Mistake #1 Appeal to Everyone
“I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.”
- Herbert Bayard Swope
The first day at work, I was excited. Everything’s new to me. Plus, the manager and boss told me I have the right to pitch them for whatever projects I was interested in. On the other hand, I was confused. There were too many projects; I had no idea which ones to choose.
The manager later asked me which category of clients were appealing to me.
I said, “all of them.” She was very confused.
The pool of projects is very diversified in terms of industry. Manly products, electronic gadgets, travelling agents, FMCG, etc. The list was infinitely long. Any industry you can think of, we had them. I was really interested in all of them; I didn’t want to make a choice. That’s why I claimed myself all-rounded.
I’ve ignored the rule of being extraordinary.
Seth Godin has written a book: Purple Cow. The idea of the book was visual. Among all of the brown cows, the purple cow was extremely captivating. In other words, being the purple cow was the way to stand out.
But what makes you purple? What makes you different from others?
It dawned on me I had made a mistake. Correcting the course, I started to highlight my strength among the team. I used to work at a financial institution and have substantial knowledge in the subject of finance and economics. This was rare in a digital marketing company. Whenever I talked to my boss, manager, or junior colleagues, I labeled myself as a financial geek.
After quite some time on the job, some of the teammates found me satisfied with certain types of projects. They had no ideas I was just thinking from both the perspective of the manager and myself. The manager cared about the relationship with all the teammates, but keeping a good balance between commercial operation and friendship. It’s a difficult job for her to allocate projects based on the teammates’ preferences, capabilities, and fairness. I was trying to create a win-win-win situation for the management, teammates, and me.
Some of the teammates didn’t understand the difficult position the manager was in. They would try to out-purple me anyhow. I’ve never seen any 20ish, other than me, who would find reading a credit score report from a financial institution interesting. But they would fight with me for the same projects, simply because they didn’t like that I was happy with the win-win-win situation I had invisibly facilitated.
Being purple was no longer an advantage. So I constantly changed my color to keep myself standing out from the crowd. Sometimes I was yellow. Sometimes I was blue. Sometimes I was even gold. I would never allow myself to stay the same color with others. I constantly upgraded my knowledge both inside and outside the job scope, and chose the ballpark where they didn’t have a slight chance to win.
Forewarned is forearmed; I’ve already won the battle before the battle started.
Besides, knowing where my strengths are was far better than constantly fixing weaknesses. I was a sporty dude with financial knowledge. You just couldn’t relate me to any girly or beauty products. Therefore they became my not-a-chance categories. And I’ve actively shared these facts among the team. Nobody would try to give me a beauty project.
“Ain’t it being a purple cow has only a short term advantage?” You might ask.
I have to tell you that you’re right, though. 10 years ago, the iPod was chic. However, if you listen to it today, your 10-year-old nephew would laugh at you saying that you’re old-fashioned. Apple realized it and Steve Jobs killed his product by himself.
Apple is the perfect brand to drive home the point what this chapter is all about.
Read the next chapter: Mistake #2 Gossip
Or table of contents: The Game