real-life conversation.
There are a couple of reasons why we pause when talking.
One reason is to place emphasis on what we just said.
The second reason, and the most common one, is that we pause as a signal that it’s the other person’s turn to start talking.
I don’t know about you, but I like to use the end of each year as a time to reframe my business in one way or another.
It’s a time when I try to step back, see what I’ve been doing, and make a few changes.
I dump a few of the things that are no longer working well for me.
And I step forward into new ideas or approaches that I think will serve me better over the year to come.
That’s where my resolutions come in.
An item of sales literature is printed and sits around in a physical form. It can exist for months, years, or even decades.
The photo above shows a Book Society promotional postcard I found while rummaging through some old papers in my mother’s house.
It had been sitting there for about 50 years.
But a conversation, held between two people, or a group of people, is ephemeral.
A conversation takes place only in the present. In the moment. Now.
On the face of it, you might conclude that when you’re selling stuff, permanence is better than being ephemeral.
As far as I can tell, the first person to talk about “mercenaries and missionaries” in the context of business was legendary Silicon Valley investor, John Doerr.
He draws the distinction between these two approaches to business and marketing in several ways.
But the passage that resonates most powerfully with me is this one…
“Mercenaries are motivated by the lust for making money; missionaries, while recognizing the importance of money, are fundamentally driven by the desire to make meaning.”
I love that distinction, simply because it rings so true.