When I wrote the title of this post I was thinking about how many times I hear people mixing up “sayings” or “phrases”. When it comes to promotion this could be a powerful method to attract attention, especially with some well thought out and clever headlines or email subjects that don't just fit the usual mold.
Grabbing attention is exactly what The Dandelion Viral Method is all about and we need to be innovative in our efforts to get our brand name and marketing message out there. Remember it's all a numbers game, a game of percentages and percentages are so powerful. The more people you get your online business message in front of, the higher percentage will buy your product or subscribe to your service. Even better then them just buying your product or subscribing to your service is that they tell others about it or are excited to share it. Like a child blowing on a dandelion, your offer becomes prolific and your business grows exponentially. If you want to learn more about how we can take marketing lessons from the assuming dandelion <-click here.
When something is out of the normal it has sticking power, especially if its humorous. A good example of a mixed up phrase that has stuck in the minds of my family is once when my wife and our son were arguing and she sternly stated to him “James, you are riding on a dangerous coat tail!” we all 🙂 Rolled OTFL 🙂 and we still use that phrase to this day when someone is getting out of line.
I came up with the title mixing the two well known phrases “The early bird gets the worm” and “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush”. It came to mind earlier in the morning when I stirred my family out of bed (6:00 am) to go for a walk before the heat of day. It's always like pulling teeth to get my daughter and wife up early in the morning. I'm a morning person, and because of the 10 years in the restaurant business, I wake up between 3:30 am and 4:30 am every morning without an alarm, regardless of when I went to bed. So as they were dragging their arses up the sidewalk, I was barking (in a gentle but drill sergeant whisper) my admonition that they needed to get to bed earlier, I told them “You guys stay up too late” to which my wife responded “You're an early morning snob! You think your way is the best way!”, we all laughed and I left it there, because it's true. I am an early morning snob. That doesn't mean my way is better for everyone, but it is for the work I do.
I get more done before the banks open, then most people do all day. I love it because the phone doesn't ring and it's quite. Another advantage is that I have customers on the east coast and them being 2 hours ahead I sometimes talk with them as early as 6am. I also outsource with excellent contractors in Asia and my early morning is their late afternoon, so we can talk business and discuss projects before they end their work day. If I started even at 8am I would miss them completely. One other advantage with my early waking snobbery is that unlike most nerdy dudes and dudettes that are nocturnal by nature, I'm done with my work day before they even get started. This was especially beneficial in the IT business, I was sharp and ready to go when my customers opened their doors and I was often complimented on it. Many customers complained how they could never get a hold of there old IT guy when they needed him early in the morning or that they were dragging butt, nursing a triple strength energy blaster drink or a grande quadruple shot espresso vanilla latte. I'm definitely not a coffee snob though. I've usually polished off a pot of home-brewed (cheap cheap compared to Starbucks) yet perfectly delicious coffee (with powdered cream, stevia, cinnamon and coconut oil) before the sun has even peaked over the Sandia mountains.
So what about this two worms in the hand, gets all the early birds in the bush? I'll explain that in a minute but first let's address two “usual”, boring ol sayings. It's true the that the early bird gets the worm and it's also true that having a bird in hand is better than two in a bush. I'm sure I don't need to explain these sayings, but I can't help myself so here goes. The first really means that the competition (for worms) is lower, earlier when less birds are awake to have to compete with. Your odds (percentage chance) of getting the worm before them is higher. The ladder means that even though you only have one bird in your hand (in your possession) as opposed to the two (more than one seems better) but they're in the bush not in your possession, so because you have it, it's yours, be happy you have one. Neither of these two sayings as a headlines or email subjects would grab much attention. Mostly because of familiarity. They've heard it before so they shrug, gloss over and look for something new and different.
“Two Worms in the Hand Gets All the Early Birds in the Bush”
– To me a bird has more value than a worm, so I'd rather get birds than worms, I know birds taste better than worms and they are prettier to look at so I place a higher value on them. Early birds are better because, well their “early”. Early is better than late, you subscribe to earliness, they subscribe to earliness so you have that in common and that's better than not having anything in common. There is less competition for early birds and you'd have your choice of birds, maybe bigger, prettier birds. Birds hang out in bushes so you want to present your worms to the birds where they hang out. Birds love worms so to attract birds you'd want a worm, or better yet two worms, you have two of them, they are in your hand. Everything is now in place to get birds, big beautiful birds and all you've done differently then your competition is you've started earlier than them and you've prepared to know where the birds are and you have they want. With two worms and little competition you're averaging at least two birds a day, but now let's scale this, it's time to innovate. Fish also like worms, as an experienced angler, I go catching, fishing sucks, catching rocks. Every ones knows that the best fishing (or chance of catching) is early in the morning. Don't go fishing later if earlier is better, go early. More than once I've split worms in two or even three if they're the big night crawler worms. Now you have 4 or 6 worms in your hand and you're averaging 4 fish and 2 birds or 3 fish and 3 birds. Dang, now you're even giving away fish and birds, you have so much. Don't forget birds love seeds also, especially Digital Bread Seed. See what I did there?
That's a pretty a cool metaphor, no? The worms are your offering (products, services, etc.) the birds and fish are customers, the bush is social media or the Internets in general. You are the kick-ass business mogul, that gets up early and has products and services prepared in an online, product and services, delivery system (website, blog, e-learning platform, etc) and you're killing it so much that you dictate your time, your available to your family, your generous to the less fortunate and life is good.
This is a real possibility for YOU and anyone that is willing to take action, form some good habits and take control of YOUR/their life.