thinkitcreative

In business, it can be hard at times to maintain an unwavering focus. Even the most accomplished pros will admit that at times distractions get the best of them. Let’s face it, you don’t have to look too hard in any office to find things that can pull you away from your work.

There’s a great piece in the Harvard Business Review that sums up how to best keep your eye on the ball and remain passionate about the work you do. I’ve included my own thoughts as a seasoned writer and business owner to accompany each of their six points:

Pursue what you love.
Sounds trite, but really it isn’t. When you love what you do, the time you put into something matters only as long as the outcome yields something you’re proud of.

Do the hardest work first.
This is one that took me a long time to fully appreciate, but it’s vital. It’s better to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work when your energy level is at its peak, plus it helps to give yourself an excuse to reward yourself later.

Practice intensely.
In my line of work this means write every day. Not all day (even writers need a break), but for a sustained period until the words start to flow. I’ve stuck to this principle for 20 years and it is without a doubt the #1 thing that has helped me improve my craft so that I can do better work in less time.

Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses.
I’ve had mentors throughout my entire career and each one has provided me with insights that have reshaped what I do and how I approach problems. Often it has been a much-needed shot in the arm, but at times the feedback has been tough to hear. You need both.

Take regular renewal breaks.
One of the most common mistakes to make is to assume that breaks are to be taken when you’re tired. The trouble with that approach is that it conditions you into thinking that problem solving only happens in the office when you’re not on break. Go for a short walk during the day, or even just put on headphones for a bit and listen to a podcast or a song or two. Some of my best ideas and most comprehensive solutions to problems have come to me while I was doing something other than work.

Ritualize practice.
This is related to the point about practicing intensely, but it deserves its own mention. As the Harvard Business Review notes: “Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it.” When you make a habit of doing something, it eventually stops being a task and becomes a natural part of your day such that you don’t even have to think about why you’re doing it.

The success (and utter genius) of the Old Spice Man campaign shows what can happen when the stars align in that just-right arrangement: a solid understanding of your target market, great timing, 100% client buy-in, brilliant casting, and razor-sharp creative with a thoughtful way of pulling it all together.

Great anecdote in this piece about how the actor who plays Old Spice Man found that unmistakable voicing, without which this might have just been another campaign for some kind of body wash product.

I love treating my clients well, and one of the ways I do that is by sending little gifts periodically just to say thanks. Gift baskets with coffee or chocolates are always popular, of course, but I also try to come up with products that—more than just being tasty—are useful and memorable.

That has lead me to one of my newest gift products: custom-made postage stamps.

After all, even in this digital age, just about everyone I know still needs stamps…and just about everyone I know in business is always short a stamp or two for mail-outs. So when an envelope arrives at a client’s doorstep with a full sheet of personalized stamps (authorized by Canada Post*) ready to use, I can almost hear their cheers right across town.

The feedback I’ve received on this product has been great, and that’s included plenty of interest in learning more about how it’s done. So here’s a summary in three easy steps.

1. Visit Canada Post’s Picture Postage website. It explains all the important technical and legal points that you need to know about.

2. Choose the digital image that you want to feature on your personalized stamp. Make sure it’s a photo you own and have the legal right to feature on a stamp. A company logo might be allowed, but exercise good judgment. Remember that your client is going to want to use the stamps on their own mailouts, so make sure that it doesn’t look as though you’re putting your brand on their correspondence. My approach has been to use photos from my personal collection, but decide what works best for you.

3. Review the finished product and send to your client. When your order ships to you from Canada Post, it features a full sheet of stamps, plus a card-sized reproduction. I forward this along with a short note to my client saying thanks for their ongoing business. I also find it helpful to mention that yes, indeed, these are real stamps and valid at domestic letter rates in Canada.

* American readers take note: there’s a similar service for custom US postage available right here.

As a copywriter who is deeply entrenched in marketing, I have a lot of discussions with clients about pricing strategies. Let’s face it, pricing is a delicate art. The last thing you want to do is let price drive decisions in the minds of customer on whether to buy your product or service. The key is provide numbers that mean something of value to the people with whom you want to do business.

Trend-spotting author Jeremy Gutsche relates a great story about this in his book Exploiting Chaos. A few years ago while working for a leading Canadian credit card company, he and his group had an insight: “customers didn’t think about their rates as numbers, they thought about whether or not the rates were fair.”

Rather than advertise the lending rate on their card as a percentage, they switched to presenting it as “Prime +2,” which meant that their lending rate was just two percentage points higher than the prime rate set by the Bank of Canada. Sales skyrocketed.