Growth // Codex Newsletter

A Weekly Digest Dedicated To Helping You

Produce // Promote // Profit

Better // Smarter

 

Welcome back Creative Misfit. We’ve now officially been in this panorama for more than a year.

Worked on anything you’re excited about? Take on something you’d been leaving on the backburner?

On our end, we had some fun projects, some crazy tedious ones, and made some new friends along the way — from launching a city-backed initiative we dubbed the business bounce back initiative to partnering with some of our silicon valley friends to scale things with remote summits where we shoot the sh*t, break down the how, what, why, when, etc of minimizing risk in your business // brand

To date, things have been progressing amazingly, they’re even experimenting with a scavenger hunt app to encourage folks to get out there and play (like the good ol pokemon Go days)

Where to start

Asking them and ourselves

How Do You Win A Game That’s Rigged Against YOU?

Why do some brands seem to spread so fast? Grow so big?

How do some companies seem to have all the smartest players? The biggest advancements?

For years, solving crisis after crisis for companies; from reviving dying brands to scaling new ones, there are clues left behind from each success story (and even more from those that failed).

What drives customer behavior?

Why do some brands blow up and others don’t?

What variables predict if a company should grow?

Most importantly, can you predict and change habits and behavior to be more successful?

These clues improve the strategies we deploy, the corporate cultures we create, the talent we foster which in turn, leads to true and lasting innovation.

Fun fact: Research shows a trend that almost seems… moronic – that most businesses hire bad bosses on purpose, 

  Let’s channel this into improving how // what we

Produce

Pro Tip:

All our talents increase in the using, and the every faculty, both good and bad, strengthen by exercise

– Anne Bronte

Don’t follow your passion, develop it

Every guru will tell you to follow your passion, the thing is, that’s not how the real world works, hear me out.

Imagine falling in love with something, it’s your passion, so you’ll see to it that you succeed — but, the odds are stacked against you? And not in the “this is going to be difficult” way, as in the “you’re going to have perform miracles” way. What do you do?

You develop it and deal with reality — here’s a modern example. Between union-busting and snake oil salesmen, encouraging people to deal in bliss only is good for business, not always for the talent

With a bit of inflation and the stick it out hustle culture, the reality is these people are the easiest to exploit and underpay

Ok, so now the doom and gloom aside, how do we work with reality and succeed? It’s competitive out there, after all, thankfully you’re not everyone, you’re a misfit so you develop and build your own thing,

Pro Tip: start with Ikigai

An example I came across recently is an artist named Shardula, who seamlessly tackled something meticulous and made it her own

She, in essence, took a complex form of art, and made it her own

The example that came to mind when looking at her technique was that of color by numbers. She made herself a coloring book.

While this style of art intimidates the everyday person, she decided to use what’s known as first-principles theory: which its originator, Aristotle described as reasoning by removing the impurity of assumptions and conventions

and the results speak for themselves

From what you saw above to this

Practice practice practice is the difference between loving something and getting paid to do it

And people don’t typically pay you to do something you’ve never done before

Try this simple exercise

• What do I love doing?
• What am I actually good at?
• What are people currently paying people for in this arena?

alright now, let’s channel this into improving how // what we

Promote

Pro Tip: “Dreams come in a size too big so that we may grow into them.” — Josie Bisse

Sometimes you’re so close to the problem that you forget how what’s normal within your bubble, is foreign to someone else. While we were busy building, a few of our friends, customers, and colleagues kept asking the same questions. So we revisited some trouble areas from our people – and at the top of their list was

• Social Media Bios (Setup)
• Engagement (Low or sporadic)
• Content

So we took a look at our round of experiments and asked some of those we help

LinkTree

A time tested go to for many of us who use social media for more than just personal scrolling – it’s reliable, easy to use. Hard to hate that

Shorby

This ones fairly new to us, and it looks promising as hell – we’ve started using it and look forward to sharing results 🙌

Contact In Bio

What caught our eye here was the freedom to

• Create a mobile friendly landing page
• Accept payments

Sked Link

So far, everyone who’s used this reports that it’s fairly easy, however, the pricing seems to have most people deciding against it in the long run

LNK.BIO

With a little over 30% of those, we asked mentioning LNK.BIO seems to have a really good customer in the lifestyle space

Bio:

A good rule of thumb to remember is

• Why are they here?
• What will they get?
• How do I help them?

As you can tell, if you’re trying to grow because you love that dopamine rush of likes, this post isn’t for you

There are a lot of ways for a lot of different types of people – for myself, I kept it simple and effective as my goal is to avoid tire kickers

So far, we’ve discovered that there’s sophistication in simplicity, what I lack in WOW I’ve made up for with emojis, so far

Highlights:

So far, treating this section as an extension of tabs on a website has worked beautifully, from sharing stories to calls to action, it’s a great way to spice up using UX (User Experience) techniques

For example, on our website, we have

• Happening Now
• Biz/Career
• Life/Mind

So with each social media profile, we try to experiment with similar things such as

• Learn More
• Q&A’s
• Resources

The images are easy to make with

Canva

Now let’s move things along into improving how // what we

Profit

Pro Tip: “It’s not how much you make, but what you keep that matters”

With relationships between you, the talent, and bigger corps…. strained

The dynamics are looking really weird

Co’s are facing one of the toughest labor markets in decades

One McDonald's in Tampa, Florida is offering $50 for anyone who comes in for a job interview pic.twitter.com/2gtPjsRtc3

— Katriel € Sarfati // 🔮 (@ksarkat_) April 25, 2021

First, if you’re even thinking of creating solutions for bigger corps, don’t – save your talents and energy for those that deserve it.

You have an opportunity to develop a side hustle that could erase your need for a day job

Employers seek these top skills in 2021

Sh*t I Tell Myself I Need

Love reading? If you’re like me, you know we can’t just not buy that book, or download a sample (with kindle)

We’ve fallen in love with the Libby library app — it’s free and has a ton of Audio Books and Ebooks, simply sign up and use your library card (or get a digital one locally online) and you can borrow books for a month or more at a time

Want to meet your people halfway? Engage more customers?

Advertise with Us

This week, we decided to deliver this on Sunday as we learn more about your wants and needs, feedback is always encouraged!

Let us know about any projects you’re excited about 

On Instagram // On TikTok // On Twitter

If you like what you see, have gotten value, or thought of someone this could help

Share The Growth // Codex, it helps us deliver what’s best for your business // brand

Here’s to escaping average