The Brand ED Podcast

4 Wins, Issue 273
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Robby Fowler: [00:00:00] You know that sentence that would finally make a stranger understand what you do? You're probably the last person who should write it

I'm Robbie Fowler. Welcome to issue 273 of The Four Wins

Where each week you get something to try, apply, ponder, and relate to. Let's jump in

Win #1: Something to try
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Robby Fowler: Win number one, something to try. Now, you've wanted to try one of the many dictation apps that are out there, but you haven't pulled the trigger yet ' cause you use inside jargon, there's technical terms, you show up differently when you're in Slack versus when you're texting your friends or your mates versus when you're writing a formal proposal or agreement.

I want you to give Monologue a spin.

Now Monologue stands out from the crowd by being context-aware, so you can dictate in Slack and Monologue sees that, adapts the tone for you. Likewise, you could dictate in your email client, and Monologue will automatically format that into bullet points. There's a companion iPhone app for recording notes and dictating anywhere you normally type.

Let's start with a free [00:01:00] trial, and I think you'll love hearing yourself talk.

I've downloaded Monologue here and started the trial, and let's see how this sample dictation works. Hi, Cora. Let's loop David into this project. His email is david@every.to, or you can call him at eight four four three oh two nine zero three six

That's not bad. Formatting looks great. Email looks great even with that different ‘.to’ extension.

Now let's try hands-free mode. I'm gonna double-click the shortcut key. Hi, Mom. I'm trying out this new app called Monologue. It does incredible voice-to-text transcription and formats my messages based on context. You're gonna love it. Love, Robbie

Okay, not bad. Now, like every human does, it did misspell my name. Technically it's with a Y, but I'm pretty sure I could add that to the dictionary, and anytime I said my own name, it would automatically type the correct spelling.

Now you can choose your mode in Monologue. You could see here if I was really gonna give this a spin, which I certainly [00:02:00] might, I would probably choose the local model. I'm on a MacBook Pro with an M series processor, and I would enjoy some privacy and some privacy focus. So I would probably go with this option, but it's nice to know that you can run either option

There is a new handy Monologue Notes feature that would work on your phone or if you have an Apple Watch that would capture, transcribe, summarize meetings. So this would be an in-person, face-to-face meeting. You could just set your phone right in front, and I know there are other built-in apps on the phone.

My guess is Monologue would probably do a little bit better job of that and probably format those notes better

In addition from those notes, as you can see here, you can get the full transcript. It can pull out action items. It can search across all notes if you're capturing multiple notes in there. So another really handy feature now that they've added an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch companion that does sync up with your desktop version.

So that's Monologue. I would encourage you to check that [00:03:00] out. I'll probably give it a spin and see how it compares to Wisperflow.

Win #2: Something a client recently asked
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Robby Fowler: Win number two, something a client recently asked. This is part four in our series, Why Nobody's Buying What You're Best At. The challenge is this, I'm really good at what I do. I've got clients, I've got proof.

So why is nobody buying it? This week,

Why you're the last person that can write the sentence. Now, you know the sentence exists. You just can't see why you're the wrong person to write it. Well, consider this. You've been to countless events with a featured speaker or presenter or expert, and they all kick off with a host that introduces that guest.

But the presenter didn't write the intro that makes you and I lean in. Now let's go back to our artist metaphor that we've been using. The artist creates the art. But here's what happens in the real world. Next, a museum exhibition curator would actually curate the artist and their art. But I want [00:04:00] you to pay attention to this very interesting quote from Ellen Roberts from the Taft Museum.

She's an exhibition curator, and listen to what she says. Quote, "A good curator is very close to the artwork, but because of that close relationship, the curator may lose track of the audience." That is those coming to view the art. So the director of interpretation in a museum, that's the person that steps in to refine the message about the artist and their art so that it lands with the museum's audience.

And then finally, actually a director of marketing or communication would usually translate all of that into the marketing of the art show or the exhibit, the website, the ads, newsletters, all of the marketing that goes around that. But I want you to pay attention.

The last person in the world that creates the sentence connecting the art to the audience is the artist. And even in this case, the curator is too close. Now, as a founder or a specialist [00:05:00] or an established consultant, your proximity to the expertise is what blocks that self-translation. And now this is a structural fact.

This is not because of some moral failure on your part. In fact, I personally have paid to get help on this very thing for my own business, and this is what I do all of the time, and the reason is proximity beats pride every time. Even more, I chatted with a colleague. We were talking about this.

My colleague does very similar work that I do, and we were both laughing at the confession we both shared with one another that neither of us can do what we do for clients for ourselves. So here's the bottom line.

The presenter doesn't craft the bio that connects with the audience.

The artist struggles to share their work so guests are captivated and moved to show up to an exhibit. And you, and usually not your curated team, can write the sentence that compels prospects to seek you [00:06:00] out. And finding that sentence is most of the work I do in clients when we do a LUCID sprint. And it's that piece that almost nobody can finish alone.

It's like a lightning bolt. You will recognize it when you see it, but you can rarely author it. Next time, speaking to your prospect before talking to them.

Win #3: Something to think about
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Robby Fowler: Win number three, something to think about. Be resolved to work hard as a matter of character, not merely as a means to cash in. Outcomes don't always match effort. There is no universal one plus one equals two law that high effort or better effort or even valiant effort will produce an equivalent outcome.

It can, and it may do so more times than not, but it is not an automatic equivalency.

Win #4: Something personal
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Robby Fowler: Win number four, something personal. Here's a riddle for you. What gives birth to something that crawls and then also crawls itself 54 [00:07:00] years later? Now, I'll give you a minute to try to solve that. But here's the answer: Mom, at least my mom. In a real-life episode of you can't make this stuff up, my dear mother was dashing around the house to grab some of my dad's medicine before she was heading out to run some errands or her famous talk on the history of Frisco Or any number of other leadership roles that she enjoys.

She extends her right foot out into the bedroom to retrieve the medicine over my dad's walker, and then swoop, her foot caught the wheel of the walker and not the floor. If you're old enough like me to remember this quote, " Down goes Frazier." Snap goes the ankle for my mom. Big, big ouch. Now, a side note, the house that was purchased back in 1982 still has the world's most luxurious carpet.

It's luxuriously thick. It's the thickest carpet I literally have ever encountered. I believe the people that built the [00:08:00] house two years earlier were in the carpet business. But I think that carpet may have saved her from a hip crack or, like, a head smack.

So to summarize, Mom broke her ankle on Dad's walker, and that's not even the riddle.

In fact, that sounds like the cheesy title of one of those Christmas songs, " Mama Broke Her Ankle on Daddy's Walker." Which brings us back to the actual riddle. Mom gave birth to me, and I started crawling like all the babies before me and the babies before them.

Then fast-forward five decades from that moment, and Mama breaks her ankle on Daddy's walker. Then poor Mama was crawling to the bathroom through the world's most luxurious carpet with her black and blue throbbing ankle strapped into one of those unwieldy ankle braces. Thankfully, we've moved back to Texas, and so we're much closer to them.

So I headed over to my mom's house to put together the one-legged knee scooter for her to scoot around the [00:09:00] house on. And then just like she did for me those many, many, many years ago,

I helped Mom go from crawling to walking.

Touche, dear mother.

Keep building a life-giving brand.

Work with Robby
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Robby Fowler: I help owners of service businesses, specialty medical practices, and established consultants build the strategic foundation their marketing has been running without, so that every tactic, every hire, every dollar finally pulls in the same direction. If you think we might be a good fit, there's a link in the show notes on how we might work together.

I would invite you to go explore that page, and then let's have a conversation.