Last month, for the first time in 40 years, I put on roller skates. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED:
First, you gotta picture it: helmet, knee pads, elbow pads and wrist pads. I wore all the pads. If I could have worn a Michelin man suit I would have.
Roller skating was not, unfortunately, like riding a bike: every time I felt like I was going to fall (approx. every 10 seconds), my instinct was to straighten my legs, lock my knees and stand up. Unfortunately, popping UP further destabilized my already tenuous relationship to being upright.
According to YouTube videos, instead of popping UP, when one feels off-balance on roller skates, one should get LOW.
One should HUNKER DOWN.
Move your center of gravity closer to the earth.
Become one with the earth.
Embrace the earth (I embraced the earth 😂).
Hunkering down reminded me of when clients tell me their marketing, sales, or other communications feel off and/or wobbly. And I realized the thing I tell them to do is HUNKER DOWN.
IF YOU FEEL OFF in how you’re talking about your work: get back to your ground. Reconnect with what you know:
- Your brand personality
- Your brand values
- The human needs your work addresses
- How you say ‘hi.’
- Your WHY
- The uniqueness of HOW you do what you do
I’ve personally felt wobbly in my marketing many times. Usually that’s a sign it’s time to revisit my brand strategy. And if you’d like help figuring out how to do any of that, let’s talk about it as a first step to solving the problem. In the mean time, if you feel wobbly, hunker down