Last night I hung out with author and speaker John Moore. Little did I know, not only is he an expert on business and marketing, but also on Belgian Ale, and old school hip hop. Even though he had a big presentation today, we stayed up pretty late talking about beer, business, and music. Of course, there's ties between all of them, but the biggest point John stressed in all the stories we shared: be yourself, and by doing so, be different.
In talking about beer, we looked at small breweries that tried to be big players, and ended up with a big diluted product. In comparison, we then looked at the absolute glory of obscure beers that come out of Belgian monasteries that surpass most wines in their complexity and flavor. That stuff is the real deal - original, and different.
In music, we talked about how hip hop died in the mid-90s because executives found a big market for it, and started "creating products" - making sellable artists, as opposed to finding the people with passion on the streets who lived day to day for their music.
Finally, we talked about how this idea applies to being an author and speaker. No matter what you do, you have be real. The more you start diluting your product to appease the masses, the less unique it is, and the more possible it becomes to replicate. So, any success you achieve on this path becomes short lived, and the original passion is less fulfilled.
Mere hours later, John was on stage, sharing this same idea to 300 BMA members: Be different, build your brand from the inside out, and don't sell out.
Authors: keep it real.
Comments (2)
See, somehow I knew John knew his beer. Seems like folks who grasp the complexity of a good cup of coffee do the same for a good beer, wine, or idea.
Big doesn't have to mean diluted, though; Trevor Gay posted recently on his Simplicity Is The Key blog about the ongoing success of the Eagles: still huge, still satisfying to fans and themselves, and still authentically the Eagles, despite the years and the size.
Posted by Joel D Canfield | March 28, 2008 6:29 AM
Posted on March 28, 2008 06:29
Perhaps the Eagles became huge because they kept true to their vision. In other words, they never did a disco track in the 80s just to follow popularity. They did their thing, and stuck to it. It works. That's the point.
What I (via John) referred to is when people look at "getting big" as the goal, rather than doing the thing that they love. When you're focusing only on your passion, size is sort of irrelevant. If you check out the Tom Peters interview in the post above, he addresses this also - don't quit your day job if your true passion won't allow you to, but never, never stop doing it.
Posted by jon8cr | March 28, 2008 10:37 PM
Posted on March 28, 2008 22:37