When I was 18 and working in a mailroom, a senior partner told me, "Don't brown bag your lunch." What he meant was that if I wanted to climb the ladder, I needed to start by putting myself out there and appearing successful. In other words, I needed to advertise myself.
As I've come to learn, everything you do to grow your business, and grow yourself, is advertising, and we're all doing it constantly. Some people are just better at it than others, as this clever blog post points out.
One of the reasons I love web design is because I get to tell a story about a company and influence the perceived value of that company. To many people, your website is your company. So it goes without saying that it's something worth investing in.
Like it or not, perception influences buying behaviour. As the ad executive Rory Sutherland points out in his excellent TED talk, perceived value can be just as important as real value, if not more so. And it can be just as big of a factor in a purchasing decision. While this may be a shallow concept, there's no denying it either.
Stlll, perceived value only goes so far. You have to have a compelling story to back it up. What makes you different? What makes you better? Why should people work with you?
Fortunately, the web is a great medium for storytelling as well as advertising. But telling that story over lunch at Hy's Steakhouse doesn't hurt either.
