I sat in a meeting the other night with 10 other wedding professionals. It was supposed to be a board meeting for our local wedding organization but it quickly digressed to an all out trash fest of one of the brides for next month.

You see, half of the people in the room had already fired this bride. The only one that still had not was the planner. The floral designer, transportation company, the invitation designer and one other had already had to make the decision to walk away from the outrageous behavior and demands of this client. It is not an easy decision to make; I know, I had to do it myself this week.

When do you know it’s time to fire a client? For me, it is when I come to the realization that no matter what I do it will never be right with this client. Often it has to do with communication and for me, it usually has a component of extreme micro-management. For others it is a clash of personalities or a death by paper cuts scenario, what ever has caused it- it is in your best interest to remove yourself as soon as possible. The longer you keep trying the worse it is going to get.

As professionals that are passionate about what we do it is hard to give up on a client. Of course there is the money aspect. Hey, who likes to give up income?  Take a look back at some of the weddings you have done where your instincts were telling you that something was wrong. I bet that most of the time they ended up costing you money in the end. You bent over backwards to please the unappeasable. You replaced, added, amended and redid over and above what was originally agreed upon. In the end, they still were only marginally satisfied.

I have had to do this twice now. The first time was a on a very simple wedding cake. Well I guess it was simple, it was supposed to be buttercream with borders, nothing like most of the designer cakes I usually did. After three design consultations and nearly 5 hours of time spent with this bride I still had no idea what she wanted. At one point it came to me piping the same border for her to look at in 4 different tip sizes at which point she said “Let’s schedule another appointment so I can see some more ideas.” I’m still not sure why she came to me in the first place. Mind you it rarely took more than an hour to an hour and a half to design even the most elaborate cake.

I had worked with brides that I had done as many a 4 redesigns on, no problem. I have had brides request trial tiers if it was an especially elaborate design or we were doing some very specific color matching, again no problem. There was just something about this girl that my inner voice kept screaming at me about. In the end I listened to that voice and made the hard choice to fire her. At first it makes you feel like a failure. How could you not have made this work? Then at some point you realize that you just weren’t a fit no matter how hard you tried.

I called her consultant and talked it over. She completely understood; after all she was working with her too. I wrote her a very professional letter explaining that I felt she would be happier with another cake designer and returned her (non-refundable) deposit. I never regretted it, especially after hearing from the planner after the wedding. Nothing had been right, all the way down to the temperature of the A/C in the limo. That time my instincts were right.

So how do you keep this from happening in the first place? First off never be afraid to NOT take a client. Tell clients at every step of the interview process that if you feel they would be a better fit with a different professional you will happily recommend one. That way you don’t have to take them in the first place.

In the long run a bad client can do you more harm than any amount you stand to make off the wedding. They will kill your self esteem, try to ruin your reputation and generally make you question why you are even doing what you are doing. If your inner voice is screaming, maybe you should not be afraid to listen.

“So Then I Shouldn’t Let My 6 Year Old Answer the Phone?”

Ummmm, no. That question was really asked of me recently. Do some wedding vendors just not get that this is a

business or are they clueless as to what a business is?

I truly didn’t know how to respond to the question. Where do you start to correct something like this? The question arose after a DJ had asked me to take a look at his business card from a marketing stand point. He asked me if he should risk putting his cell phone on the card. I told him if he wasn’t around his business phone most of the day then yes.

“Oh no” he said, “That is my home phone. I don’t have a business line.”

How many of you have just fallen into your business? Printed up a few business cards and thought you were good to go? More frighten, how many of you did that 10 or 15 years ago and are still thinking that way?

Think Like a Bride is here to keep you up on the trends in our industry, keep you clued in to your brides heads and spew forth marketing advice. I can’t help you if you aren’t at least looking at what you do from the level of a professional. Today’s brides are disenchanted enough and jaded enough that if they suspect for one minute that you are not professional they are never going to give you the time of day; or if they do they are not going to do it for anything but bargain basement rates.

If on the other hand you want great weddings and larger margins you have to look, sound and act like a professional. If you want today’s bride to hand you over a large check she wants to feel like you have it completely together, not some basement Betty just fooling around on the weekend.

Today’s bride is used to a certain level of professionalism when she spends top dollar. Additionally most of our brides have been in or at least exposed to the corporate world. They know how it works. I fear that many of the vendors I run across today have never been in that kind of business intensive world.

Even the simple things like proper business phone etiquette or how to put together a professional looking proposal seem to have fallen by the wayside. Proper spelling and language use count. It doesn’t matter how pretty you bridal bouquets are if your proposal looks like a 3^rd grader typed it you won’t get the good brides. Details matter to these brides. I saw one on line the other day complaining that a caterer she sent an inquiry to misspelled her name in his reply. Her comment “How hard is it to just cut and paste?”

If you want to make a living in this industry in 2010 then you have got to be thinking about it from a business like point of view. We only have 52 Saturdays a year.

Before you even begin to start thinking about spending any money on marketing your business take a good hard look at the little things that make a business’ image. I don’t want you to come to me wanting a brand image makeover if you aren’t already doing the basic things that make you look like a pro. No amount of money spent on marketing is going to work if when they do call your 6 year old answers the phone.

I was following a thread recently on wedding sticker shock. I thought some of the things these brides were complaining about were rather amusing.

As expected, gowns and photography headed the list. I chalk the gown part up to brides being uninformed. Most major magazines list the prices in their editorial content. Couple that with the huge difference between top end and moderate priced gowns and you can have some surprises, although I really thought it would be the other way. If you look at bridal editorial most of what they show are on the high end, very many of the gowns in salons are at the high-moderate to moderate side.

As for the photography, you can blame part of that on Craig’s List and part of it on brides simply not understanding just how important it is to have skill behind the lens. Just because someone can purchase a nice digital camera doesn’t make them an artist with it. Photographers need to do a better job of getting that point across.

Here is where I started getting amused. Chair covers. There were several that were having complete fits over the cost of chair covers. Some were flabbergasted over $3 apiece. Now come on, that’s barely going to cover the cost of cleaning them, extremely reasonable. My guess is that it sounded like a great price until they multiplied it by say 200 guests. So have you seen the percentage of clients using chair covers drop lately? Are they falling into the category of “I can live without it?”

The other biggie was veils. They just can’t get their head around the cost of “a piece of tulle and a comb,” as one poster described it. Having been around a few salons over the years, I know that these are often considered a profit center with higher mark-ups. I think the brides have picked up on that. (NO, I’m not the one that told them)

What all this tells me is that the “gorgeous wedding at any cost” fog has lifted. Brides are evaluating the goods and services they purchase for their wedding on a different level and set of criteria today. They are not afraid to buy off the rack. They aren’t afraid to rethink what is mandatory. They are willingly saying no to bells and whistles.

Do you think it may be time to adjust your core business accordingly? If you have been propping up your bottom line with add ons, now may be the time to re-evaluate your core business. You are being evaluated on what they get for their money; be prepared to show them the value in your product/service.

You will notice I didn’t suggest dropping your prices. If you offer packages, you may want to de-construct them. If you bundle things, you need to show them exactly what they are getting. “show me the money” has morphed into “show me the value.”

Do you still meet your clients at the local Starbucks? Do you invite them into your living room? That may not be the best plan.

For many of us solo-preneurs having a dedicated off site office is just not something we have thought about or built into our growth plan. Heck, I work out of my bedroom but then I rarely meet with clients, it’s all over the phone and internet for me.  If you meet with clients face to face on a regular basis you need to think about the impression you send with where you meet.

This was prompted by a discussion I was following on a photographer’s forum. The original poster was moving into a new place and was wondering if he should turn his old place into a studio.  Great idea, depending on the location.  It was a 2^nd story one bedroom on a side street. No matter how professional he made it, I still worry how comfortable a single woman would be going there alone.  It had better be in a great neighborhood. The thread continued with many people posting about their experiences when they moved into a real office/studio.

Let’s break it down. Brides will tell you that meeting at the local coffee house is OK. It’s a safe, public place that is easy to find. The problem for you is that you project the same image as every other wedding vendor that they meet there. There is nothing there to set you apart, nothing remarkable. There are distractions a plenty and nothing to stick in their mind.

If you meet in your home you are giving them too much information. Every home has its own drawbacks.  Even if you live in a show house designed by the editor of Metropolitan Home there are still a million personal touches that will show. Add to that the safety factor; do you really want to invite perfect strangers into you private space?  I sure don’t. I also don’t know many women that embrace the thought of being alone in a house with a stranger, especially if he is a man. I realize that it is often easier to meet at your home, particularly if you have children.  This is business folks; that isn’t always easy. The exception may be if you have a studio/workspace that is detached from the home.  Then the client is only viewing your home from the outside.

If you have a dedicated, off-site place to meet you set yourself apart. It is decorated in a manner that reflects your style. It screams professional, not amateur. Clients enter the space in a mood to do business, not chat. Unlike a coffee house, you have every possible sales tool at your finger tips. You just can’t carry everything in a briefcase. If it is in a commercial district it is presumed to be safe ground since there are other people near.  Unlike your home, your client only sees what you wish to present them, not everything about your life. All around it is the best solution.

Wait , you say! I can’t afford a place like that! You may be surprised.  I’m not talking about renting a corner office in a swanky high-rise or popping for commercial space in the shopping district; there are a million alternatives.  I know of two different wedding businesses in my small city that have added office suites to their property. They are tiny little spaces design for no more than meeting clients. If there isn’t something like this where you are you may consider doing it yourself.  Rent a place much larger than you need, divide it into small bedroom sized offices and rent them out to other wedding vendors. It pays your rent and they have a “business home.”

Heck, now that I think about it, my editor/publisher started his company this way in a restored mansion near the town square in Franklin, TN. He had one big room on the first floor.  I also remember photographer years ago that landed a similar place. It was a really cool building that a photographer had bought, built a nice studio and divided the rest up into private offices. She rented her office and had rights to schedule use of the studio space.  It worked out well for her for years. You could think of them as small business incubators.

There is a place that can be found if you put your mind to it. Oh, and yes, every single poster to that thread that had moved into professional space had seen a dramatic jump in their close rate. Just though I’d throw that out there.

Marketing for the small entrepreneur has a lot to do with name recognition.  The question I am always asked is how do you get it?

The easy answer is to hire a big PR firm. Right, I know “Not  happenin’.” The harder answer is to do it yourself and that takes really not a lot more than blind perseverance and dedication.

If you are a regular subscriber you already know about using the social networks to build your name. Question is, which name are you building? What? Here is an example: The Rolling Stones vs Mick Jagger; U2 vs Bono; which ones are the rock stars?  Are you out there building your company brand or are you building your own?  Wolverine or Hugh Jackman? Do you see what I am getting at? If you really want to be a rock star you have to make your company identified as a part of you, not the other way around. If you don’t believe me, look at the Trendsetters list in Modern Bride; not one is listed by their company name. Even the write up on the venerable Kleinfeld’s, which is by all rights a major brand, is headlined as Mara Urshel & Ronnie Rothstein.

Now that you have that straight in your mind, what steps do you take to make it happen. Well you start with a small following. Think about being a headliner for a small crowd as opposed to being the opening act for someone else. Seth Godin wrote a great post on this, you can read it here.  Build your small following on your name, not your companies. Companies are thought of a faceless entities, be bold enough to put your face on what you do (of course you have be really good at what you do).

Build audience by getting exposure. Offer to speak to groups like you local NACE or ABC, offer to write articles for your local publications, get to know the producers of your local tv shows, offer to do presentations at local bridal shows. Build you tiny little cult following at the same time you hone your skills.

Take any offer that will get you exposure. You never know who will be in that crowd. I live in a city that understands this completely. The places I have seen songwriters and musicians perform in around here would truly boggle your mind. No matter what the dive, you just never know who will be in the crowd. Randy Travis was discovered singing in a horrible tourist trap catfish dive out by Opryland. He was a dishwasher that talked the boss into letting him sing on a fairly regular basis, night after night for unappreciative half drunk tourists. Now he was doing the other work of hitting Music Row, but ultimately it was someone that saw him perform on that stage that took him over the edge.

Use this exposure to build to the next level.

Here is where the blind perseverance comes in. Except in rare cases, this isn’t going to happen overnight. You need to keep putting yourself out there, keep taking risks. Think about what we all know to be true of actors: 15 years to become an overnight success.  Start zeroing in on larger and larger markets. Pick your targets and keep offering, hit them with an idea on a monthly basis. Don’t be pushy but do be relentless. Believe me, they will remember your name and when the time comes that they need what you have to offer they will look you up. It may feel like you are emailing a black hole. It may feel like they aren’t listening but keep doing it any way.  There are too many stories out there about the PR flack that pitches a client to Oprah/Fast Company/InStyle for a year before they hear anything. Have faith and just keep doing it.

I know that some of you are sitting there thinking how is this going to help my little bakery? I can only deliver in a small geographic area, why do I need to be on Oprah? If you think for one minute that national exposure won’t be felt in your local market you are crazy. The minute you hit primetime, your prices and your booking are going to go through the roof. Besides, there is a great big world out there. Don’t be afraid to think about expanding into it. After all, you just got yourself on Oprah didn’t you; you can do anything!

Do you remember back a year or two ago when nearly every couple you worked with had already bought a house, before they got married? Do you know why that trend was so huge? It may not be why you think.

Look back at the time when the housing market was at its zenith. Financing was easy and money was cheap. You could just about bet that your home value would skyrocket with nothing more than a little time. The banks thought so too and were eager to lend you money on the myth of rapid equity growth. You could get a mortgage with zero down and little or no credit rating. Got a job? Get a house.

Second mortgages became a lot of people’s savings accounts. Are you starting to see where I’m going with this?

How many of those high end weddings we did were financed by a young couple’s second mortgage on that brand new home? Now do you see why so many of them had already bought a house? They were using it as a financial instrument to finance the wedding of their dreams.

This all came to light recently while talking to a young couple I know. They were worried about losing their house. They were upside down, owing considerably more than it’s worth. As I asked them how that had happened the gory truth started to unfold. It seems that it wasn’t just them; most everyone they knew that had gotten married in the last 5 years had done the same thing. It was the easy way to have that fairy tale and seemed pretty safe at the time. The home’s value would continue its meteoric rise and pay off the wedding in no time. Except the bubble burst.

When people ask me when the wedding industry is going to get back to what it was, I haven’t been very positive. This is the reason why.  I believe that like the housing market, the wedding industry of the last 5 years was built on smoke and mirrors. If you read my About section on the Wedding Dish, which was written back in 2005, you’ll see that I wasn’t buying it then and I’m not buying it now. Oh, trust me; it was a wave I was happy to ride just like everyone else. I couldn’t fathom what was fueling it but I knew that something would eventually happen to cause it to reach critical mass.

We are just now beginning to see the brides that have come to the realization that the golden goose is dead.

It is absolutely critical that you recognize this correction in the market. I have been preaching evolve for the last year. Now do you understand why?

Your product is boring and your marketing is boring and you wonder why nobody is talking about your business! So what the heck are you doing to make yourself remarkable?

Slightly different won’t get it. Slightly cheaper won’t get it. You have to be outrageously different and so does your marketing.

I ramble through a lot of websites on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter if you are a planner, a photographer or a florist. Almost all of the websites look alike. When it really gets me is when I am starting work for a new web design client and I ask them to send me a few sites they like. They all look alike. Why are you all so committed to looking just like everyone else? Is it safe or are all you really just like everybody else? You are part of the creative class; you create for your clients every day. Why can’t you create for yourself?

Sorry if all that sounds harsh, but I want you to set yourself apart. I want you to be remarkable! Make this the year that your competitors question your sanity. Be different, be amazing, and discover your brilliance, your uniqueness, your personal flamboyance!

As you know, over the last year I have been emphasizing the web design part of my business. As a result I have had to do what I am asking you to do: really figure out what it is that makes me remarkable. Web design is a very crowded field. I have to be remarkable to stand out. Just tweeting or working Facebook isn’t going to do it. Everybody is doing that. I have to do what I have been telling you to do: find out why the clients that love me love me and then exploit it!

So what are you going to do? What is it that you do differently? Please don’t tell me that it is something as boring as that you prepare Excel spreadsheets for your clients. Please! We are thinking REMARKABLE here folks.

I could tell people that I build pretty sites that have remarkable SEO. Nope, not remarkable enough. I sell my work based on the fact that I can teach anybody, ANYBODY how to manage one of my sites themselves. Boom, Done! Buy your site, I stick around as your tutor, no more paying someone else to do your updates. Now people think I am crazy not to charge for all the support after the fact; but you know what, I have some of the loyalist client evangelists in the world. That IS my marketing!

What makes you remarkable? I can’t answer that question for you. You have to do the soul searching needed to find it out for yourself. If you can’t come up with anything then you had better start thinking why not? If there is nothing you do that is truly, really mind-bendingly remarkable then why should anyone hire you over your gazillion competitors?

It’s January; you can take a day off and do a little navel gazing. Here is what I want you to do. Nothing. Stare out a window. Float on a raft. Turn off the electronics, ship off the kids and spouse and let your mind drift. Focus on your uniqueness. Why do your clients hire you? Why do they give you their money and trust you with their event? Why?

We all know about lead lists. I’ll bet most of you do one of 3 things: Ignore it, Email blast it or send out a single post card. Suppose you did something outrageous instead?

It’s tough/expensive to do much more than the three things I just mentioned with a lead list of 500 to 2000. With direct mail, you have to put together a piece that will get noticed. How many postcards do you think brides get right after a bridal show?  What is going to make yours stand out enough to even get noticed? Add to this, it is proven that you need multiple mailings of standard direct mail before you have any chance of the lead acting on it. So now it isn’t just about sending out 500 to 2000 post cards; it is about multiplying that by at least 5 to get the response you need.  Now that is starting to get expensive.

Blast email can work with a couple of caveats. For one, you have to have permission to send them. Any reputable bulk mailer will require that you have gathered the leads yourself. That means that the list that you get from the shows or from bridal mags you advertise in are usually prohibited. What’s more, even if you found a way around the system, about half of those email addresses are bogus or are just junk mail dumping accounts. The second caveat is to get around the spam filters you really have to know what you are doing when you craft your email. That is particularly true in crafting your headline.  If you start getting caught by the spam filters you may well find your email address or isp blocked altogether.

Of course at least these two options have a bit more of a chance than doing nothing. Unfortunately, that is what most people do with the lead lists.

Now suppose you really analyzed those lists ,compared a few different lists, pared them down to only the really juicy prospects, and separated them by wedding date? You may end up with maybe 3 leads some months, maybe 7 to 10 for others. Now that is a doable number. You could pull out all the stops to get their attention then, couldn’t you?

So now what? That is where your unique creativity comes in to the equation. How outrageous do you want to get and how much are you willing to spend to get a great client?  I read something recently about a house cleaning service that would cherry pick their leads and send the ripe ones a DVD player with a DVD full of testimonials of happy clients shot in their clean homes. Now that is pretty dang outrageous, but if you get one out of 3 and stand to make a good bit of money on their weekly service, it was worth it. They did this once a month and grew their business by at least one or two new clients a month.

Now I am not saying you need to send brides DVD players but there are other outrageous things you could do. I spoke with a florist recently about sending out a small floral arrangement to 3 leads a week. She would just order a bit of extra flowers and deliver them herself. I can guarantee that she will be on that bride’s radar so much more that an email or postcard would have done. If you are a baker, how tough would it be to send out a few boxes of cupcakes a week?  Hey DJ’s, how about a CD of the 15 Best First Dance Songs?  Caterers, could you invite 4 couples to a tasting a month? Remember, you are only hitting the very best prospects, those prospects that your close ratio should be high on if you can get their attention.

I know a bridal salon that does appointment only champagne shopping on Sundays. There are signs posted and she tells the brides that come about it. How much more effective would it be if rather than waiting for brides that already had been in her shop to book an appointment she started sending out selective invitations to good prospects off of her lead lists. Maybe do a private fashion show once a week for a select number of girls.

Yes, all of this costs money; all marketing does. This kind of marketing is done on a small scale and is highly track-able. It is also so outside the box that you are bound to get noticed. Or you can keep doing what you have been doing and hope it works.

I do a lot of research on how women buy. Did you know that 80% of adult women believe very strongly that individuals can affect the environment. However, nearly 60% believe that they are personally not doing enough to protect it; this according to an Eco-Insights survey. Further more, previous research has shown that nearly 50% of women say they want more green choices – a sentiment reflected in the recent Eco-Insights study as well.

Another fact about how women but is that they are less price driven than men and more cause driven. An example of this is all the pink ribbon marketing you see. If given a choice between two product, one endorsing the breast cancer research cause and one ignoring it, women are highly likely to pay a bit more to purchase the product that they consider more socially conscience.

Which brings us back to green and the environment and your marketing. If you are offering any choices that are environmentally friendly you need to be sure that you are using that in your marketing.  You should be offering those choices right along with all of your other choices. You don’t have to separate them.  I have this awful image of a big flashy page of “NEW GREEN PRODUCTS.”  Keep it simple, something as easy as a green leaf or asterisk next to the name.  Make it as natural as possible.

Another thing to remember is that you have to be genuine and honest. Women consumers today can smell ‘fake’ a mile away. Not only will they not buy the product, they are activists and may well work to shine a light on your deception. Bottom line, you can’t slap a coat of green on something and think it will work. You are going to have to actually do the work to find the products and choices that really do make a difference.

Now that you have found some environmentally friendly options to offer to your brides the question becomes how you let them know.  Blog about them. Talk about why you choose them, why you are excited about this/these products in particular and why they make a difference. Again, you have to be genuine. Do your homework enough to know why the product or service matters. Give them examples of the difference it will make. Tell them that it saves energy or pollutes less or comes from sustainable resources. Be as specific as you can. Remember, women want information.

It also helps if you can get involved in local events and causes. Remember, they can smell ‘fake’ a mile away. Here is an example, if you are in the culinary end of things, get involved with the local foods movement. Then use that as a talking point in you blog and your About page. Whatever aspect of the wedding industry you are in, a simple google search will turn up some possibilities as will your trade magazines and site.

I realize that not everyone is going to find this an enthusiastic topic. If environmental causes aren’t you cup of tea, find another cause that women in your demographic embrace. You may not think it’s important but every little thing, no matter how small, resonates with women buyers. Every_little_thing.

Are you catering to the middle? Are you trying to just play it safe and satisfy that giant pool in the middle of the market?  Where are your superlatives?

One of the first questions that I ask a new client is what makes them special. You would be amazed at how few people can answer that question. Guess what, if you don’t know what makes you special, your clients won’t either.

The goal of your marketing is to give people a reason to exchange their money for your goods or services. So what’s your reason? What makes you the single best place for them to part with their money? What do you offer to make people seek you out? If you can’t answer that question and are trying to market, you are marketing mediocrity.

What the heck do you do better than anyone else in your market? Unless you create a truly one of a kind product like hand painted invitations, you had better figure it out. There are about a bazillion wedding vendors out there today all scrambling for the same dollar. If you can’t give your potential clients one good reason why they should pick you they aren’t going to!

You can spend a bloody fortune on marketing and never really get anywhere. Or, you can tweak and tune your business to be a superlative and you won’t have to spend a dime. It will market itself.

When was the last time you saw an ad for Google or Starbucks? Do you know why? Because they have created such stellar products that they market themselves. They have such customer enthusiasm that the customers do the marketing for them. What have you done?

It is time to stop swimming in the middle and to start exploring the fringes. That is where that kind of customer enthusiasm lives. Have you ever met an enthusiastic WalMart shopper? I bet not.

But Christine, you say, if I don’t try and have something for everyone I might miss a bride. Oh groan! If your only claim is that you have a bit of everything you are going to become a price destination.  If you have the same motley mix as every other vendor in your category you have no choice but to compete on price. Those are not the kind of customers that breed enthusiasm.

The ones that breed enthusiasm and word of mouth are the ones with unique needs that you fill. The obvious one that stands out to me is the plus size brides and the bridal salons. If a bridal salon buys deeper in those size samples and treat those brides better than anyone else they are going to build some amazing word of mouth among a fairly large (no pun intended) target market. Or what about the edgier brides, the ones that don’t want a traditional gown, but something hip or goth or in red. Take a risk. You may miss a sale, but you will build a very enthusiastic audience. Which will bring more sales.

I know a planner that every one of her weddings looks alike. Believe it or not she has a pretty large following. Why? Because for brides that like that look, no one does a Mary Ann wedding like Mary Ann.

When I did wedding cakes I specialized in fondant and handmade sugar flowers. I love doing both and at the time I did it better than anyone else in this city. I had some very enthusiastic customers. Did I get a lot of brides that wanted basic buttercream cakes? Not really, they could just as easily go to Publix or Costco for that. The brides that wanted high style, magazine worthy wedding cakes sought me out. Did I miss some brides? You bet. Things is, I didn’t have to advertise once I had gotten my name out and the brides that did choose be didn’t ask about price.

What are you doing to stand out from the crowd? You can’t stand out by being mediocre.