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Get What You Want By Finding a Spot That’s Unoccupied

When I was nine years old, I fell in love with baseball and dreamed of playing first base. To aid me in my dream, my dad bought me a first baseman’s glove. When my friends and I gathered after school for an informal ball game, everyone knew to stay away from first. That was my spot.

Then something happened to change that.

The Little League season was starting up, and I decided to join the local team. During tryouts, the manager told us kids to run onto the field and man the position we most wanted to play. I of course sprinted towards first, but was in for a shock.

Five other kids had beaten me there. Apparently, each of us had the same dream. The manager told us that to win the job we’d have to compete with one another. Before he held the competition, though, he scanned the rest of the field.

Every position had at least one kid occupying it; that is, except for catcher. No one had claimed that spot. “Who wants to catch?” the manager asked. “We need a catcher.”

Baseball on Home

All of us froze. Catching was the sport’s most thankless position. As a catcher, even when the temperature outside hit 95 degrees, you still had to wear a helmet, chest protector, shin guards, thick metal face mask, and heavy padded glove. A hundred times a game, you needed to squat low and bolt back up. What’s more, foul balls stung you and base runners knocked you down. No one wanted to play catcher.

Which is why I was surprised when I found myself jogging towards home plate to pick up the catcher’s mitt laying there. “Good,” the manager said. “Levy will catch.”

What happened? Why did I suddenly toss aside my plan to play first base? It was out of dread. Although I’d never seen those five other kids play, my nine-year-old self was certain they were better than me, and I didn’t want to be embarrassed.

If the story ended there, it would be one of failure. But it doesn’t end there.

As a catcher, I learned how to block the plate, snag pop-ups, calm jittery pitchers, and in other ways be a credit to my position. At the season’s conclusion, I was selected –- as a catcher –- to represent my team in the All-Star game. I ended up playing a sport I love while excelling in my role.

What’s all this have to do with business? My becoming a catcher marks the first time I can remember using a strategy that has since become a cornerstone of my consulting work.

That strategy: To get what you want, find a spot that’s unoccupied.

Finding an unoccupied spot is at the heart of business positioning. After all, if you have unlimited money, talent, and connections, your business can go head-to-head with anyone in the world. If you don’t have copious resources, though, it’s best to pick a narrow-yet-important position in which you can dominate.

Finding an unoccupied spot doesn’t just work for positioning your company. It’s also a strategy that can help you write books, give speeches, and reach the media.

I’ll give you an example.

A month back, a friend (Thanks, Dan!) sent me a media query from a “Fast Company” magazine writer doing an article on how to be a good conversationalist. Getting quoted in that article would help my business. I knew, though, that dozens, maybe even hundreds, of experts would be answering that writer’s query. How could I stand out from among those other respondents?

I thought about positions. More precisely, I asked myself, “What are those other respondents likely to say?” (Which spots will be occupied?). Then I asked, “What can I say that’s different?” (Which spots will be unoccupied?)

When I thought about what the other respondents might say about being a good conversationalist, I came up with advice like “Be interested in the other person” and “Listen more than you speak.” It’s not that that advice is wrong. In fact, it’s great advice. It’s just that I’ve heard it before, so if I repeated it, I’d lower my chances of making it into the article.

Once I thought about what others would likely say, I came up with a few points about good conversation that were true yet more unusual. I emailed those points to the writer. You can see the resulting “Fast Company” article here.

What for you is the takeaway?

Whether you’re positioning your business, or creating content for a book, post, or speech, begin by asking yourself what the audience expects. If you only give them what they expect, they have no reason to listen to you.

Try finding a spot that’s unoccupied. One that’s valuable yet surprising.

 

 

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Developing a Thought

We’re told attention spans are shrinking, so if we want people to read what we write for the web, we have to be concise.

That’s sound advice . . . up to a point.

Lately, I’ve coached some bloggers who each suffer from the same dilemma: They want to write longer works — more fully realized posts or even a book — but they’re not sure how. They’re so practiced at condensing their thoughts, that they can’t, out of habit, bring themselves to expand them.

If you’re in that situation, consider the following exercise.

Grab a pen and print out your last post (or any piece of your writing). What I’d now like you to do is mark spots where you, or another writer working on the same piece, could have expanded the work in a different direction.

You might, for instance, have described a scene using one or two words when someone else would have described it in five hundred words.

Or, you presented one argument, and neglected mentioning any counterarguments.

Or, you spoke about an idea without giving an example of it in action.

Once you’ve marked all the potential development spots, pick one and write about it.

That is, write it as if you were going to insert it into the post, or use it as a way of writing a new standalone post.

Remember, for the most part, writing is an unnatural act. Whatever writing style you have is learned. If you want to take your writing in a new direction, you have to force yourself in that direction so you can learn as you go.

To expand your writing, practice expanding it.

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A Book Written for You Alone

I’d like to tell you about a daydream I had that may be relevant to you and your business. First, though, a story.

A few days ago, my wife and I rescued a dog: Ginger, a seven-year-old Shiba Inu.

We hadn’t planned on rescuing her or any dog for that matter. My wife had been surfing the internet, saw Ginger’s sad-eyed photograph, and asked me to make a call. Nothing serious, mind you. A toe-in-the-water call.

When the shelter told me Ginger was a day away from being euthanized, we jumped in my Jeep, took a day-long roundtrip drive from New Jersey to Virginia and, with the help of several dedicated local rescuers, snagged her.

Once we got her home, we realized we had our work cut out for us.

When we introduced Ginger to our two elderly Shibas, she snarled and lunged at them.

While walking her in the yard, she backed up, dropped to the grass, and jerked her head — maneuvers that seemed designed to free herself from the lead, so she could bolt. (Her owner, in fact, had turned her over to the shelter because she was “an escape artist,” and Ginger had managed to escape from one of her rescuers, who only caught her after the dog had dashed across city roadways and found herself trapped under a parked car.)

We also discovered that, although Ginger can climb stairs, she doesn’t enjoy walking down them. Or, more accurately, she doesn’t enjoy walking down our home’s long staircases.

Since we hadn’t prepared for Ginger’s arrival – it was an emergency thing — we weren’t sure how to handle these problems. While at the pet supply store, I decided to scrutinize the book section. I’m a lifelong book lover, and was sure I could find answers there.

When I saw the section, though, I winced. Staring me in the face were hundreds of dog training books espousing dissimilar philosophies and methods.

I thumbed through training books by monks, celebrities, and associations. I glanced at ones involving food rewards, handheld clickers, unconditional love, tough love, and the principles of wolf pack behavior as applied to humans and dogs. I studied books on high-energy and low-energy dogs. Then there were training books broken down by breed; each lecturing me on how one breed didn’t respond to the same things as the next, and that choosing the wrong training technique could prove disastrous.

Looking through these books was overwhelming. I didn’t want to learn a complicated system. I didn’t want theory or opinion. I didn’t want to pretend I was a wolf.

I just wanted to buy a book that directly dealt with the problems disrupting my household. I wanted to know only what I needed to know.

Standing there, flipping through book after book, reminded me of that daydream I’d mentioned. It came to me last year.

On my kitchen counter sat a pile of mail. In it was a brown padded shipping envelope. It wasn’t clear who’d sent the envelope. I ripped it open and found a slender business book.

Unlike the other business books in my library, this volume wasn’t written for a general audience.It was tightly targeted. Eerily so. Although my name was nowhere in the book, every chapter seemed written for me.

The book was created for positioning consultants, born in Flushing, New York, who were also book-writing coaches and ideation facilitators. This tiny readership, the author said,  considered themselves writers first, and businesspeople second.

I perused the Table of Contents, and saw that the chapter titles were clear-cut questions ripped straight from my life, including “How can I get clients to complete their writing assignments when they’re busy running companies?” and “What are the best ways to stay in contact with prospects without being pushy?”

The content, then, covered a diverse array of mini-subjects, all of keen interest to me. There was material about sales, marketing, content development, project management, people management, self-management, IT, finance, billing, travel, and the like.

Of course, none of the material was comprehensive. It focused only on what most concerned me.

I remember snapping out of my dream, and thinking, “Imagine if a book like that really existed? One that almost read my mind. One that I’d tear through in minutes, because every time I’d turn the page I’d see an issue that mattered dearly to me.”

I hadn’t thought of that daydream again until, as I say, I was standing in the pet supply store combing through a stack of material I didn’t want to read. I decided to act.

Now I’m putting together that dreamed-of business book written just for me. No one else need see it, and it will likely remain a work in progress, since my needs continually change.

Still, taking the time to list and articulate all my pressing concerns, and then doing the thinking, research, and writing needed to compile and experiment with the answers should be of substantial benefit.

You, too, might try creating an advice book written especially for you. How should you begin? Since I’ve never written one, I can’t be sure. Some ideas:

  • Create the book’s title.
  • Spend a couple of days making a list of every business question you’re wrestling with. The more unique the question is to you, the better. For example: “How do I get more clients?” is too general. “How do I get fifteen new clients in two months?” is better.
  • Pick the question that you have the most energy for, and answer it. How? Through any number of means: freewriting, interviewing experts, speaking with clients, and field-testing approaches, among other things.
  • When you’re finished doping out the first question, go to the next one you seem drawn to.

Just making the list of questions and putting all your thinking in one place is bound to help. You’ll get clearer about your problems, and will undoubtedly see options that had eluded you.

As you create your own book, please let me know how things go.

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Telling an Appreciative Story

Bethlehem Steel Factory“I’ve got to take a photo of this.”

That was me talking to my wife when we unexpectedly stumbled upon a frightening structure: the corroding Bethlehem Steel factory.

Earlier that day, we’d driven forty miles from our New Jersey home to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, because a casino had opened there, and blowing sixty dollars in nickels and pennies at the slots seemed like a fun day trip – which it was.

Now we were heading back, when I took a wrong turn. In the distance, I saw the vacant factory: black and gray and vast, with blast-furnace stacks the size of skyscrapers.

We drove closer. My wife said, “Be careful.” How many structures do you know that could inspire that reaction?

We got near enough to park and take an iPhone picture. My photography skills couldn’t do the place justice. Standing there made me jumpy. I felt like I was staring at something out of a Tim Burton film. I expected it to rear up on legs and wail.

The next day I phoned a dozen friends about that grim factory. “Head out there,” I said. “You won’t believe it. That thing is a nightmare.”

When my wife got home, I asked her if she’d told anyone at her office what we’d seen. She had told one person. In fact, the man she told had grown up in Bethlehem, and had lived across the street from the factory. “Oh my gosh! What was that like?” I asked.

I didn’t get the answer I expected.

The man had told my wife he loved the factory. As a boy, he’d curl up in bed and would look out the window at its lights until he fell asleep. Watching the factory, he said, was comforting. Much of the city worked there, and the glow reminded him of all the people whose lives revolved around it.

I was stunned. I thought of the factory as a menacing carcass. My wife’s coworker, on the other hand, knew it as a place where people from the community went to earn a living, so they could raise a family. To him, the place was a calming childhood memory.

I googled Bethlehem Steel, and saw countless stories behind the factory: it employed twenty thousand people; produced parts of the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, Madison Square Garden, Hoover Dam, and the Golden Gate Bridge; helped build the World War II American fleet; and boasted an executive headquarters designed by the famed firm, McKim, Mead & White.

Hearing this man’s reaction and seeing the factory’s history got me thinking about how knee-jerk reactions can blind us to interesting people, places, and ideas.

Such reactions can also blind us to worthy stories. If we write or produce any kind of content, we can’t let that happen. We’ve got to stay alert. Good stories – oftentimes hidden — surround us.

Consider, then, trying this exercise for the next 24 hours: Look at things that you’d normally pass by, or that scare or confuse you, and ask yourself, “Who loves that?” Once you’ve come up with an answer, ask yourself why they love it.

By looking at things through appreciative eyes, you’ll likely come up with unanticipated ideas and untold stories that deserve a spot in your work.

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Freewriting and the Internal Editor

Fast Company Expert Blogger, Tom Clifford, posted the second of a two-part interview he conducted with me. In this last part, I talk about freewriting: how and why it works, and when to use it.

If you’ve tried freewriting, you’ve likely experienced the technique’s considerable value.

I’ve seen people use it to create a strategic direction for their company, brainstorm ideas for a personal branding campaign, plan a product launch, think through employee engagement problems, rehearse ways of handling a negotiation, write books and blog posts, and more.

What’s behind freewriting’s effectiveness? It temporarily rids us of our internal editor. As I describe it in the interview:

“Inside each of us is an internal editor that does an important job. It edits what we think, say, and write — as we think, say, and write it — so we sound smart, confident, and consistent.

“ . . . There is a time, though, when our internal editor gets in our way.

“ . . . Since the editor wants us to always look good to others, it’s going to tell us we’re being stupid or impractical if we try thinking thoughts that are radically different for us. It’s going to order us to push aside the new and go with the familiar. It’s going to anchor us to what’s not working.”

Freewriting, then, gives us mechanical leverage over our editor because, as we use the technique, our editor can’t keep up with the deluge of words that hit the page. While  the editor is backing off, we can reason with vigor and abandon.

During any given freewriting session, much of what we write will, out of necessity, be boring or confused.

A portion of what we produce, though, will likely stand among our best work.

Through my book, “Accidental Genius,” as well as through my consulting and workshops, I’ve taught freewriting to thousands. I’ve seen people take to the technique instantly, and I’ve seen others try it and struggle. When they struggle, it’s almost always for one of three reasons:

1. They wrote without timing their session. In doing freewriting, use a timer set for five, ten, twenty, or thirty minutes. When the timer starts, you start. When it finishes, you finish. By using a timer, you can forget about logistics, and spend your attention and energy on flat-out writing.

2. They stopped writing throughout the session. While freewriting, it’s important to keep writing no matter what’s happening in your mind. That means, if you’re stumped, write about being stumped. If you’re feeling sluggish, write about your lethargy. If your thoughts are choppy, put them down choppily. Stopping for more than a second or two gives your internal editor a chance to reengage and disrupt the process.

3. They wrote at a leisurely pace. If you freewrite too slowly, you’re writing, not freewriting. Again, you want to write fast enough so that your editor slackens its grip. That means, if your editor is running at five miles an hour, write at six miles an hour. Your fingers needn’t fly over the keyboard. They just need to move at a clip slightly quicker than your norm.

If you’ve tried freewriting before, I’d love to hear about your experiences:

  • How has the process helped or hindered you?
  • Do you have any interesting freewriting stories to share?
  • What’s your best freewriting tip?

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When Writing a Proposal, Don't Be Constrained By Form

I was listening to a consultant who was trying to write a book proposal. One of the most attention-grabbing things she said concerned her network.

Not only did her newsletter have tens of thousands of subscribers, but her colleagues had subscriber lists just as large. We figured out that, all told, she had access to 1.3 million people.

“Publishers want to know exactly what you’re going to do to support the sales of your proposed book,” I said. “That you’re able to reach 1.3 million interested people is key. They’ll love that. When you write the proposal, make sure you put that figure right up front.”

A few weeks later, the consultant sent me a draft. Her ideas and prose were good, but after reading ten or so pages, I still hadn’t seen anything about her giant subscriber list. I phoned her.

“I thought you were going to feature that 1.3 million person list up front,” I said.

“I did,” she said. “Turn to page 36. That’s where the ‘Marketing’ section begins. The million person list is a marketing idea, right? So that’s where I feature it: in ‘Marketing. It’s the very first thing in that section.”

I explained to her that, yes, a subscriber list is a marketing idea and it belongs in the marketing section. The trouble is that if that’s the only section it appears in, the reader may never get to it. Perhaps a project will unexpectedly rear up and they’ll ditch the proposal before reaching it. You never know.

When writing a book proposal, then, don’t feel constrained by the form. A proposal is a communication tool: use it that way. Don’t make yourself say the wrong thing just because you think people expect certain kinds of information staged in certain ways.

If you have something important to say — a marketing fact, a counterintuitive idea, a story, a detail from your life – say it up front. Get it onto the first page or two. Be creative and somehow make it fit — even if you have to repeat it later on.

If you want a busy reader to notice you, lead with your strengths.

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Exercising Your Writing Muscles

One of my favorite books on writing is Beth Baruch Joselow’s “Writing Without the Muse.” You don’t read it as much as write your way through it. It’s a slim volume of sixty creative exercises that help you more closely see the world, stretch your imagination, and experiment with voice.

I’d like to share two of my favorite exercises from the book as a means of giving you a taste.

By the way, if you’ve never done writing exercises before, you’re in for a treat. The key is to approach them in the spirit of fun. As Joselow says: “Play is an important part of creativity. It’s a mistake to approach the task of writing even a serious piece without some playfulness. Wonderful things can happen when you take the risk of just fooling around.” p. 14

Exercise #1: “The Door in the Wall”

Narrow your eyes and stare across to the far end of the room. There, imagine you see a door.

What does that door look like? Is it plain or ornate? Is it constructed  from wood, metal, or another material? Does it have anything written on it?

Write about that door in detail, including the feeling you have as you approach it.

Now that you know what the door looks like, grasp its handle, open it, and step inside. What do you see?

Again, write about the experience in detail. Take ten minutes and tell us everything.

Exercise #2: “Every Day for a Week”

Every day we repeat certain activities, like brushing our teeth, drinking morning coffee, walking the dog, and the like. Your assignment: Pick one of these repeated activities, and write about it for ten minutes each day for a week.

When you’ve completed the assignment, you’ll have a seven-day log that describes a single, small aspect of your life. Look over your work:

How does your writing differ from day to day? How does it stay the same?

Look, too, at the activity you’ve been writing about. How have you  changed the way you’ve approached the activity itself, because of the scrutiny you’ve given it?

Try these two exercises on your own, or consider doing them with friends. They get the blood in your brain pumping, and can trigger some excellent conversations.

If you’d like to share the results with me, I’d be pleased to hear about them.

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Freeing Yourself From Gurus

A consultant named Tim was telling me about the field he worked in. He, in fact, wanted to write a book about it. Tim admitted, though, that he was intimidated by a famed guru who has spent years speaking and writing in that same field as he.

What, Tim wondered, could he possibly say that hadn’t already been said by the guru?

I’ve heard that lament before. What it comes down to is this:

Tim was confusing the guru’s contribution to the field with the totality of that field. He was looking at the guru’s opinions, excellent though they might be, as the only ones  possible. It was as if the guru’s smarts, charisma, and accomplishments were blinding him to all the alternate ways of approaching the subject.

“Let the work of this guru inspire you.” I said. “Be grateful that such a vivid thinker has shared so much. Celebrate him and parade his work to others. But don’t let the strength of his voice stop you from using your voice.”

Each of us has something distinctive and interesting to contribute if we give ourselves the freedom to do so. We have experiences, stories, and ideas that can add texture to a subject, or take it in new directions.

At times, though, we must free ourselves from the magnetic pull that we’ve let others have on our thinking.

One way of giving yourself distance is by studying the subject you want to write about more comprehensively. You may, in fact, be unduly influenced by a guru’s work, because you’re focused too narrowly on their thinking to the exclusion of others.

Another way of giving yourself distance is by examining your career, not at first for abstract ideas, but for concrete success stories. Once you’ve jotted down a few stories, study them and see if any insights appear organically. You may be sitting on an unusual approach or helpful anecdote, and you don’t even realize it. Let the facts lead you.

Remember, each of us can contribute. We have knowledge and perspective that could help others if only they knew about it. Don’t let others’ outstanding work blind you to the value of your own gifts and experiences.

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The First of Its Kind

Everyone knows how important an elevator speech is to a business. The right speech gets people excited about what the business can do for them. The wrong one makes them yawn.

A snappy attention-getting elevator speech doesn’t just work for a business. If you’re an author, you need a speech to describe your book, too.

A few years ago, the great Mac King and I co-wrote a book called “Tricks With Your Head.” How do I describe it? This way:

“Tricks With Your Head’ is the first of its kind: a book of magic tricks where the human head is the main prop in every trick. Readers learn how to stab a fork in their eye until it pops, suck a French fry up their nose, and read people’s minds with a drinking straw.”

From the twelve second speech, listeners immediately get a feel for the book’s premise and tone, and understand the kind of things they’ll learn from it. A lot is accomplished in a few sentences.

A key to that speech is its opening: The book “is the first of its kind.” That phrase opens listeners’ ears and piques their curiosity. We all want to hear about firsts and distinctions.

If you’re positioning a book (or yourself or a company or a cause), a good exercise is to scour your material for slants that might make it “the first of its kind.” Ask yourself questions like the following:

Does my book speak to an audience that’s been ignored? Does it name a concept that’s never been named? Does it explain a methodology that’s brand new? Does it combine ideas that have never before been combined? Does it tell a story no one has ever heard?

If a first jumps out at you, use it. If one doesn’t, consider revising it until a first appears.

Your book doesn’t have to be “the first” to do anything. Working to make it so, however, may help you build a work that stands out from the pack.

My challenge to you, then, is to look over the book you’re writing — or thinking about writing — and ask yourself:

  • What are all the ways my book is a first?
  • What are all the ways I can convert it into a first?

(By the way, if you’re interested in understanding why being first in people’s minds is important, do yourself a favor and read any book written by Al Ries and Jack Trout. The work of these men on positioning is astonishingly valuable.)

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The Story of Bella and the Hawk

For years, Kate Purmal had been an executive at Palm and SanDisk. To her own admission, she was a left brain thinker. Every initiative she undertook had to make linear bottom-line sense.

Kate told me she wanted to write a book, but didn’t want it full of conventional ideas and perspectives. As a means of shaking up her thinking, I taught her freewriting – a technique I’d learned in school and later through the works of Peter Elbow and others.

“Take seven minutes a day,” I said, “and write as fast as you can, without stopping for any reason, about whatever happens to be on your mind. And, if during the writing you feel like digressing, by all means follow those digressions.”

Kate approached her assignment with determination. She’d sneak in seven minutes here and there, and would write about the business problems she was facing and the decisions she had to make. Then, one day, she had what amounted to an epiphany.

She and her children were in the backyard when they noticed Bella, their six-pound gray-and-orange tabby, climbing a tree. The cat had her sights set on a hawk—twice her size—perched on a high branch. As Bella inched closer, the bird swooped down at the cat, talons first. Bella retreated to a hard-to-reach part of the tree. When the hawk landed, Bella again stalked it. The back-and-forth battle lasted several minutes. Eventually, Bella withdrew to the house, and the hawk, minus a few feathers, flew off.

Kate was so impressed by her petite cat’s tenacity that she decided to write about it. That is something she wouldn’t have done before:

“Normally, I’d have been embarrassed to write that story, because it wasn’t about business. But, for some reason, I knew it was important, it was something I had to write about, and the abandon of freewriting gave me confidence.”

Kate wrote up the story, added photos she had taken with her phone camera, and emailed the result to friends. They loved it. That encouragement was exactly what Kate needed. She started writing and sharing more stories. Eventually, Kate began blogging – a mixture of personal anecdotes and business posts.

She later opened her own firm, Kate Purmal Consulting, where she helps start-ups get seed money, and coaches executives on how to run enterprises. Now she teaches all her clients freewriting.

Says Kate: “If you write everyday, every so often some inspirational things are going to show up.”

Consider, then, writing outside your norm. If you only write about business matters, write about your family, a trip you took, or a scene from your neighborhood. If you only write about personal matters, think about a business project, and write about that.

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