Lessons and Blogger Introspection Inspired by Joe the Stylist

After our client meeting today, Deanna and I dashed out for some pampering at an area salon, Four Seasons Salon & Spa at the Dulles Town Center. I was looking forward to connecting with my hair stylist, Joe, who’s the only human being on planet Earth that seems to really know how to cut and style my hair (I say that to you after 20+ years of back-to-back *awful* haircuts by other stylists who couldn’t figure out how to work with my overly-thick hair).

There are many reasons I love Joe. He’s a great guy, he’s warm, kind, attentive and experienced. Mostly, Joe REALLY listens to what you want or need in so far as a hair cut or style. And besides many other reasons to love Joe, one of my most *favorite* things are his stories. He always has a story to share; stories about his past girlfriends … stories about his beloved mom … stories about working at past hair salon adventures and so on.

Today, Joe’s story was about a longtime friend. I won’t go into details to protect Joe’s privacy but what I can share is that the tale was one of many colorful challenges. And in all the glory of Joe’s wisdom, he made a strong point about actions being louder than words.

Specifically, Joe asked me the following:

Interesting!

The answer of course is the latter; in response to my hair cut needs, Joe didn’t do a lot of talking. Instead, he gave me a fabulous hair cut. Period. His actions spoke much louder than his words ever could. And there is consistency to Joe’s actions: every time I visit him, I get the exact same results … a terrific hair cut which makes me feel great!

“Actions speak louder than words” is hardly a new phrase of wisdom. Most of us have heard or been told this at least once in our lives. But I found these words especially meaningful to me today because they reminded me of how I had been feeling about my blog and my previous blogging habits.

Allow me to explain …

Months ago I had a pretty good blogging groove and then by late September or so of last year I started to lose steam. No, it wasn’t because I had run out of things to say. Quite the contrary. Rather, it was because the focus of my blog, then, was about social media marketing. I blogged about other digital marketing topics but the social media marketing topic was the primary theme.

The problem there was that I am not Mashable.com; I did not have the time or resources to share all the breaking social media news day and day out. Another challenge:  I had been feeling for some time that the topic of social media marketing was just played out. I mean, how often can you say the exact same things differently? A blog post I came across today (thanks to Jill Foster) really validated my feelings on these matters.

Bottom line: It’s just like Joe said: actions speak much louder than words.

Today, my blog groove is back and my focus is not specifically about social media marketing anymore. Yes, you may occasionally see a post here about social media and many other aspects of digital marketing. That is, by nature, what my team and I do daily. BUT what you will see a lot more of here are blog posts like this one about Joe … where we are simply sharing a story, an idea or a thought-provoking item that will engage you, the reader, much more than ever before.

What you’ll see less of are posts talking about the importance of engagement. We’re not going to talk about the value of engagement anymore; we are instead going to show prospects and clients how to engage by our own examples here.

Stories like midnight executive board meetings and Saturday client adventures will prevail over the same old, same old tired subjects you can find most anywhere else on the web.

I had been on the fence about my blogging direction for months and it’s only recently that I got back on the blogging saddle. I was already well on my way with our new blogging focus but hearing Joe’s words today really resonated.

Thank you Joe for all of your actions and for *not* just showing me your resume!!!