I’m often quick to criticize an ad campaign that makes no sense, or that treats it’s customers poorly; so when I heard the new DEXONE  commercials I had to take a minute to praise a well thought through campaign.

Dex is a well known publisher of yellow page directories, a business that has been getting hammered in the last few years as a larger and larger percentage of small business ad budgets have switched from yellow pages to online. How does Dex respond?

First, they repositioned themselves. Their new ads don’t present them as directory publishers, they are “marketing consultants” helping small business people to sort through the wide variety of options that they face in trying to reach their prospects. No one wants to talk to a yellow page salesperson, but everyone wants help with their marketing!

Second, instead of fighting against the Internet as a marketing channel they have adopted it as a product that they are selling. Now I’m not making any comment on the how good their product is, but their ads position them as experts that can help the small business owner “get found on the web” something that most small businesses need a lot of help with.

The thing that makes the ads most compelling to me are how they put the prospect, the small business owner, at the center of the ad. Dex really listened to what the small business owner is thinking and feeling and by expressing that in their ads, they gain instant relevance with their target demographic.

Is there some part of your offering that is becoming a commodity? How can you do a better job listening to your customer, speak in their language and attract more prospects?

I recently received a copy of Donald Miller’s “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” from Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze program. I really don’t know what I was expecting. Prior to this I was unfamiliar with Donald Miller even though his first book “Blue Like Jazz” sold over a million copies. I half thought it might be a biking book (it’s not really, despite the cover and title). What I found was an engaging and insightful group of essays.

Donald Miller has a rambling, self-examining style, reminiscent of Anne Lamott and in “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” he points this verbal magnifying glass toward his experience of writing the screenplay for the movie version of the autobiographical “Blue Like Jazz”.  In doing so his director mentions that they are going to have to make some changes to his life because it’s “a little boring”. This revelation leads Donald to explore what he would need to do to make a better story for his life.

It’s hard to describe or summarize Donald Miller, so instead here’s:

Ten Things I learned reading “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”

1. You are the lead character in your own story.
   If you want your life to tell a great story YOU have to make decisions that will create that story.  You need to make choices that require risk and that may cost you something.
2. Great stories have characters who want something.
   “If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove it off the lot…” It takes wanting something big and unreachable to get us to really care.
3. We care about characters who overcome obstacles.
   Life has curves, but those curves are actually what drive us to do more, care more, and make our lives more interesting and the curves themselves help us to build character.
4. We care even more about characters who sacrifice themselves for a cause.
   It’s not enough that we just go through life and navigate the curves that come.  If we want to create a really compelling, even epic life story we need to sacrifice; give more than is comfortable, or reasonable or smart.
5. Fear can keep us from creating great stories.
   “Fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.”
6. Great stories have unique moments that are memorable.
   This one really got to me.  You can live a happy, enjoyable life and if you don’t do anything out of the ordinary, if you don’t take a few things ‘too far’, you can have a really enjoyable life, but nothing memorable.  Memorable experiences stand out from the ordinary.
7. Extreme experiences are not enough.
   Hiking Machu Picchu is something few of us get to do.  While the natural beauty and extreme nature of the trail are unique, it’s still just a nice walk.  What is the stakes?  How are you putting yourself on the line and taking bigger risks?
8. There’s nothing like a good redemption story to make me cry (unless it’s the next story about the death of a spouse).
9. “I’m a tree in a story about a forest… and the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.”
   This is one of the more lasting lessons from this book for me.  Though I want to be the central character in my story, that story is not central to anyone else but me.  I may have successes and tragedy, I may want the world to stop to congratulate or comfort me, but that’s not going to happen.  The best thing I can do is find the places where my story can weave together with the story of those around me and create that rich tapestry we call life.
10. Donald Miller is a man who is wise beyond his years.
    Seriously, this guy is in his mid-thirties, and while he’d be the first to tell you he doesn’t have it all worked out, he’s got some great insights for folks of all ages.

After reading this book cover-to-cover over the course of a long weekend (I could hardly put it down at points) I’m now soaking in some of these lessons.  I know that my story will be different for having read it.  Stay tuned and you can let me know if I’m telling a better story with my life or not.

What story are you telling with your life?  Would it captivate you if it was made into a movie?