What Marketers Can Learn From The Woman Who Looks Like Buzz Lightyears

When I have a little downtime I like to surf around on YouTube.

You know all those childish prank videos that are so popular on YouTube?

Well, I often spend hours watching them.

I love 'em.

What can I say? I'm childish.

Not only am I extremely childish, I'm also horribly nostalgic.

Get this: I recently watched an entire episode of Magnum P.I. and loved every second of it! I'm hoping whoever put them up on YouTube will upload more.

Hmm, what else? Oh, yeah, I love watching old sporting matches like, for example, Borg vs McEnroe battling it out at Wimbledon, or old classic boxing matches. Mostly Ali's boxing matches. Watching the great jazz musicians in the 50's and 60's is also cool to watch.

Hey, Kelvin, are you just gonna ramble on about your YouTube viewing, or do you have something to teach?

Oh.

I'm sorry.

I forgot about that part.

O.K. O.K.

I'll get straight to the lesson then. However, it does involve a YouTube video.

Is that okay? (I thought I'd better ask; you're kinda pushy today.)

Well anyway, I'm surfing YouTube and I come across a video titled: Woman Looks Like Buzz Lightyears And Is Proud Of It!

This got my attention. So, naturally, I watched it.

Turns out, it was a 60 Minutes interview. And yes, the woman being interviewed was a spitting image of Buzz Lightyears (you know, from the animated Disney movie called Toy Story), and even more surprising, she was, indeed, proud to look like Buzz Lightyears.

This lady had a rare genetic disorder called cherubism. This causes overgrowth of fibrous tissue in the face. Thus the big chin and googly eyes.

She grew up with this disorder and so you can imagine all the stares and name calling this woman has had to face (no pun intended)

This, however, has only made her stronger.

Sure, she had her years of hating her appearance and hating people who teased her and treated her like a monster, but now as a grown woman, she has learned not to take the stares personally, and most of all, she has learned to not worry about the opinions of anyone outside her circle of family and friends.

This change in thinking has been profound.

Being free of caring about the thoughts of others now allows her to walk out her front door with her Buzz Lightyears' chin held high.

Most people care so much about the thoughts of strangers that they struggle to walk out their front door with confidence if they have a pimple on their face. This woman looks like a freakin' cartoon character yet walks around as if she's a supermodel.

Truly amazing.

This confidence came to her when she stopped caring about what everyone thinks and started caring only about the opinions of those she truly cared about - her family and her close-knit friends.

Not only has this given her supreme self-confidence, but she now has stronger relationships with her close friends and family.

And this, my friend, is how you should approach your marketing.

In other words, you should stop caring about what everyone thinks about you and your products or services. If you sell vegetarian dinners, you should only care about the opinions held by vegetarians. Who the hell cares what the meat eaters think! Forget about 'em! Stop trying to convert them. Focus ONLY on vegetarians.

You know, if you look behind the marketing doors of most businesses (and even corporations) you'll see nothing but monkeys behind computers churning out vapid, vague and generalized sales messages. And their marketing messages are flung around like monkey poo. Where they land is where they land.

It's a vague and generalized message that caters to everyone.

And as the popular marketing axiom goes, if your target market is everyone, you'll reach no one.

Look, the message is simple:

Care ONLY about what your target market thinks.

Forget everyone else.

Not only will this save you a lot of time, headaches, and money (from all the wasted advertising) but your marketing messages will become more focused, specific, and mucho potent.

Now, let's take this "not caring" lesson even more granular.

Listen: I regularly have (ignoramus) people question my long sales pages. "Who's gonna read all that?" they say.

They don't think people read long form sales pages.

And, they are partly right.

Most people don't.

But would you like to know who DOES read long sales pages?

I'll tell you:

BUYERS!

Alright, that's it for today.

I'm out.

Kelvin

www.kelvindorsey.com