Focus, Simplify, Act

Beginning of this year I spoke to a colleague who, as the background on his phone (Thanks Mr. Novianto), had his personal mantra. I thought that was neat, so I made one for my desktop. 

These are the three things I try to keep in mind as I go through work and life. Focus, Simplify, and Act. Then today, by chance, I stumble upon an article by Tony Robbins titled: The 3 Decisions That Will Change Your Financial Life. In the article he talks about the importance of Focusing, Figuring it out, and Doing something with it.

I think it's important to build yourself guidelines. Worth a quick read.

On being driven

This weekend my friend Frank and I discussed what it means to be driven and realized that it is hard to define. He told me that he considered a mutual friend of ours to be driven because: "That person is able to clearly articulate their goals."

I told him that goal setting is only part of the story, and in fact, I think it is a smaller part of the story. I break down being driven into three parts. 

Purpose

This is different from having a goal. Purpose can be vague. It can be as clear as: "I want to have and run my own company", or "I want to be the best father possible", or "I want to rid the world of malnutrition". Purpose comes in many shapes and sizes. It can be hard to define. And it changes. But purpose is the air that fuels your fire. 

I strongly believe everyone has a higher purpose, a meaning for their life in our society that transcends their own. 

Path

Even if you do not have a clear grip over your purpose, you should still be able to visualize your path. What are the possible next steps? Do you create a life open to new opportunities. It doesn't mean everything has to be planned out. It just means you should plan. Try to crystalize your purpose and desires into actual steps.

Discipline

The best definition I ever heard of discipline was.

"Doing what you need to do, when you have to do it, even when you do not want to."

Thanks Chris!

Being driven means you take action to follow your path guided by your purpose. You do not watch the world go by. You shape your life through actions, even if / when you do not want to.

My friend Frank spoke of another mutual friend who has their own company. And said: "Is this person driven because they started their own company and has to make it work or did they start their own company because they are driven?" 

I said, it doesn't matter. The friend made the choice, and is now gunning for it. He is doing what he has to, even when he doesn't want to.

Anything I'm missing? What does it mean to be driven to you.

Why you should start your meetings with good news

And no, I do not mean; "Do you want to hear bad news or good news first?" I mean in your daily/weekly/monthly update meetings. In the calls you have with your colleagues to recap what has been done and what you are going to tackle next week. 

It is something I learned in my first job straight out of university. We used to do daily meetings that followed the Rockefeller Habits rhythms. (If you don't know about the book, you need to read it.) Why should you start of the meeting with good news?

1.) It's an easy default and creates structure in your update. Start with good news, what have you achieved, what do you want to achieve, and what are your bottlenecks.

2.) It reminds the organization that no matter how tough everything seems and how much adversity you have to overcome, there is always something good happening. 

3.) It starts your meeting with positive energy that is shared with everyone. It creates a buzz of can do attitude that everyone in your organization can feed off of. 

Three reasons why you should use the power of three

I was at a management strategy meeting last week in Vietnam for our company Edge-Asia. We had all the leaders from all the different markets in one room for three days. There was energy, there was direction, there was purpose.

As I was going through my presentations someone noted that I always break down my thoughts into three pillars, or three points, or three reasons. They asked my why that was. My curiosity was peaked. Why do I do that? And why does it feel so good?

I did my research and it seems that lots of great things come in threes. 

Besides the fact that it feels right. Here are the three reasons why you should use the power of three.

1. You have to choose

Sticking to three forces you to choose your top three. Or distill your thoughts into three key pillars. This in itself is a good exercise in simplifying. Often when we have four or more reasons, a few of those reasons can be grouped together in one all encompassing reason.

2. You will appear structured and clear

Whether you do or not you will at least appear to know what you are talking about. People who have three reasons are often perceived to be more authoritative and knowledgable. 

3. It is easier to remember

It's easier for you to remember three points. Branded. Structured. You can rattle them off in one go. And it's easier for the audience to remember. We are all flooded with information, having more than three pillars is laziness. You need to do the thinking for your audience. Don't just dump the information on them. 

Now go out and do three things today!

I was a client for one day, what happened next surprised me

A different perspective

At Edge we just had a great training around creativity by the Thinkergy team. It broke down creativity into a clear sequential structure. It gave the whole team ideation tools, and best of all it focused everyone back again to what is important for us; creating great ideas for our clients.

I had the privilege of being the client to which each group had to pitch their ideas. Surprisingly, from this client perspective I learned a lot.

Agencies can appear arrogant

After giving the agencies a briefing I welcome all questions. Really, I want the input, I want to work with you to get to a clear understanding and get us all on one page. But darn you are an arrogant bunch.

Just because you have digital in your title doesn't give you the right to make me feel digitally small. A few highlights:

• Don't roll your eyes when I mention QR codes (or some other, in your opinion obsolete, tool). There's a reason I'm mentioning this. FIND OUT.
• If I come to you with a brief, and you come back saying it's not a digital brief. I will take it away from you and give it to someone that does want to work on it. I'm sure other digital agencies would.
• Don't tell me my brief is scattered, unfocused, too long, etc. My intern worked really hard preparing this and I had about 10 minutes to approve it before went out to you. DO help me clarify the brief, work with me to make it sharper. A partner in this part of the process can be a partner in the future. Briefing you is a small part of my job.

Classically we think that you as the agency know digital,  and I as the client know the brand. But the reality is that there is a lot of overlap. The agency that understands that and works with me as a partner from the start has the best chance of continuing to work.

You are what you pitch

• If you are late, I will not work with you, and if by some miracle I do, my payments will be late
• If you are not structured and clear, I will not work with you
• If you do not seem to be committed to the pitch, you will not be committed to my work

If you are not organised during the pitch, you won't be organised with my work. Work on my pitch as if I am a million dollar client, and I will become, a million dollar client. 

It's all about the insight

You can think of the fanciest campaign involving a 3d printed screen on a drone that livestreams crowdsourced videos of cats onto the world largest flashmob handing out coupons.

But if it is not based on a fundamental insight into my target market, I will not buy it.

My heart beats faster when you have an insight into the target market I did not know. It is exciting and I want to get started right away. All you then need to do is have an idea to leverages that. 

Give me an insight, the rest will follow.

The most memorable agency, wins

I saw three pitches today. In my mind the ideas all overlapped. As the client I take this back to my colleagues and we have our own brainstorm, cutting bits and bobs up from every agencies pitch. We then come up with something that we think it’s the greatest thing in the world. Most likely, it’s horrible. A Frankenidea that might not work.

But we cannot do the same to an agency. I cannot take the strategist of one agency add the creative of another agency, etc. That is why:

The most memorable agency, wins.

I love to see you having chemistry with each other. I like to see you have fun with it (but still take my brand seriously). If you are having fun I can imagine working with you. We will have tough times, but I can see that we will be doing this together. You see, agencies are the best part of my job. Half the time I am staring at excel sheets and the other half I am making sure I keep my job. 

When you walk in the door, I can have fun. I do not just want that in the pitch, I want that moving forward. Smile, joke around with me. But make sure it is with me, not about me.

And...

Brand your work, make it easy for me to discuss it with my colleagues. It is easier to remember “The Floating Donkey” campaign than: “you know, that idea where the user has to send an sms and then redeem in store via the iPad installation.”

Which leads me into…

I am looking for a trusted advisor and partner

I know you do not have all the answers but I do expect you to be:

• Credible. Know what you are talking about. Tell me when you do not know, but figure it out with me.
• Reliable. Be there when you say you will. Deliver when you say you will. Inform me well in advance when you cannot. I also have (internal)clients to manage.
• Intimate. Have fun with me. Ask me about my personal interests. And yes, blatantly use it. I know you are using it. And when done with a wink, a smile, and actual interest. I love it.
• Don’t be so self oriented. I don’t care about your internal problems. I want you to care about the goals I need to achieve with my brand. Think a bit about me, but think more about what you can do to help us achieve our company targets. I don’t want to hear about your other clients, I want to be your one client. I don’t want to be compared. I know you have others, but when you are here with me. Make me believe that I’m the one.
• Be Passionate! Lot’s can be forgiven if I see you really care. Do you consume my product? Do you use my product even when I’m not there. If I catch you by surprise and you are using my product. You just won another six months of leeway. I won’t be disloyal if you won’t. Bug me, tell me your ideas, send me thoughts in short emails. Constantly be brainstorming with me. 

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What do you think client?