So what if I alienate 99.99% of the world’s population by being me? I’ll take the 600,000 who care. #umarketing
— Dave Thackeray (@DaveThackeray) July 11, 2012
And that’s conservative. Chances of your only being favoured by one in 10,000 is remote – too low a figure. Five people in any given average-sized town giving one for what you do? Definitely on the small side.
Whenever you’re doing something of worth, and I define that as something your heart races for, you’re unwittingly gathering a crowd.
Any crowd talks. And that contented crowd begets a tribe of the greatly engaged and enthused. And once you iterate your thoughts and ship something of value, that’s when the real magic happens.
The world’s most impressive political campaigns orchestrated on honesty and openness (we filtered out a fair few opportunists with those last three words) embrace perfectly the concept I have in mind here.
Never be afraid to be yourself
I wasted years fumbling in a rabbit hole for a persona that best matched my audience and what they wanted. But how long can you misread logic and apply falseties to your true self? It’s a ludicrous situation. Not even Frank Abagnale Jr won through using an alibi in place of his real self, and he was one of the best vanquishers of reality the world has ever seen.
We’re closing in on a world population of 7 billion according to the US Census Bureau. That makes my maths considerably out of kilter with reality (little change to the usual there). And it also means the opportunities are so much greater.
Factoring in the notion that what you do doesn’t necessarily operate exclusively within the confines of the internet and using the concept of being six people away from anyone else in the world, let’s go over the potential of you again.
If you have an irritating personality as I do (and baby – I revel in it) you can conservatively estimate that 99% of people will find you and your schizzle, a turn off. If you’re ultracon aim for the 0.01%.
Big numbers
What’s the point? That’s 1 in 10,000. Of 7 billion, that’s a reachable audience of 700,000.
Do you now see why it’s safe to be yourself? Embrace the ‘minority’, because it’s majority will help you and your business grow like wildfire by nurturing their needs in the way only you know how.
Don’t be afraid to be yourself. There are people rooting for you out there across the world. Sometimes in our cloistered worlds we feel like it’s us against the universe when in reality it’s us and the universe. We just need some self-belief and repetition.
Let the world know who you are and let the world take care of the rest.
Isn’t it time to be that lion and find your courage?
