Your brain is dumb, here’s why.


ORIGINALLY SENT TO THE DOSE OF REALNESS EMAIL CREW.
6th MARCH 2018

Hello there!

Good news, the snow has gone and the U.K. is back up and running again. I’m sure the rest of the world is looking at us like “call that snow? Pah!”

Which is a great point because that links perfectly into today’s Dose of Realness.

I was chatting to my Mum last week about the snow and the chaos that was being reported in the news.

Mum: “Oh the snow looks bad near you, are you ok?”
Me: “Erm, yeah I’m fine. I drove 100 miles and hardly saw any.”
Mum: “Oh?”

The news was reporting that we were without power and people being stuck on motorways overnight.

Crazy!

Me: “We had about four inches and it wasn’t that bad.”
Mum: “It’s not like it was when you were a kid, can you remember that Boxing Day?”

We chatted about the six inches of snow that was dumped overnight at Christmas and it was pretty normal for this to happen.

We knew it was normal but the media thought it was a one-time occurrence!

What was being reported as true wasn’t reality.

And this is exactly like what we experience in life too.

We’re sat in our houses and the reporters are telling us about chaos and horrible weather. Then when we look outside, it’s not as bad as we thought.

The reporter is our brain and the weather is the evidence.

Our brains get a tad confused sometimes. It doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t. It just takes what we tell it as the truth and believes it.

Like the weather report, they could tell us it’s the worst winter on record and we’d find a way to agree with it.

Our brain (our subconscious to be exact) doesn’t know the difference.

And this is why we can reprogram our brain with clear and obvious evidence.

Like looking out the window.

Doh! It’s four inches, not a scene out of The Day After Tomorrow.

(We’re not gonna talk about burst pipes ok?)

We believe what we want to believe. 
And we believe what is true for us.

My version of the snow was meh… it’s no big deal. 
The news was reporting it was chaos in my area.

And then I found evidence to support it.

This is a huge subject to fit into a single email. There are hundreds of books about this.

But just take this away…

LOOK FOR YOUR OWN VERSION OF YOUR TRUTH AND THEN FIND EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT IT.

HERE ARE A FEW TO START YOU OFF.

  • Speaking on stage is scary… but millions of people have done it and didn’t die of fear.
  • Millions of business fail every day… but many survive and reading this email wouldn’t be possible without some succeeding.
  • I’m not confident enough to do this… but I’ve done it before and succeeded.
  • I’m starting from nothing, will I ever make it? Hell yeah, I will cos Apple started in a garage and look at those guys now!
  • I’m out of shape and out of shape people find it harder to lose weight… oh hold on, other people have overcome this so I can too.

LOOK FOR THE TRUTH YOU WANT AND FIND MASSIVE, OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT IT.
BUILD AN ENVIRONMENT THAT SUPPORTS YOUR BELIEFS AND CREATE SOMETHING AWESOME!

Ok, I’m gonna go for a walk before the sun disappears cos today is going to be awesome.
That’s my truth and I’m off to find the evidence 😉

Much love,
Carolynne
xx

Thanks for reading! Feel free to hit the recommend button below if you found this piece helpful.


Writing to an empty email list.

There’s nothing like starting a fresh new project.

The optimism, the enthusiasm, the rush of taking risks.

And when you sit down to start afresh, there’s one number that scares the shit outta me.

Zero fans on my email list.

Right now, no one said “I wanna know more”.

It’s ok, cos I’m gonna write it anyway.

Because I’m writing to my one true fan.

I know my one true fan intimately, what keeps them up at night, what their dreams are, who they aspire to lead, their biggest mission in life…

I’ve studied them for the past ten years while building their dreams pixel by pixel.

And whether I have one fan or a thousand, I’ll still write to them as if it’s a one to one conversation.

That intimacy counts in this busy world we live in.

Build the conversation from start.

Day one, zero fans.

Let’s begin.

1:1000 True Fans


Aaaaand that’s a wrap!⠀

Another membership site launched and cash coming in. ⠀

Now I could post about the money or the impact or the signup rate but this is the key…⠀

The momentum was built over months.⠀

Momentum turns into urgency.⠀

Momentum turns into raving fans banging down the door to be let in. ⠀

Those fans were served daily and they responded with “take my money, I want more”.⠀

And with that said…⠀

It’s time to build my own momentum and step back from web design (again!).⠀

It’s hard to say no when you have the skills to turn nothing into something with a handful of code but now is the time to build my own shit.

My momentum is lost when I focus and go all in on client projects cos when I give a shit, I lose sleep over it. ⠀

And that doesn’t serve me. ⠀

It doesn’t build my momentum. ⠀

The 1:1 model is broken. ⠀

It’s time for 1:1000 True Fans.

Trends vs Expectations

I said it before and I’ll say it again…

Deeper relationships, hyper-individualisation of products and marketing, tiny tribes of raving fans, timely messages and crafting your brand.

These aren’t trends, they are what the market, YOUR MARKET, has come to expect from you.

Technology is pushing the cost down and the skill level up.

This is the new ‘Relationship’ Economy based around your fans, not your business.

And this is just the start.

Are you ready?

#Fanoconomy

Your Customers Are Selfish

Luka Zuparic posted a great post over in the Future Marketing Facebook Group yesterday about jobs of the future.

The one that stood out was Customer Experience Officer (CXO).

We’re in a new era of business called the Relationship Economy and we’re moving towards more personalised experiences – Hyper-individuality.

Every interaction we have with our customers is about connection.

How can we connect deeper, how can we create more intimacy and ultimately more trust.

Creating great customer experiences with care and attention is a MUST not an afterthought.

Every touch point HAS to be carefully considered.

Apple Stores – Every surface, shelving unit and floor is carefully chosen to create a certain experience. They even lured the CEO of Burberry to create them.

When I walk into an Apple Store, it reaffirms my fan-girl tendencies because the experience is congruent with their products.

Mac 4 Lyf!!!


Or Virgin Trains are branded and styled from the carpet to the placemats in their red livery.

When I travel on a Virgin Train, you’re damn certain I’ll choose Virgin Atlantic for my next trip.

The experience matches the product.

So how can we do this?

👉🏻Walk through your business like a customer.

👉🏻Send yourself your email sequence and notice how you feel when you read it.

👉🏻Package up your product and send it to yourself to experiment opening it.

Tiny details matter and they matter even more today.

👌🏻We have HIGHER STANDARDS and we expect MORE of the companies we choose to spend our money with.

Will they choose yours?

Evolve or Die

That’s what Darwin was kinda saying when he wrote, “On the Origin of Species”.

Darwin could have been studying the behaviour of online businesses and said the same thing.

Evolve and go with the tide or try and stay where you are… and you’ll get stuck.

I’ve worked in massive, behemoth companies who are the slowest of the slow to change their ways and adapt new technology.

Last I heard, one was trialling Yammer… about five years after it’s peak.

As a small business, you have something they don’t have.

Agility.

Want to try a new social network, sign up and give it a go.

Massive Company Inc…. well… I won’t bore you with the details but it takes 18 months to change a printer.

If it flies, keep going. If it dies, move on.

My point is this…

You can out manoeuvre and adapt faster the largest corporations.

You will beat them AND your competition.

If you know *how* to evolve and you do it *fast* enough.

— –

Now, to take my own medicine…

I’ve stupidly been sitting on something (oh er!) for awhile now and it’s time to release it.

It’s not ready, it’s not perfect and that’s the beauty of it.

I’m going first to show how to get something to market faster than I’ve ever done it before.

I have (half) a plan, I have a manifesto and I have guts.

I also have a few things that you as a business owner would benefit from knowing.

It’s called Fanoconomy and it’s the New Rules for the Relationship Economy.

Evolve or Die… Evolve or Die 👊🏻💥

2017… the year of…?

I was sat refreshing Twitter and watching the TV as the news unfolded that the financial crisis was in full swing.

Do you remember the year?

2008 — September, I believe.

Lehmann Bros had just imploded and 2008 was named THE year of everything going sideways for businesses everywhere.

In our lives, we remember where we were and what we were doing when big shit goes down.

In our businesses, we also remember the milestones and trends what happened in those years.

2014 was the year of perfecting email sequences.

2015 was the year of launching online courses.

2016 was the year of Facebook Ads and Groups.

2017… well, I’ve already seen businesses using FB bots, the raise of membership subscription models and Insta/FB stories… and we’re only in March!

Personally, I love tech and innovation. It’s my nerd subject!

But how do you know which to go with?

Well, you don’t.

Following trends will get you noticed but how can you do them all.

Trends are just tactics. And tactics are just the execution of a larger strategy.

Following the crowd without a strategy and a reason WHY you’re doing something leads to empty FB Groups and unfinished projects.

Ask WHY.

Why use a FB Group?

Why use a FB Bot?

Why use a subscription model?

Once you know the why… the how becomes easy.

Why your Facebook Group is pants.

Today, I’m building a basic membership site for an up and coming company and one of the first moves they are making is building their membership site outside of Facebook along with a FB Group.

Here’s why…

1). Dealing with information –

Humans deal with information by chunking down large pieces into smaller parts. Too much information or choice makes your head explode.

Between seven and nine options in a navigation system is the optimum amount that we can make sense of.

Now, Facebook is a stream, not a navigation tree. We can’t break down the large pieces of information into a system that makes sense and it’s Goddamn annoying to scroll back through months of posts to find the info you need.

A website can have a hierarchy that can be ordered. More order means more engagement, more engagement means happier users and happier users means more retention and more income per month.

2). Distractions

Why do you check your FB? Waste time, stalk your ex…? Notifications are popping up to tell us who’s liked our latest selfie…

Traditionally, we’re on FB to connect with other humans and it’s set up to keep you engaged to keep you on the site longer.

FB Groups are usually dispensing information so you can learn something. This takes concentration and distractions are fighting for your attention.

A website doesn’t have distractions (unless you have annoying popups!) and visiting a website is more intentional. You are investing your time and attention more intently and therefore concentration will be higher.

More learning, more value given, more retention…you get the picture…

3). If it breaks or you get locked out…

Ok, I’m biased cos my trade is web design but I also used to be an Operations Manager and risk is part of what I managed.

The risk of losing months of years of FB live videos or thousands of posts would be the death of a business.

AND how about all those users?

💥 Set up your FB Group to have a free download for your users to join your email list!

All it takes is someone to report your Group or hack it and it’s goodnight Vienna for your monthly income.

4). Look pro and use it for marketing, doh!

Even if you’re not actively driving traffic to your site, people will Google you and your business.

— — — 
It’s not hard to set up a website these days and it’s absolutely worth it if you’re charging for your FB Group.

💥RECOMMENDED PLATFORMS & PLUGINS

💥Squarespace.com with Memberspace.com add on.

💥Wordpress with Paid Membership Pro Plugin

Questions? Fire them in the comments below ☺️

WHAT I LEARNT FROM A MONTH OF DEEP WORK

WHAT I LEARNT FROM A MONTH OF DEEP WORK

Hibernation is finally over and I’m back posting, writing and creating.

Here’s a few things I learnt –

1. (Some) People will forget about you –

I was doing some valuable work behind the scenes but not showing up daily makes people forget about you. Sad but true.

Out of sight, out of mind?

1. (part 2) – People will wonder where you are –

People miss you when you’re gone and they will message you 💕 (Save these in a file for when it gets hard to show up – people do care – love you guys 💕).

2. Creating makes you think harder –

Writing and the formation of something useful makes you really think deeply about your writing/creating and your stance on the subject. It really crystallises what you’re about.

Except politics… I’m not even going there!

3. Opinions are everywhere –

Honestly, I picked a GREAT month to stay off the internet.

4. Shiny thing syndrome disappears –

I dropped out of every online community and it was gooooooood. It was hard at first but worth it.

I stepped back and asked “is this what I want or am I just doing shit other people are doing”. I got my focus back and I have a plan!

5. I felt I got left behind –

I was making massive progress behind the scenes but I felt like I was being left behind.

I’m an advocate for shipping something everyday and I wasn’t. It felt weird… and I felt like I wasn’t creating anything out in the open.

6. Daily practice is mega valuable –

Write, create, film, photograph… and put it out there. Even if you think it’s rubbish. The practice will make you better. I missed writing more than I realised I would.

7. Read LOADS of books –

Social is awesome but haphazard and a time suck if you let it.

I promoted Kindle and Audible to my phone’s task bar and deleted my social apps. Every time I had five minutes, I read a book.

8. Be deliberate –

This is my mantra for the year.

I used to live on autopilot when I had my phone in my hand. FB, Insta, Twitter… rinse and repeat. And while I’m not perfect (hello Pinterest… it’s for research!) I did become more deliberate when I did check my social. A couple of likes and a catch up with friends then back to work.

9. Momentum is lost –

I have a little widget on IFTTT.com that collects all my posts and puts them in my calendar so I can see when and what I’ve posted (nerd alert). I was writing every day and then I stopped. I felt kinda sad to break the chain of writing…

10. I got deeeeeeep in creativity –

I got told to f*ck off and build a company. So I did. It’s not much at the moment but the less time I spent looking outward, the more I spent looking inside and want REALLY matters to me.

I am a freak of nature, I can build a “business” in 24 hours and get the first sale but that doesn’t turn me on. Building my legacy is what turns me on. The more outward looking I was being, the less I cared about my work.

**Reacting instead of being proactive will kill your business**

It’s good to be agile and react to a crisis but your longterm purpose is WAY more important. Having new shiny stuff served up every day for your to get in to is awesome when you’re starting out and finding your feet but if you want to do real work, like deep, important, legacy building work then it’s imperative to disconnect from the outside stimulation.

11. I MISSED IT AND I MISSED YOU!!!

Oh, expect all the posts and aaaaall the messages now I’m back. I’m gonna be on a dopamine high all day now I’m posting again!

😍

Would I do it again and what would I do different?

Yeah, I would but I’d be WAY more intentional with my time away. I was still sneaking in here and breaking up blocks of work for a dopamine hit!

Right… back to work xx

Perfectionism

I am a perfectionist.

Photo Credit: Sylwia Bartyzel (Unrelated but I loved it!)

Mainly because I know how things should be. And when I do something that’s not up to my standards (no-one else’s), I get a tad pissed off.

Exhibit 1 — My new bag that I designed… Isn’t right.

The font isn’t right, the bag should be black/charcoal in not white, I totally disregarded the bleed line so the design isn’t right… even down to the slant on the “N” isn’t up to my standards 😂

All really stupid things. No-one would notice but I would.

I could ignore all these things and upload it as a finished product but I can’t. I just can’t.

Perfectionism is a blessing and a curse. I have a weekly Skype call with a very dear friend of mine who is a perfectionist too and we mention it at least once a week! “Am I being a perfectionist about this?” we regularly ask each other.

Perfectionism is frowned upon in the Entrepreneurial space because you should always be putting stuff out there, shipping products and pressing upload but there’s also a duty of care… to yourself and your customers.

If it’s not right for me, it’s not right for my fans. END OF.

I absolutely believe in shipping and iterating, that’s how you build businesses but my standards will not be lowered just to put something out there for the sake of it.

So it’s back to the drawing board (or Sketch App) for me today…

Standards have been set.