This morning I walked into my office with a full day scheduled. In the morning I would spend a few hours writing a blog post. This particular post would take several days to prepare because I wanted it to be truly excellent.
After working on the blog post, I would spend an hour writing emails to the students in my online photography classes to help them through any problems they are having.
In the afternoon, I’d start working on a redesign of the website and then email a few industry contacts to work together on different projects.
This is my day. A typical day.
While I work very hard to make my website an excellent resource, I realized that I was doing what every other serious blogger was doing today.
When our blog posts get published, when our blog features are released, when our blog redesigns are launched… it will look like another day on the internet.
Think about all of the businesses you drove past on your commute today. Most of them are average small businesses, and average big businesses. The business owners spend money and time making their storefronts look “nice” but they all look “nice” so they are all the same.
When I do things like spending multiple days on a single blog post, it makes me feel like I am making the best website on the planet. It makes me feel like my business is remarkable.
The truth, however? My online business is no different than the other websites, just that my definition of what looks “nice” is unique to me. To visitors, however, it is just another repository of articles. A select few people become raving fans because their taste is similar to mine, but the same is true for the other sites with similar information.
What if, while driving to work this morning and seeing the same “nice” storefronts that you see every day, you saw one restaurant with a line of customers pouring out the door, the building is painted hot pink, and there is a sign out front that says, “This restaurant is only serving Fettuccini Alfredo today. Take it or leave it.”
Could you possibly ignore it? No.
So when I realized that I was walking in to my business today to do what every other website owner was doing, I freaked out. I had a fit! I couldn’t stand that I had allowed my baby to become “nice.”
Do something insane today. Something so out of the ordinary that it demands you to ignore the “nice” businesses, websites, products, articles, and social media statuses around it.
For me personally, I worked with an employee to think up a new series of product review videos for our Youtube channel. Most people aim to create “nice” Youtube videos. The truly ambitious aim to make really REALLY “nice” videos.
We aimed for insanity. We reviewed the product with two of us on the video, and at the end of it we said that we simply hated the product. So, we took it out to the desert and shot the expensive item with a shotgun. We are calling the new series “Keep it or Sweep it.”
We keep the good products. We sweep the bad products off the face of the planet in truly epic ways: dynamite, shotgun shooting, axe, bow and arrow, throwing it out of a moving vehicle, dropping it out of an airplane, etc.
It all started today. I’m sick of “nice.”
Our videos are such a departure from all of the “nice” youtube videos that you must watch it. You must share it. If you have a pulse, you must get excited about it.
Today, take one thing you’re trying to make “nicer” in your business, and make it so unique that it is impossible to be ignored. Let me know your plans in a comment below (I don’t mind a little inspiration either…)
