Go through your inbox and you’ll find yourself responding to messages with, “I bet whoever wrote this is blushing beet red by now. The word ‘cringeworthy’ was designed for this.”
We’ve all made at least one cringe-creating mistake and I bet you’ve seen plenty of examples, too.
In my experience, these mistakes don’t happen because business owners don’t know any better. The problem is, we get busy and we take good advice out of context. We apply a piece of advice that’s great for someone else’s marketing story archetype…but dangerous to ours.
We’re encouraged to knock out a blog post in fifteen minutes or less. I’m a pretty fast writer but I make cringeworthy mistakes when I do that. I have to review…and review again.
We’re told to begin with a story of something embarrassing so we appear vulnerable. Who can forget that email about the person who lost their underwear at an inopportune moment?
We’re told to be controversial. Take a stand. Criticize your industry. Take aim at the competition. We’re not warned, “But don’t come across like a victim.”
We’re told, “Don’t give away the store. Don’t share too much.” We’re not warned, “Don’t leave your audience thinking you’re a scam artist.”
In the right context, each piece of advice can be extremely useful.
If you’re a Role Model Archetype, you’ll share your own struggles – more accurately, how you conquered those struggles to become a success.
If you’re a Celebrity archetype you’re probably not reading this email…but you can get away with a lot. Celebrities attract passionately loyal followers who want them to be outrageous.
Celebrity archetypes can get away with a lot…and Role Models are next. If you’re not familiar with story archetypes, download this free guide: http://cathygoodwin.com/arch
On this podcast, you won’t just learn about mistakes. (That would be mistake #3). You’ll discover how to fix them…especially the third: you’ll find a rare example of how to turn snark into strategy.
More mistakes? Look up Podcast Episode #81 on networking mistakes.
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Learn more about storytelling when you visit my website and purchase my kindle book: Grow Your Business One Story At A Time.
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