I’m a big idea guy. In fact, it probably drives my team crazy sometimes. “Oh great. Joe had another epiphany!”
But of course, big ideas are generally meaningless if you don’t act on them.
I thought I’d try delivering a little inspiration this week in the form of two simple stories from my own experiences over the past couple of months.
One from inside Gorilla. One from outside.
In both cases, these guys had big ideas. But instead of sitting on those ideas and worrying about how to make them perfect, they said…
“Let’s go.”
STORY 1: The Manufacturing Procurement Guy
On October 1st, Aaron Brimer, a manufacturing procurement expert, called me for some marketing advice. Here’s what happened next (over three short weeks)…
10/01 (Day 1):
Aaron and I chatted for 30 minutes or so about how he could develop an audience for the personal brand he wanted to build.
Our conversation concluded with me advising Aaron to pick up a copy of Content Based Networking by James Carbary.
I recommended that Aaron follow James’ playbook, which was essentially to start building relationships by interviewing as many people in your target audience as you can (and turning those conversations into content).
10/02 (Day 2):
Aaron sends me this text:
“Hey Joe. It’s Aaron B. Thanks for your time yesterday! I dove into Content Based Networking. It’s a gold mine for what I’m looking to start”.
10/05 (Day 5):
I see this post by Aaron on LinkedIn:
10/18 (Day 18):
Episode 1 of The Manufacturing Procurement Guy goes live on Apple Podcasts.
Wow. Eighteen days!
Aaron could’ve said, “Great idea. Maybe I’ll do that some day.”
Instead, he turned idea into reality in less than three weeks.
STORY 2: Industrial Marketing Live
“I’d like to start a regular webinar for Gorilla”
This was the subject line of an email our Senior Strategist Julian Schaaf sent me and my business partner Jon Franko on August 26th. Here’s the story of what’s happened since that day…
08/26:
In his email, Julian goes on to say…
“I’d like to host a bi-weekly webinar for Gorilla. In it, I’d like to give very tactical advice for marketing folks at our target accounts…
“I see this as 50% opportunity generator for Gorilla, 50% R&D for our clients to get a great process in place for webinars. And to judge how results can be measured.
“I really believe events are an efficient way for our clients to generate content while connecting with buyers, and we need to figure out how to do them well…
“What do you guys think? I can get started whenever.”
09/21:
Webinar 1 draws over 30 live attendees, cohosted by Julian and our other Senior Strategist Matt Sciannella.
11/16:
Through the first five webinars, what is now a biweekly event called “Industrial Marketing Live” has generated over 150 recurring registrants.
This is the stuff that makes me proud.
Someone on my team coming to me and saying, “I’m gonna do this”. And then, well, doing it.
So… that new Big Thing you’ve been planning?
If you start today, it won’t be perfect.
But it will almost certainly be better than the thing you’re doing right now. So dive in and make it better as you go.
Just. Friggin’. Start.
