Steve the Owl's Blog

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the importance of a vision and a plan. One of the ways that this really shows itself is through the most important musical movement in the last 25 years, and arguably the last one to ever catch the music industry off guard: the Seattle explosion of the early 1990′s, often known as “grunge.” In the late 1980′s, popular music was dominated by hair metal and pop acts. In 1990, for the first time in decades, no rock band had a #1 album. Some thought that rock was dead.

However, there was a movement bubbling underground that would ultimately be unstoppable. While there were rock albums that hit #1 in the charts in 1991, they were all from established acts. That fall, a band from Washington State would release its second album (and major-label debut). That band was Nirvana, the album was Nevermind, and the rest was music history. However, what a lot of people miss is the groundwork laid by their time in the underground, and the work done by their independent label Sub Pop that took advantage of the clamor for something new in the world of music.

A Marketing Idea

The story of Sub Pop starts with two failed musicians, Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt. In the mid-1980′s, they tried their hand at music, but they realized that they would not ever be successful musicians, so they decided to pool their resources together, and they ultimately formed the record label Sub Pop. Before they started the record label, Bruce Pavitt ran a fan-zine that focused on local Seattle bands, and they made very few copies to make the records collector’s items. Ultimately, they talked a lot of the hard rock bands into joining their label, and most of the bands that they recruited had a similar sound.

What was so interesting about their efforts was the fact that they did everything they could to promote the label and the sound rather than the individual bands. In order to do this, they used former Skin Yard guitarist Jack Endino and his tiny Reciprocal Studios because he worked cheap and produced a sound that they liked. For the cover art, they used Charles Peterson, whose black-and-white photography with its intentionally blurred and double-exposed imagery to create something that they knew would easily be identifiable.

Taking a Risk

Sub Pop enjoyed moderate success, but they were surprised to notice that a lot of their records sold relatively well in England. In response to this, they paid for a plane ticket for Melody Maker journalist Everett True, and they invited him around to see some of the local bands. Everett True liked what he heard, and he wrote a glowing review of the Sub Pop scene, giving England its first taste of the Seattle explosion.

Ironically, what happened was that most of the famous bands broke after they left Sub Pop. However, without that early support and vision, the major labels would have never come to Seattle to see what musical acts were there, and music would be dramatically different. Here is a brief video that talks about the history of Sub Pop Records:

How have you used your vision to find something no one else did?

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Have you ever found yourself pushing harder and harder, and either getting nowhere or going backwards? In the world of distance running, this is very common. You feel really good in your workouts, and you push it harder. What you don’t realize, however, is that you may be setting yourself up for a big letdown.

This is something that happened to me this fall. My running times were getting faster and faster, and I wasn’t feeling tired, so I was almost treating every run like a time trial by the time November and December came around. This was a huge mistake. However, I didn’t realize it until mid-December.

My semester at Temple was finished, so I went to the university library to get some light reading over the break, and I found The Daniels Running Formula by Jack Daniels, and I discovered my error. It was a simple one, but one that was also easy to miss. I was well aware of what has been referred to as “the talk test,” which basically states that you should be able to talk at a conversational pace on easy days of running. I also knew that the minimum heart rate for running should be 2/3 the heart rate reserve. In my case, I tested my maximum heart rate in the fall and got a 177, but when running long runs, my pulse would go as high as 184, so I assumed that I had a maximum heart rate slightly higher. My resting heart rate was 58, so I thought that all I had to do was keep my pulse over 142 and at a point where I could talk well. (My test was whether I was breathing hard, and occasionally I would say something out loud to check my breathing.)

However, the mistake was what Dr. Daniels called “quality junk,” where we work hard but aren’t really doing what we need to do in any given workout. So, I decided to try to find my maximum heart rate again, and found that it was 188 after running 800 meter repeats at top speed until I could do so no longer. So, I checked the charts for easy runs, and it said that I should go at no more than 79% of my maximum heart rate, or 148. Considering that my heart rate usually stayed at about 168-175 on my short days and 165-170 on my long days, I knew that I was running way too hard. However, the real test was the next morning, when I noticed that my morning pulse was 66. (For runners, a raised morning heart rate is a sign of overtraining and fatigue, while a lower morning heart rate is a sign of increased fitness.)

The Test

So, I ran the next day, trying to keep my pace low, I went to the track with my wife so I could run around the track while she walked. It was very difficult for me to keep my heart rate around 148 because I kept wanting to speed up, but I kept my pulse at about 148 as best I could while monitoring my pulse every 200 meters, and with a heavy wind, I only ran slightly slower than what my ability suggested. (The book also showed a chart with training paces based on race times. You know that you are improving when you can run at the same intensity with a faster pace.) The very next day, I felt much more relaxed, and my morning pulse had fallen to 62, meaning that I had four more beats per minute to work with.

Just Like Business

Is it possible to try too hard in business? I know that I’ve talked to people who gave me the aggressive push, and it was a total turn-off. I don’t know if I was that bad when I started my business, but I know that it is a learning process. So, when you are running into walls in your business, remember that there are two possibilities: either you are doing too much or not enough. So, as you are working on your business, consider trying to change your effort. If you are pushing everyone you know, maybe you are doing too much. If you don’t feel challenged, maybe you aren’t doing enough.

My challenge to you: if you are hitting a wall in your business, honestly evaluate your approach and figure out which one is happening to you.

If you like what you read, please share this post and comment below. Here’s to finding your ideal effort for best results.

One of the things that I enjoy the most about the world of online business is reading blogs of others who are working to carve out their piece of the pie. One of the keys for anyone who is trying to build a business is to discover his/her niche. However, there are times when I wonder if people cater to their niche to such an extent that they leave a lot of people outside of their niche.

Some Examples in Reading

One of the things that surprised me in reading so many blogs is how many of them work so hard to appeal to one particular demographic at the expense of all of the others. One of the biggest examples of this involves gender in family roles. I clicked on some blog titles that I found interesting, and some of them seemed to emphasize efforts to reach out to women, and some reached out to fathers. As a man with no children, I know that I don’t fit these demographics, but I found out that there was valuable information for me.

Are You Too Specialized?

I am not saying that there is a problem with trying to focus on a niche. However, I think that there is a difference between saying that the target demographic is the only group that is welcome. I think that one of the key ways to tell if there is something that is too specialized is whether or not the information is specialized or generalized. If the information really is geared towards a specific audience, there is nothing wrong with having a very narrowly tailored marketing effort.

However, if the information really is general information, is it something that people outside of the demographic can find value? If it is, this means that you now have a question about the way you market to your niche. One of my very good friends in the world of blogging says that women are the target demographic, but I noticed that men were well represented in the top comment section of her blog. So, I think that this means that, while she may have a target demographic in mind, she has cross-over appeal to other demographics.

Another blog that I saw had a target demographic, and even though some of the posts tended to be more generalized, toward the end, the call to action almost always addressed only the people in the target demographic. Maybe this person is doing fine with the target demographic, but knowing that I didn’t fit the demographic, I couldn’t help but wonder how many other prospects were left on the table because of that idea.

Ways to Avoid Narrowing

In the world of politics, I learned that one of the worst words that someone can use is the word “too.” The reason for that is that it is a defensive word, as per the following examples: “Democrats care about national security, too.” “Republicans care about children, too.” Now, imagine how each of these phrases sound when the word “too” is eliminated. I think that it works the same way in marketing. I remember a few years ago when the men’s grooming trend was on the rise, and I saw a hair dye for men with the tagline, “because you’re worth it, too.” I have seen other commercials for hair dye that were geared to men that did not use the word “too” at all and branded itself “the leader in men’s hair coloring.” I don’t think you have to try very hard to guess which one sold more products. (Note: I am not endorsing hair dye, just giving an example of defensive thinking and marketing at work.)

So, with this in mind, whatever your niche is, always try to find the balance between targeting a group, and saying to others that they just don’t fit in.