Make Marketing Suck Less

The Death of Dude Bro Marketing & the Rise of Significance

Happy 2019 Rebel Risers!

For the first episode of the New Year, I wanted to go deep and focus on a trend that I am seeing in the marketplace right now.

I believe that this trend is going to benefit you greatly in 2019 if you take advantage of it.

Tune Into the Audio:

It all begins with a kind of Internet Dude Bro Marketing that I despise.

You know, the messages like I made a million dollars with this webinar template and I'm giving it to you for free. Or, this unconventional social media strategy worked so well for me. It made me millions. Or even this video script made me six figures in two months and it's all yours.

We've all heard these claims. We've seen the Facebook ads and posts like these are starting to blend into the noise so that we hardly even notice them when they whirr right by us in our feeds.

Over the holidays I did something I don't normally do, when I saw one of these posts, I slowed my scroll and decided to read the comments.

What I read in the comments was surprising.

While there were a few of so-and-so is the real deal and knows what he's talking about comments, the majority of the comments were expressing skepticism of the claims that were being made in the ad.

People were saying things like, “I want to see your financials, I don't believe you!”

One person commented, “Have you only made a million dollars by teaching other people to make a million dollars? Like this is a big old pyramid scheme!”

And there was also more skepticism around the focus only being on the money. “Why do you only talk about how much money you're making? Why don't you talk about the good or the impact you're making in the world?”

It would be easy to blow off these comments with a simple “haters gonna hate” or “wow, those people have money blocks and they don't allow abundance.”

However, I don't think that's what's going on here and I think the business owners who are ignoring the rise of comments like these are missing a much bigger trend.

That trend is supporting what you and I are trying to create in terms of legacy and impact.

Although I am not predicting the death of Internet Dude Bro Marketing in 2019 yet, I am seeing the symptoms of decline and the craving for messages and marketing that are more meaningful.

People are searching for more in life and business than money.

I believe what they are craving is significance.

In 2019, we're going to be in the process of moving away from that marketing that just talks about the money and instead we're going to start creating marketing and messaging that focuses on creating meaning with our lives and our business.

Now, don't get me wrong, depending on how you define significance for yourself, which is the whole point of this episode, money can very much be a part of creating significance. But money isn't the end all be all.

What that money does becomes increasingly more important.

So for instance, if you want to build a school in Serbia that will take money, but that money leads to significance.

What is significance?

For the sake of simplicity, let's define what significance is.

Significance happens when the life you lead and the work you do has meaning for you and others around you. It's the legacy you leave behind.

It's a bit easier to describe it if we talk about it on a personal level. I first started thinking about significance and legacy when I saw a picture of President George H. Bush and Barbara Bush, and it was a family photo at a reunion. They were in the middle of the picture and they were surrounded by their kids, their grandkids, and their great grandkids.

And it was a horde of people that were around them and all of the people in those photos that photo existed because of George and Barbara Bush. That is their legacy. That is the significance they created.

Even if George H Bush was never President, his life would still have significance, still have meaning because of the people around them and because of the ripple of change that those people will create.

So that is one version of significance.

How significance shows up in our business?

Let's talk about what it looks like in a business. Now I believe that we are all chasing significance because we don't want to be insignificant.

We don't want the work that we are doing in the world to be viewed as unimportant, to feel like nobody cares and nobody was impacted by what we are creating.

At the end of the day, if we didn't do what was necessary to have the impact that we wanted to make on the world and on other people and in our own lives, that means we're not creating our legacy.

Because of this desire to do work that has meaning, we end up chasing significance in all the wrong places.

So many business owners think they need another course on how to grow their business or get more clients so they make more money. Or they need a course on Facebook ads or pitching the media or sales funnels.

They believe that they need to be speaking or writing a book or that they need to be more visible or they have to spend a ton of money on a mastermind so that they can get access to people of influence. And who knows you might need those things!

For the most part, when we are chasing courses, chasing masterminds, chasing success, and chasing speaking, we haven't taken the time to define what significance means to us.

We end up flailing around and chasing all the wrong things.

What does creating significance look like for you?

So let's start 2019 by taking a moment and defining what significance looks like for you.

For me, it all goes back to my “why” that communication changes the world. I believe my work in the world is helping other people achieve their significance, so my significance is achieved when people spread their message so that they are transforming more lives with their 3 Word Rebellion and the work they do.

The ripple effect of transformation and change is what I am after. If my work can impact millions of other people, I've done my job on this planet.

I want to sell 5,000 copies of the 3 Word Rebellion book not because I want it to be a best seller, but because I know that the more people who have this book, the more people who have a 3 Word Rebellion are going to be able to make the impact they want to make.

My clients define significance as meaning that their work leaves a mark on the world, that they are helping people in a way that will be remembered that they are talked about in terms of the contribution that they have made.

So ask yourself, what does significance look like for you? Take some time journaling about what it means in your life and your business.

Then plan accordingly to make it happen. How much money will it take? What do you need to do? Do you need to write a book? Do you want to be speaking on stages to spread that message? Should you take a course or find a mentor or do you need none of that to create the significance that you want to create?

I think it means that the six/seven gazillion figure results that gurus are constantly touting will mean less unless they are tied to impact and significance.

Talking about the money only is going to blend further into the noise. Thank God! What does the “I made a million dollars with this webinar template” mean? Does it mean that you worked with 50 people who did the same and then those 50 people like had an amazing impact and results in other parts of their lives?

I want to hear more about that than just the money.

So let's stop chasing the money and start pursuing significance. It's where meaning and impact live.