If you’d like to hear me share this journal entry, here’s my audio track:
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In my last journal entry, I touched on the first five of these 10 breakthroughs.
If you haven’t read/listened to that entry yet, here’s the link:
I’ll talk a bit about the last five in this entry.
Here they are…
As individuals and organizations, we have been taught to base our positions, abilities, and offerings on a foundation established by someone else. This approach severely limits our opportunities.
Yes, people need a frame of reference from which to understand what we’re saying, doing, or offering. However, employing an existing frame of reference and basing what we’re doing on someone else’s work are two different things and should not be confused.
Being a category of one means that our personal or organizational brand has been developed to the point that when someone says, “I need [fill in the blank],” and that need is best filled by you, you are the only one they think of as a solution provider. You hold a preeminent place in your audience members’ minds as someone who provides what they are seeking.
This isn’t accomplished by following “best practices” or comparing ourselves to perceived competitors. It happens by seeking insights on your audience members’ needs (co-workers, family members, supervisors, etc. — not just prospects and clients), then discovering the unique ways you or your organization effectively address those needs.
The way we interact. The questions we ask. The messages we share. The results our audience members enjoy. These are a few indicators that tell us whether we’re swimming in a sea of noise or rising above it and being seen as the only party in our category.
This isn’t an easy process. It doesn’t happen overnight.
It is, however, well worth the effort.
Close, lasting relationships develop more quickly. Conflict diminishes into the background. Resistance lowers and synergy increases. Our focus is less on process and more on the joy of the journey. The visions we have but can’t quite seem to transform into reality come together in ways we never could have engineered.
While there are elements of preeminence that go beyond the basic VEVA framework, it is just that — the framework that creates the opportunity to become a category of one.
(Here’s the link to VEVA: The Art of Human Connection, in case you haven’t completed that training yet.)
As our world moves more quickly, we’re told that technology simplifies our lives.
Does it?
I’ll say yes…and no.
While technology can streamline activities and accelerate certain outcomes, it can also be a barrier to the simplicity that makes others’ interactions with us seamless.
Being seamless isn’t about having a tech stack that replaces human interaction. Seamlessness is the lack of friction a person feels when interacting with you or your organization, making the experience pleasant and fulfilling. It’s a significant portion of nurturing a category of one.
When others’ experiences with us are seamless, they don’t feel the transitions between becoming aware of us, being educated about what we do, deciding to interact with us, and enjoying an ongoing relationship. From the first point of contact, the flow is natural. It fits the party’s needs. There is no discomfort caused by pushing an agenda.
Either by design or default, the most successful individuals and organizations have discovered how to provide a seamless experience for those with whom they interact.
When we make others exert effort to meet our pre-packaged agendas, we lose — and so do they, if what we could have provided was what they genuinely needed.
When we employ an outside-in mindset, basing our audience members’ journeys with us on their values, their experiences, their visions, and the actions they are able and willing to take to transform their visions into reality (in other words, VEVA), we have created a seamless, simple path that reduces friction and accelerates forward momentum, allowing us to focus on what we do best instead of pushing our agendas uphill.
We live in a noisy world. Being good at what we do isn’t enough to be noticed anymore. Developing a presence that says, “I have something unique to bring to the table” is no longer a luxury. It is requisite to gaining attention and getting that seat at the table that allows us to share our talents at their highest levels.
What do you or your organization do that others talk about in a positive way? What is it about your presence in their lives that causes them to talk about you with others?
We’re not talking about anything huge in most cases. We’re talking about the little things that set you apart from would-be competitors.
• It’s the ice cream shop that not only makes all its products from scratch, but puts that extra little scoop on top of every cone that you don’t get anywhere else.
• It’s the employee who, with real sincerity, recognizes every co-worker’s birthday with a small, inexpensive (maybe even handmade) gift that ties to something that co-worker enjoys. (Note that this isn’t something the company is doing, but an individual in that company who understands the power of sincere, personal branding.)
• It’s the online shoe company that guarantees your satisfaction by providing free return shipping and customer service representatives who are trained to do whatever the customer wants, creating a concierge experience no one else has yet to offer remotely. (Remember Zappos? They took online shoe shopping to an unprecedented level.)
• It’s the neighbor who, because he has the time and doesn’t want to grow old alone, buys a couple of rotisserie chickens a few times a week and drops by to give them to his neighbors and visit with them. (You were a one-of-a-kind guy, Andy! Thanks for your many examples of service.)
What are you doing to create a unique presence around yourself? Your organization? Your family? Your community?
How are you or an individual or organization you know being remarkable? We’d love to hear about it in the comments!
When I was a kid in the ‘70s, I saw a piece of mirror art featuring the Grateful Dead’s logo. It spoke to me. I wanted it hanging on my bedroom wall. My parents and I didn’t see eye to eye, so that never happened.
I wasn’t a Deadhead or anything. I simply enjoyed their music.
We listened to it in my uncle’s truck.
I heard it in the second-story record store with cedar-clad walls on Center Street (where, I might add, they also sold waterbeds, with one set up in the store to try—providing an experience no other record store matched).
I regularly saw Grateful Dead-inspired art on tie-dyed t-shirts and handmade banners.
They seemed to be everywhere.
It wasn’t until much later (in my 50s) that I discovered why I seemed to see and hear so much about a band that wasn’t even getting much radio play at the time.
The Grateful Dead did what they wanted to do, the way they wanted to do it — squarely bucking the “best practices” of the day for bands that wanted to grow an audience.
They controlled their own concert ticket sales.
They regularly changed up their show, creating new experiences people wanted to be part of.
They were relevant to their audience members in a way other bands’ corporate-controlled approach couldn’t touch.
They lived a unique brand.
They involved their fans in creating one-of-a-kind merchandise and allowing them to sell it at their performance venues.
They were a gathering place for their people.
They created a new category that didn’t previously exist by doing these (and many more) things differently.
They not only encouraged fans to record and share their concerts, but also set up a special area near the soundboard for them, so they could get the highest-quality recordings. While other concert producers banned recording, the Grateful Dead welcomed and facilitated it. This made them, perhaps, the most shareable band of their era. This drove the ubiquity I mentioned a moment ago.
One might argue that their mailed newsletters, personal touch in selling tickets directly to fans, allowing open recording and sharing of their shows, teaming up with fans to create unique, authorized merchandise, and many other touchpoints made them the analog version of what social media has become today.
On brand. Relevant. A gathering place. A category of one. Seamless. Remarkable. Sharable.
These are some of the attributes the Grateful Dead mastered to become the biggest touring band of all time without bowing to convention.
How can you or your organization be more sharable?
What do you have that can add value to others in a way that they not only use it, but get excited to share it with others?
When we employ the nine breakthroughs (or even some of them) that I’ve shared here, we begin to be invited to the places we want to be.
We don’t play positioning games.
We don’t compete.
We don’t pay to play.
We don’t need to.
Being invited isn’t the end of the journey; it’s the point at which the most meaningful doors open that allow us to enter into the environments where we can make the most meaningful impact as ourselves — synergizing our values, experiences, vision, and actions to benefit others while advancing our own careers, relationships, opportunities for ongoing growth, and service to society.
When we are at peace, live our brands, are perceived as relevant by others, illuminate people’s minds with our discoveries, act as hubs for collaboration and creation, are seen as the go-to in our spaces, make it simple for people to follow us, provide insights that evoke excitement and prompt conversations, and give people a way to share what they gain from us, we are rewarded with the rare opportunity to no longer have to play the game of pitching, persuading, our finding a bigger megaphone to engage with those who will benefit from what we offer.
Instead, people are attracted to us because of who we are and what we stand for.
They invite us into their worlds and onto their journeys as trusted traveling companions.
We have no competitors.
We transcend flavor-of-the-day tactics to gain attention.
We are sought out as the experts and advocates we genuinely are.
Does this mean we never invite others, but wait to be invited? No. Not at all.
There are plenty of times when it is appropriate to invite others to see what you’re doing, attend events you’re hosting, sample your products or services, collaborate, and so on.
The breakthrough of being invited refers to unexpectedly finding yourself in places or being offered opportunities you haven’t specifically sought out and, in many cases, weren’t even aware of. It’s the magic that results from conscientiously developing the other nine breakthroughs.
And when it happens, it’s exciting!
There they are — the benefits credible communicators and connectors enjoy as a result of focusing on and experiencing these 10 breakthroughs.
If you’ve read or listened to many of my journal entries, you’re familiar with my views on “the what” of concepts versus “the how” of implementation.
The path to implementing these breakthroughs is woven throughout my journal entries.
There are no check-box lists that get you there.
Everyone’s journey is unique.
A starting point, if you haven’t done so already, is to complete the brief course titled VEVA: The Art of Human Connection. It’s available as part of your paid membership in this community.
Beyond that, paid members can also ask questions, make comments, and get feedback in this community.
If you’re serious about improving your interpersonal communication skills to create human connection, it’s the best few dollars a month you can invest in yourself or your people (companies, governments, families, nonprofits, etc.).
What spoke to you in this two-part journal entry? What questions do you have? I welcome your comments and questions. Let’s have a conversation!
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