Lately, I’ve been divesting myself of many of the email newsletters and daily recaps I’ve subscribed to over the years. But, because of gems like the quote above, I continue to scan Early to Rise pretty much every day.

Why? Its wisdom can often be applied to the art of marketing. Case in point: Lisa Kirk’s pithy wisdom ideally captures what smart marketers know — it’s never all about us or what we’re selling. It’s how we can help a prospect be better, faster, smarter, richer…or whatever they’re trying to achieve.

Eyeball a random page on your website and do this quick calculation: how many times you use the words “we,” “us” and ”our” compared to “you” and “yours.”

Same goes for social media. If your posts are primarily about yourself, chances are you’ve got some work to do to achieve “brilliant conversationalist” status.

You wouldn’t settle for being the cocktail party bore or gossip, would you? Then don’t settle for it in your marketing, either.

As I admired the timely follow-up, a thought occurred to me — if the speakers were doing their jobs, these slides should be 90% useless. Because, as I’m often reminded by communications guru Stephanie Scotti of Professionally Speaking, visual aids are there to support you, not upstage you.

If your slides tell the whole story, that means you stood up there and read them to me. Using your slides as a teleprompter is never the hallmark of an effective presentation. Unless your audience is a bunch of three-year-olds, I doubt they enjoy being read to. That’s when the smartphones come out and the disengagement begins — checking email, tweeting, trying to assess how bad it would look to get up and leave.

Now, these slide decks might’ve been the exception. A couple of ways come to mind:

• If they included speaker notes. If you want to extend the value of your deck beyond the presentation itself, include a bulleted summary of your verbal points. Then save as “notes” when you turn it into a pdf. In the case of our example, no speaker notes.
• If you sent out a modified deck. Some speakers take the time to create a beefed-up version of their slides for use as a handout. Time-consuming but wise if you know many people won’t have the chance to see you deliver the presentation live.

So, the next time you’re prepping for a presentation, remember: If your deck tells the whole story, you’re completely missing the point — and minimizing your own value as a presenter.

So, why the longevity of this particular soundtrack — and what marketing mojo can be gleaned from its success?

Try these three moves on for size:

The right blend of consistency and contradiction. Saturday Night Fever’s storyline was way grittier than its mostly up-tempo music would suggest. And though dominated by the instantly recognizable sound of the Bee Gees, the soundtrack included something for everyone — from the classical riffs of “A Fifth of Beethoven” to the island-flavored “Calypso Breakdown.”

The result was an intriguing broad-based appeal that never veered into the generic. Everybody thought the movie and its soundtrack were designed with them in mind.

Equally strong visual and audio hooks. Audience attention is grabbed in different ways. Some people are visual learners, while others need auditory stimulation or the comfort of a familiar story or relatable setting.

Saturday Night Fever put its somewhat caricature-ish characters in memorable settings like that hard-to-ignore flashing dance floor. And let’s not forget the iconic white suit. Instantly recognizable as a symbol of machismo and power, it even served as the centerpiece of a recent Glee episode.

A story that taps into prospects’ secret desires. Though they might not readily admit it, movie goers wanted to be Tony Manero. Not the ordinary paint store clerk by day, but the superhero stud who came to life when the sun went down — riveting and powerful the minute he hit the dance floor.

Tell me you don’t feel a secret urge to strut whenever you hear the opening bars of “Staying Alive.” Now, imagine what story you might tell about your product or service that makes prospects feel equally engaged and empowered.

Marketing can be considered a bit of a dance. So take a lesson or two from Saturday Night Fever and get ready to boogie with your prospects — take the lead and they’re sure to follow.

Here are five simple fixes to consider the next time you’re developing a piece of sales collateral.

1. Share responsibility for defining the target. What makes a qualified lead? Together, sales and marketing should clearly identify the who, what and when: demographics, psychographics, industry and company size if you’re selling B2B, budget, and even the length of the sales cycle.

2. What happens next? Think beyond the lead. Support your sales team with repeated reasons to connect with customers, especially for products or services with lengthy sales cycles. This is where white papers, case studies and trade articles can be invaluable.

3. Organize stuff the way people sell. Quite often, a company’s lead generation activities are focused on conquering new markets. So, it really doesn’t help to have sales collateral organized by industry. Instead, focus on issues rather than verticals to get maximum traction from case studies or white papers.

4. Embrace the interactive. Engage prospects and make your website stickier by turning static information from brochures or sell sheets into online checklists or quizzes: “Is your company EEOC-compliant? Take this one-minute quiz to find out!”

5. Make collateral easy to access. Sell sheets sitting in a box in your conference room are not selling anything. Give your sales team the flexibility to grab what they need from anywhere via your company intranet. Post high-resolution pdfs that can be reproduced at a local quick printer and still look highly professional. Ditto for presentation masters that salespeople can download to their laptops and personalize as needed.

Shared responsibility is a powerful thing. Open up to the collaborative possibilities between marketing and sales and you may be surprised at the outcome.

Remember: what makes you unique and memorable to your loved ones also makes you unique and memorable to potential clients, strategic partners, and the media. Consider incorporating the answers to an offbeat question or two in your bio:

• What three things make you unique?
• What would an acquaintance or business colleague be surprised to learn about you?
• What was your high school nickname?
• What would be the lead in your obituary?
• Do you have a favorite quote, author or life philosophy?
• If you were in the movie “Field of Dreams,” what would you have built?
• If you won the lottery tomorrow, how would you spend the money?

Your objective is to tell a concise “story of you,” giving readers (or listeners) multiple points of possible connection. Be sure to steer clear of potentially divisive topics like politics or religion, unless your bio will be used for this particular audience. When in doubt, leave it out.

Finally, remember that one size never fits all. A well-crafted “master” bio can be easily customized to fit the media or occasion, whether you’re creating an “About the Author” or being introduced as the next Nobel Prize winner.

But if you’re not a writer, I’m betting you’re not particularly happy about the current emphasis on content as king. That’s why you have to make the most of every single piece you write (or have written for you).

These days, success is all about smart repurposing — refreshing, reconfiguring and reworking basic content so it reaches and resonates with as many audiences as possible.

Here are 11 ideas to get you started:

1. Post a keyword-rich article on a site like ezinearticles.com
2. Break it up into a series of tweets, Facebook posts or LinkedIn updates
3. Refocus your article to address a specific industry (or two or three)
4. Reframe an evergreen article around a current trend or topical happening
5. Deconstruct a white paper into 3-4 shorter blog posts with links to the entire paper
6. Turn white paper or article content into visual-heavy slides and post on slideshare.net
7. Reconfigure into scripts for short “how-to” videos
8. Use a white paper or research report as a downloadable “bait piece” to help build your email list
9. Issue a research results summary or white paper abstract as a press release
10. Recast workshop content as a series of articles or blog posts
11. Turn workshop content into downloadable tip sheets (see “bait” on #8 above)

See, not so hard, right?

Some caveats: Don’t bombard your audience with barely disguised retreads of the same information. Tailor your content for both the audience and the medium, and vary your release times to reach different segments of your audience. Finally, be mindful of overlap — someone following you on Twitter may also be seeing your LinkedIn updates, et al, and quickly tire of any repetition.

Be patient and spread out your repurposing efforts to make the most of a single piece of content, and it may be a while before you need to create more.

It generally takes one of two forms — either “We sent you an email in error,” or “Our site was having technical difficulties,” with an accompanying apology and discount offer for your trouble.

Granted, people make honest mistakes, for which an acknowledgement is always appreciated. But the flurry of “Whoops!” communications might lead cynical marketing minds to believe there’s something else afoot.

But the rise of social media has exponentially expanded the possibilities beyond simply buyers. Today, it’s also about who can help you ultimately reach those buyers:

• Complementary businesses with similar audiences that can share your content with those audiences
• Reporters and editors looking for compelling stories to tell and experts to quote
• Content creators who can feature your ideas in their newsletters and other materials

For example, the Twitterverse abounds with journalists and bloggers who are posting queries, searching for sources and trying to spot the next big trend. Are you positioning your content to catch their attention and maybe meet their needs?

By casting your net beyond simply “people we can sell to,” you’ll be better positioned to leverage the real power of social marketing — and kick competitive butt in the process.

Let’s talk about making new connections via LinkedIn, for example. Because there’s a screen — and maybe even an entire continent – between you and the person you’re inviting to connect, many people don’t stop to think that the basic “face to face” networking rules still apply.

Consider this: You’d never dream of darting up to a stranger or vague acquaintance, shoving a business card in their hand, and saying “Yo! Call me!” before running away, right? You just might be doing the online equivalent of this bad behavior on LinkedIn.

On a weekly basis, I receive invitations from strangers – or at the very least, someone whose name I don’t recognize. I meet lots of people in my travels, and my aging memory is not what it used to be. So I’m always grateful for even the vaguest of contexts – “Hi, I’m a fellow member of the XYZ group. I enjoyed your elevator pitch at the last meeting. I’d love to connect with you on LinkedIn.”

Sure, we’ve all figured out by now that if you indicate someone’s a “Friend,” LinkedIn accepts your claim at face value. But why leave it at that and risk being ignored? Customize the deadly dull default message, add some brief context, and guess what – that small effort will make you really stand out as someone worth knowing.

After all, isn’t that the point?

Hi! I’m Tempe, happily sprawled out at my new house in West Orange after being found on the streets by the West Orange Animal Welfare League. I’m grateful for everything they do, but let’s be real — a cage is no place to call home. That’s why we were so glad when Lisa & Raymond came to take us home last spring.

At first, it was just me & Willow, my friend from the shelter. Dizzy came a few months later. He’s kind of annoying sometimes, but I guess that’s what little brothers are for.

Anyway, did you know that October is National “Adopt a Shelter Pet” Month? We’ve talked Fahoury Ink into donating 10% of its billings for the second year in a row to the WOAWL.

Because times are kind of tough right now, many families are holding off on adopting a pet. Shelters are crowded & my friends are at risk. So please — if you have a marketing or copywriting project that you just can’t seem to get to, turn it over to Fahoury Ink. You’ll get some great marketing mojo, plus you’ll know that 10% of your investment is going to help fine felines like me. And maybe some dogs, too.

Don’t have a project right now? All we ask is that you consider a shelter pet when you’re ready to expand your family. Lisa says there’s no better reward than having me snuggle on her lap. I have to agree.