eSoup

Carrie Bradshaw's Guide to Launching a Book with *Style*

Carrie got really lucky when she was doing her book launch.

For one thing, even though she was making the typical palty writer's wages (and what little money she had she was spending on designer clothes and a closet full of Manolo Blahniks) she was somehow able to have the book launch of every writer's dreams.

Her friend Samantha, a PR big wig, volunteered to organize everything for free. Samantha found a stylist to help Carrie convey the perfect image on her book cover (I guess the stylist worked for free too). Sam planned the huge, expensive book launch party (apparently the publisher paid for that) with everybody who's anybody on the guest list and photographers lined up waiting for Carrie's big arrival. A dream!

Unfortunately, not many of us have a best friend who's a publicist. And God knows that in reality, even major publishers don't help authors get the word out about their book. There's no launch party, no all expenses paid book tour. Nada.

It's like, slam bam thank ya ma'am with the publisher's of today! Hardly any follow up care at all after your baby hits the bookshelves.

But that's okay--even if Carrie hadn't had Samantha and the fairy tale publishers, she could have had a stylish book launch simply by implementing a few online marketing strategies.

Since Andy has already been through all this book launch stuff before, I asked him for some pointers. Here are the main things I learned from him, plus I threw in a few bonus tips of my own for good measure:

1) Get a big list--A list is a database of email addresses collected from people who give you permission to contact them. Everybody's inboxes are already overflowing, so you've got to give folks a really good reason to fork over the old email addy. Maybe you lure people to your list by offering to send them a weekly or monthly ezine filled with things they want to read (this is what Andy does). Perhaps you have a promo offer--"Give me your email address and you could win a free copy of my book."  You can get creative with it, but you'll want to have a website or blog where you have an in-your-face subscription box that allows folks to sign up for the super generous thing that you're offering them.

2) Start blogging. If I were in charge of your book launch, I would have you start your blog at least 8 months before your scheduled launch. I know, I know, that takes a heck of a lot of pre-planning, plus you've got to actually write quality stuff on the blog during that time to build up your readership.

Yes, it's a lot of work, but quit your complaining already. Writing is your thing, remember? A writer should have an unfair advantage over the mere mortals who do most blogs, so play that card. Use writing as part of your marketing strategy. I'd like you to write 5 days a week, one post a day. If you can't handle that, then post at least 3 times a week. If you aren't willing to do that, then honestly, a blog might not be the best idea for you. You've gotta post pretty frequently. Of course the topic of your blog will be the concepts surrounding your book.

3) Setup a "media room" on your blog or website, then get your blog mentioned in mainstream print media. Yeah, I know. The media room part is easy. The getting national mainstream media exposure, not so easy. For a step-by-step guide on how to do both of these things, see my article over at Coachamatic.com. 

4) Cultivate online relationships. Your goal is to make friends all over the blogosphere. These friends will help you spread the word about you and your book when the time comes. To do this you've gotta leave the little lily pad that your own blog sits on and hop, hop, hop on over to your neighbor's blog. You'll go around to various blogs and communities socializing, leaving relavent comments, getting to know people, encouraging other bloggers, and eventually you'll make your way into neighboring ponds where you'll meet even more friends.

Think of yourself as Julie McCoy, cruise director of The Love Boat. In addition to writing on your own blog, socializing is your daily job. Thank God it's fun, cuz you've gotta do it pretty much every day to cultivate those relationships.

4) Execute an online article publishing campaign. Ahh, one of my favorites. When you're using online article submissions to promote a book, the trick is that you can't directly write about your book. With online articles, publishers want quality educational content, and that means nothing promo-y is allowed.

So, if your book is about an American living in Marrakesh, Morocco, then you can write wonderful accounts of what it's like to live there, where to go, what to see, what the culture is like, what the architecture is like, but under no cirucumstances can you ever say, "In my new book, My Marrakesh, I talk about..." Subtlety is the key and you'll want to start submitting articles about 6 months or more before your launch. If you follow my tips, you can launch an absolutely kick-ass online article writing campaign for your book launch.

5) Buy ads on AdWords to send traffic to your site.

6) Go on a virtual book tour. Your publisher won't spring for the 4 star hotel and the first class plane ticket for your cross country book tour, and you're not independently wealthy, so you've gotta be forward thinking when it comes to book tours.

Going on a virtual book tour means that you make arrangements with the friends that you've been making across the blogosphere to make guest appearances on their blogs. One day you'll hang out at so-and-so's blog, doing interviews, sharing thoughts, and perhaps doing a guest blogging stint. The next day, you're on to another person's blog. This is where all the time and effort your invested into your Julie McCoy impersonation pays off in terms of your book launch.   

Whew! Those are the 6 steps that Carrie (or you) would follow to do a book launch if she (or you) didn't have the fairy tale publishers and the best friend who happens to be a publicist.

Admittedly, this does require a bunch of work, some advanced planning, and a good dose of patience. Maybe this wouldn't be the book launch of Carrie's wildest dreams, but it's one that would fit her (and your) itsy-bitsy writer's budget while still making a decent splash in the market.

Starbucks' advertising is a joke

Confrontational Marketing -- Building Brand Awareness in a Saturated Market, originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

Here's the story that goes along with this photo (coming to us from Thomas Hawk):

Today as I was crossing the Embarcadero I noticed that this gentleman had left his coffee on the roof of his car. Midway through the cross walk I turned and pointed at him and he just waved at me. I ran back to the other side of the crosswalk and approached his window as he wasn't getting what I was pointing at. When I got close enough to speak to him I told him that his coffee was on his roof. He looked at me and said, "I know, Happy Holiday's from Starbucks!" At first I didn't get it, it didn't sink in, so I told him again, your coffee it's on your roof and again he looked me square in they eye and said, "yes, yes, I know, Happy Holidays from Starbucks." It was at this point that I realized that the coffee cup was permanently affixed to his roof and that he was an advertisement in disguise.

I can just imagine the meeting when some PR guy was pitching this one to Starbuck's corporate, yeah, yeah, we'll trick all these people, it will be great!

Even though I'm not sure how I feel about cars clogging traffic and polluting the City with exhaust to make a marketing point, I still had a chuckle when I realized that I'd been had.

Ha--this cracks me up!

I actually stumbled upon this photo when it occured to me a few days ago that I have never in my life seen a Starbucks commercial on TV.

Ever.

Occasionally I'll see a billboard, but no real advertising at all.

Yet, I find myself being involved in Starbucks-centered discussions almost every week. These conversations are usually someone telling me something like, "I went to Starbucks today, and they gave me my drink for free because I had to wait 4 minutes for them to brew a new pot."

And then I respond, "Do you know what happened to me one time? The girl behind the counter slipped me a free muffin when she found out I was part Filipina." (She was Filipina too, and yes, if you're part of our club you'll occasionally get a free muffin.;-))

When we small biz owners commiserate about the frightening health insurance woes we face, someone always pipes up and says, "You know if you work at Starbucks for 20 hours a week, you get amazing benefits. They'll even give you adoption assistance."

We're always talking about Starbucks, so obviously whatever they're doing is working, but I thought I'd do some research about their approach to marketing, which led me to the photo of this living, breathing, driving Starbucks commercial.

Brand Autopsy points out, "Starbucks spends its advertising dollars on making better products and better customer experiences and not on making funnier television commercials."

Yes, that's it! They focus on the quality of their product, the training and happiness of their employees, and on improving the experiences of their customers.

And they come up with advertising campaigns that inspire us to chase after cars on busy streets! You've gotta love that.

When I first started my business, I used to think that marketing was 1) scary 2) something you needed an advanced degree and many years of professional training to be good at 3) dead serious 4) completely over my head 5) pushy and in-your-face.

But, seeing the creative, fun, surprising, interactive ways that some businesses handle their marketing makes me see that I was dead wrong on all counts. (Well, perhaps only mildly wrong on points #2 and #4--If I could to afford to hire a team of marketing masterminds, I would!)

The Jugglers' Rivalry

This video of the juggling finale from comedian Chris Bliss' act has become famous on the internet, and when you watch it, you'll understand why.

It is amazingly creative, passionate, well-choreographed and you can feel the energy of his performance. It gave me chills the first time I saw it.

After it spread around the internet, people started taking pot shots at Chris, saying he technically wasn't a good juggler, that his routine was simplistic and that he couldn't win a juggling competition to save his life.

Apparently the juggling elite (I never knew there was a juggling elite, but apparently there is!) are annoyed that Chris is getting so much attention for his performance. Jason Garfield, a professional juggler (again--who knew they existed!) has created a parody of Chris' act called "Chris Bliss Diss" in which he does Chris' routine except he uses more balls and throws them higher, thus ostensibly proving that he is the better juggler.

Lessons we can take away from this juggling rivalry:

1. Trailblazers and innovators make it much easier for those who follow. If you put a lot of thought and effort into creating and developing an idea, it's very easy for someone else to come in behind you and say, "I could have done that!" and then diss you and take your creation and try to one-up you. It happens all the time, especially with internet businesses. Adapting an idea once it's already been developed and tested is much, much easier than being the first to do something.

2. Sometimes people don't get the real reason why a particular product, person or business is popular. Many copy-cat type of businesses make the same mistake as Jason--they look at the mechanics and think if they copy it, or maybe copy it and one-up it in some way, that it will be an improvement on the original. What Jason wasn't able to one-up Chris Bliss on was passion and originality. While he threw the balls higher and used more of them, Chris, with his stripped down self-created performance, still has the more powerful video.

3. Likeability counts. Which is more attractive: A guy with a great sense of humor who takes chances with his creativity, or a guy who comes across as being bitter and resentful of another's success?

4. Homemade tastes better. For some reason that Ma and Pop restaurant with the torn up plastic seats and the mis-matched silverware is more appealing than the well put together chain restaurant across the street.

The perception is that the food at the family owned restaurant is made with love. Sometimes the lasagna is a little burnt around the edges. Sometimes the cookies aren't perfectly round. The imperfections are endearing and remind us of our own mom's cooking.

It's the same with these two jugglers--perhaps Chris Bliss is the more well-known juggler because his passion shows more than his technical skill.

5. It doesn't matter how high you throw the balls. It's about making a human connection with your audience. While Jason has won juggling competitions for his prowess, he's not exactly a household name. Mainstream society is just not into juggling enough to care about these esoteric juggling competitions.

But when Chris Bliss takes this obscure skill and creates a passionate routine set to a favorite Beatles song, it stirs our memories associated with the song and becomes emotionally riveting to people outside the juggling community.

Your average Joe, who certainly never gave juggling a second thought, gets captivated by the performance, thinks, "Wow, how inspiring," and shares the video with his friends.

Ironically, even though Jason may be the more technically advanced juggler, his video has not spread like wildfire across the internet like Chris's. Why do you think that is?

(And no, this post was not about juggling.)

Getting Lucky on Your Way to the Top

  Do you feel lucky? 
  Originally uploaded by salgada.

You can work hard, become an expert in your field, make great connections, be likeable, attractive, authenic, disciplined, and determined.

But probably the most elusive and sought after ingredient in success is the quality of "luckiness".

We all know people who seem to lead charmed lives, and their excessive good fortune is sometimes perplexing to folks who take more than their fair share of battering against fate's brutal shores.

The million dollar question is--if you don't consider yourself lucky, is there any way you can manipulate the stars?

Dr. Richard Wiseman, head of psychology research at the University of Hertfordshire in England and author of the book "The Luck Factor" says that although some people definitely appear to be more fortunate than others, people aren't born lucky.

Dr. Wiseman says that folks who seem to lead charmed lives are simply unconsciously following 4 essential principles that we all can learn:

Principle One: Maximize Chance Opportunities
Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences.

Principle Two: Listening to Lucky Hunches
Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.

Principle Three: Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way.

Principle Four: Turn Bad Luck to Good
Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on the ill fortune, and take control of the situation.

Dr. Wiseman's research is empowering, and I can totally see what he's saying, but there are some people who seem to be kissed with luck that goes beyond what these 4 principles encompass. One example is Andy and his media magnet self.

*Strip Tease Meme--the choice of photo for this post was inspired by Gavin's post about procrastination over at Servant of Chaos. I think we should all try to work images of strip teases into our blogs as often as we can ;-). Perhaps this could be a new meme...You tag 5 other bloggers and they must figure out a way to naturally work a photo of someone doing a strip tease into one of their regular posts. I love that! I wonder if anyone would play...

What color is your iPottie?

As Seth points out,

Every person is a marketer, and anyone crazy enough and passionate enough to start something is definitely a marketer. It's not great programming that turns one Net company into a success while another flounders. More often than not, it's about how good a job the amateur running the marketing and design did.

But let me tell you, it's not easy being that amateur who's in charge of the marketing and design for his or her own small biz.

It's a bit nerve racking having that kind of pressure and competing in an area where the learning curve is incredibly steep (and where not performing up to par leaves your business dead in the water).

But desperation leads to a hunger for knowledge, and a hunger for knowledge leads to a quest for what works. I wanted to share with you a couple of things I came across on my daily quest that made me think:

Glen over at Problogger talks about why 37Signals writes an amazing blog:

In this blog the software company’s founders spend most of their time writing about the 37Signals mantra: great web software is simple, fast and elegant. 

But what makes their writing so compelling is that they hardly ever write about software.

Huh?

That’s right - What makes their writing great is that they are able to take pieces of seemingly unrelated topics and link them to their mantra, like how comics relate to web design. Or film concepts and branding.  They know how to breathe life into a concept, to let the viewer see an idea in a different light.

And then over at the 37Signals blog, Matt talks about Worth1000.com's recent contest where they asked participants to parody Apple by creating designs for non-exististent Apple products (hence the iPotti :-)).

Matt asks:

If someone was going to make fun of your company, how would they do it? (And if there’s no answer, is that a sign you’re lacking a defined point of view?)

That's a very insightful question Matt, and I wonder how many of us small biz owners would answer it.

Apple is an extreme example of a company that is so focussed in their mantra (design, design, design!), that it's easy to parody them. They've done with their products what 37Signals has done with the writing on their blog--everything they produce is an expression of their mantra.

Something to think about:

What is your mantra? Have you established one yet?

If someone were going to parody your company, how would they do it?

Sweet Talking

  sweet talk 
  Originally uploaded by mofo.

I was born, raised and continue to live in the South (USA). So, whenever I go out to the store or a restaurant, it's a given that I'm going to be called "love", "doll", "honey", "sugar" and "darlin'" by complete strangers.

The thing is, that when I'm gifted with this easy, casual verbal affection, I no longer feel like we're strangers. A wall comes down, a personal connection is made, and the warmth that accompanies these terms of endearment sticks with me long afterwards.

I was reading this post by Garrison Keillor, and I was reminded of how verbal friendliness can have a profound effect its recipient :

Garrison recalls,

A woman checking I.D.s at the airport saw me coming the other day and said, "Good morning, sunshine." She didn't know me from Adam. She glanced at my driver's license and said, "Have a good flight, darling." This was in the South, of course -- in Austin, Texas, to be exact. Northern women would no sooner address a strange man as "sunshine" than they would ask if you wanted to see their underwear. But that woman's "sunshine" shone on me for the rest of the day, and a week later I still remember it.

With natural, unpremeditated charm, that airline employee made Garrison smile and feel warm inside...for an entire week!

  A Barbie smile 
  Originally uploaded by isolano.

Experiencing a genuine smile-inducing interaction exposes all those lame customer service scripts that airlines, fast food restaurants and other businesses use as being as plastic and unauthentic as the painted on smile on Barbie's face.

Thinking about this, I stumbled across Kathy's post over at Creating Passionate Users. She writes:

Marketers and managers tell us to "delight" the customer. But they're usually talking about heroic gestures, "empowering the front line", and virtually always about how to use this "happy customers" focus as a competitive advantage. But sometimes it's the smallest of things that can make all the difference...

Too often we see formal institutionalized smile-strategies... like the Southwest airline flight attendants inserting jokes into their safety speech. But some of those attendants are simply repeating the script, and it shows. It's a lot more smile-inducing when the flight attendant just blurts something out spontaneously, in response to something in realtime. Or when they announce to the entire plane that there's a couple in coach celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, having just returned from a romantic second honeymoon. Or when the pilot comes on and starts describing the joy of flying by telling you way too much about the physics of flight. THESE things make me smile, and for those of us who can't afford first-class, it comes just when we need it the most. And I want to know, "What causes these smile-inducing people to behave like this even though they don't need to?"

laughing 
  Originally uploaded by a fang.

As a person who does daily customer service myself, I would back Kathy up and say that pulling off the un-institutionalized smile strategy requires not having a strategy at all.

Humans have a sixth sense when it comes to spotting fake friendliness. Kathy's test:

Crinkly eyes = real smile. No crinkly eyes? Faker. (or too much botox)

Most of us are interacting with customers from a distance or indirectly, so how can we stun customers with our "virtual" crinkly-eyed smiles and inspire ourselves, co-workers and clients to do the same?

Basically I do just one thing to bring about this result--enjoy my work. I think if you genuinely feel good about yourself and enjoy your work that customers pick up on it and appreciate it. Holy cow--That's the easiest "HowTo" list I've ever written!:-)

But what about before they're our customers--how can we create unpremeditated, memorable experiences with potential clients and consumers?

From a marketing perspective, I guess it would go back to that "being remarkable" factor that Seth is always talking about and the "surprise marketing" that we talked about a few days ago. The unexpected, the memory-making, smile inducing, coming out of nowhere, taking a chance at being genuinely different kind of marketing. 

I guess if we approach marketing as a dialogue rather than a sales pitch (if our sweet talking feels natural and personal rather than a scripted), a successful interaction would begin like the one Garrison had with the airline employee--by giving him an unexpected, refreshing experience, her "sunshine" shone on him all day, and a week later he still remembers her.

Portrait of an over-achiever

What's amazing to me is that I meet folks who, by all estimations by the outside world, are extremely successful, fortunate and over-acheiving, but it seems like without exception, none of them thinks they've "made it" yet.

I guess it's one thing to be watching someone's rise to the top, and it's quite another to be on the ride itself.

This thought crossed my mind again as I was looking at this post by Guy Kawasaki as he evaluated his performance in his first year in blogging. Here are the cold, hard stats for Guy's blog in its first year:

1. 2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day.

2. 262 posts generated 6,961 comments and 1,937 trackbacks. That’s 25 comments/post and 7 trackbacks/post.

3. 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz.

4. Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm...

He goes into some more detail beyond these staggering numbers, but the shocking part is the end of the post where Guy says (my italics):

7. Ending Technorati ranking: #45. Highest ranking during the year: #35 or so. One interpretation of this self-judged lack of success is that the blogosphere prefers news and gossip to essays although my buddy Seth Godin disproves this theory.

I'm just blown away that a stellar, totally "results not typical" performance, could in any way be interpreted as a lack of success. Okay, so maybe he can't quit his day job and live off the revenue from the Google ads on his blog, but $3,350 is nothing to sneeze at!

  CONGRATS! 
  Originally uploaded by Candy*.

Maybe this is why A-List bloggers say that there's no such thing as an A-List or a Z-List.

Apparently even A-List newbie bloggers need encouragement, so I'd like to send this note to Guy:

Real memories are created by surprises

  Edward Munch in Michigan 
  Originally uploaded by LouisL.

Over the past few weeks, I've been giving a lot of thought to how blogging and marketing interact and how businesses (mine too!) need to take a different approach than what they're used to when trying to create an online presence through social media.

It seems like most of us small biz owners who are using blogs as marketing tools are very much compliantly, unobtrusively, predictably inserting round pegs into the round holes put before us.

We enter the arena of social media with a corporate background and the idea that professionalism translates the same online as it does offline--you must have a photo of yourself looking business-y, you must be policially correct, non-offensive, polite at all costs and for God's sake, don't do anything unexpected--you might surprise folks and cause yourself to stand out!

This post from Seth hit home with me. He says:

Most marketing is intentional. In this ad I will advertise this product.

So is most writing. A knitting blog writes about...wait for it... knitting.

Our mind is prepared for what we are about to receive. If it's a sales pitch, we're ready to ignore it. If it's on a familiar blog, we're ready for it to be familiar.

Real memories are created by surprises.
Real change is created by unexpected juxtapositions.

And Seth asks a question that has been swirling around in my brain lately--

Most marketers, probably you, are busy putting your round pegs in the round holes that have been given to you. What if you did the opposite?

For most business blogs, the idea is to establish yourself as an expert in your field, so the content is usually informational.

The trick is turning informational writing into something that is a bit more creative, because truly, if it's only straight forward information that you're providing, then your readers could just as eaily do a Google search for what they need and end up looking at someone else's blog next time. And honestly, haven't we all seen enough "HowTo" and "Top 10" list posts in our lives?

I was pondering this topic when I stumbled across the "No Swimming" sign at the top of this post.

It's just a street sign in Michigan. The purpose of the sign is to convey specific information ("Don't go swimming here!").

If this sign were like all other generic, uniform signs (Stop, Yield, speed limit, whatever) then you would really only take notice of it if you were on that beach in Michigan and considering taking a dip in the water.

But this sign is not like other signs.

It surprised me and made me laugh. It looks like a sign Edward Munch would come up with, but on second glance, perhaps they're warning us that the waters are alien infested ;-)!

This sign captured my attention even though I'm not on that beach in Michigan and even though the information it's meant to convey doesn't really apply to me.

Still, I look at it, laugh, show it to you, and will store this amusing memory in my brain even after I stop looking at the photo of the sign.

Ah, now I get it. Information becomes interesting and memorable when its delivery includes unexpected juxtapositions and surprises.

When that happens, a knitting blog is interesting even to folks who don't knit.

HowTo Make Yourself Buzz-Worthy

Sounds a bit self-centered, doesn't it?

Being a rather shy, behind-the-scenes type of person, I sort of cringe to think that part of building a successful business requires stepping into the spotlight sometimes.

But it's absolutely true--even if the work you do is behind the scenes, if you own your own business you can't be too shy about promoting yourself. At some time you have to de-wallflower yourself, stand tall and (subtly) shout "Look at me--I'm really great!".

This is why I don't do in-person networking--I just feel like a complete cheese ball schmoozing with folks, so I've sort of found a little marketing oasis (the internet) where I can meet folks around the world every day and where I don't need to put on the dreaded business suit in order to mingle.

One very pleasant thing I've discovered about online marketing--a little buzz goes a long way. I don't know whether it's the viral-ness of online communications that word spreads so quickly or if the online community is just tighter than offline networking orgs, but a little dab of online buzz around yourself or your biz will do ya.

So how do you get that buzz going? Penelope Trunk's has addressed that very question in her post  "How to build buzz around yourself". Most of these suggestions are things that even I feel comfortable doing, and I actually think they would be more effective than traditional meet-n-greet networking. Some of Penelope's tips:

Mark Twain's Top Blogging Tips

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Mark Twain. I remember in high school I was assigned to read his book Roughing It, which was a good 600 pages long, and, true to form, I waited until the weekend before the book report was due to start reading it.

That Saturday morning I hunkered down and willed myself to start reading it (I have to assume that I couldn't find the Cliff's Notes on it), but much to my suprise, I found myself getting wrapped up in the action, laughing outloud and wishing I had more time to read and savor that wonderful book.

Twain is like Bob Dylan--nobody turns a phrase like him. And if he were alive today, I think he'd be blogging up a storm, telling stories that would have us rolling on our sides, and sharing the most erudite, home grown advice around the blogosphere.

Brian Clark at CopyBlogger.com illustrates the timelessness of Twain with his post "The Mark Twain Guide To Better Blogging".

A few of Brian's Twain-isms:

“The difference between the right word and almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

Twain knew the power of the right words, and would tell you to take care with the ones you choose. Don’t post to get it done, post something that’s done well.

“Great people make us feel we can become great.”

And great bloggers do the same. Empower your readers—to code better, think differently, or simply choose the right mortgage. Focus on making them the star, and you’ll become a star to them.

“Whenever you find you’re on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.”

If one thing truly makes a blog stand out, it’s a march to a slightly different drummer. It’s not only easier than ever to have a unique voice heard, it’s imperative to have a unique voice to be heard at all.  Like the man says, be remarkable!

See the rest of Brian's Twain-isms here. Thanks to Gavin for hooking me up with the post on CopyBlogger.