How The X-Files can make you a better creator
(And it's the simplest way to set yourself apart from the pack.)
Hey, brandcrafter, let’s be honest: Being different is hard.
In every article, every video, every training, you’ll hear you need to differentiate yourself from others, but the truth is most people will fade into the crowd and sound like everyone else.
Why?
Well, there are a bunch of anthropological and psychological reasons for this, but it comes down to it being safer to blend in with the crowd as a survival mechanism.
For thousands of years, there was safety in numbers, and we needed to rely on our small community to survive. And to be accepted within that community? We had to adopt accepted behaviors.
Even though we no longer need to rely on our neighbors to save us from mountain lions, our brain is still wired to find safety in fitting in.
The problem with this is if you’re a creator or service provider, you need to be distinct to be memorable.
Go on the internet for 5 minutes, and you don’t have to search hard to find someone talking about how they’re a radical, trailblazer, trendsetter, revolutionary or a rebel — but they’re saying the same watered-down, lukewarm stuff everyone else is.
(Except maybe they’re peppering their content with a few “fucks” and “badasses.”)
But the truth is…most people do things exactly the way they were taught, the way everyone does it, the way it’s always been done because that’s just what people do.
It’s easier to follow what’s been proven to work.
There’s even a cliche about this. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
So how are you supposed to go against tens of thousands of years of anthropological wiring and stand out?
Fortunately, we have Mulder and Scully to help us.
I remember huddling under the covers, eyes glued to the TV as Mulder tried to find evidence of extraterrestrials while Scully maintained her skepticism, and some really spooky stuff happened along the way.
One of the core themes throughout the show is “question everything.”
These were FBI agents who were working within the system but who didn’t blindly trust the system.
As an impressionable kid, that always stuck with me.
(It also got me into some hot water with my teachers because I wouldn’t just accept what they said as fact and had to understand why something was true.)
But that’s exactly how you can stand out and truly be different.
All you have to do is question everything you think you know.
No doubt if you’re a content creator or service provider, you’ve been taught how to do your craft, market yourself, and sell.
And here’s the problem: Chances are you learned from someone who taught everyone how to do the same thing the same way.
Follow the framework, do the work, get the result.
And to be fair, this productized model makes people a shit ton of money because they don’t have to customize anything and it’s all generalized.
Here’s where it breaks down:
If everyone is doing the same thing, eventually it stops being as effective and then stops working entirely. The only way to win this game is if you’re first. (And you aren’t; not by a long shot.)
It relies on assumptions that are often false, misguided, or misaligned.
Again, the solution is: Question everything.
Here’s how to do this on a practical level (and I’ll show you how I put this into practice).
Think about your industry and write all the assumptions, common knowledge, and common practices.
Take some time with this. Because things are common practice, they’re easy to overlook as something you just do because it’s always been done. This is where being an outside observer helps.
Instead of seeing yourself as someone within your industry, see yourself as an outsider. Pretend like you’re completely new, and consume experts’ content.
What are they all saying to do? What common words and phrases do they use? What common tactics are they all deploying?
Observe and take notes.
Question why people do these.
Go beyond the explanation that “it’s always been done this way” and look at deeper explanations of why. See what people are saying why they’re doing it/teaching it.
Look for psychological reasons why they do it and why it works.
Ask yourself if those reasons (those whys) are aligned with your values.
This is assuming you’ve done your brand work and have established your core values — the foundation of every decision in your business. If you haven’t, pause and think about what matters most and why.
A lot of times what I see is people saying one thing (i.e. they value critical thought, their community, transparency, etc.) but consistently use tactics in direct conflict of these.
Here’s what it comes down to: If something feels icky (aka doesn’t align with your values), don’t do it.
Even if it’s “the standard practice” and guaranteed to work. (Nothing is guaranteed anyway.)
Values come first. Always. Your brand reputation depends on it.
Ask yourself, “Is there a better way to do this that’s congruent with my values, even if nobody I know is doing it?”
This is where it takes some trial and error. Get curious, ask “what ifs,” and experiment until you find something that both feels good and gets you results.
Share your contrarian opinion with the world.
If everyone is saying to do something one way and you reject that and do something different? That’s going to set you apart and get you noticed.
Chances are you’re not the only person in the world who shares a similar point of view. There are others who feel icky doing the common practice but just don’t know better (and haven’t done the critical thinking to find something better).
But as soon as you stake out your differentiator, that gives people permission to do it differently too (and you become a trusted authority).
Okay, here’s what this looks like in a real-life example from when I wrote sales copy for clients.
In copywriting, it's common practice to write about people's pain points.
The stuff people struggle with that aggravates them that leads them to buy whatever solution you offer.
The common wisdom is that if you make them realize how badly they're hurting and make them feel it, you can get them to buy whatever you're selling to stop the pain.
(The assumption here being that everyone is motivated by pain before taking action.)
For 3 years, I devoured everything I could about copywriting. In every course and book I consumed, this was taught. In every sales letter I dismantled and analyzed, this was done.
But I challenged this. (Because it didn’t feel right.)
I didn't buy into the idea that you had to dig at people's pain to get them to buy because this only led to them feeling shame from struggling.
I didn't want people to buy from this mindset. I wanted people to buy because they were EXCITED.
I tested this out and considered who my customers wanted to become. (Not who they were afraid of becoming.) What results they wanted to create.
And I wrote content and sales copy from the perspective of their aspirational identity, desires, and vision.
I focused on the possibilities, not the pain.
Here’s what happened:
People signed up for pre-launches because it excited them.
People actually engaged with what they purchased because they saw the path forward.
People frequently commented that they finally felt seen and understood.
I felt better about what I wrote because I wasn’t digging into people’s deepest insecurities and causing them to experience shame just to make my clients money.
My clients felt better because it got them excited about what they were selling.
Basically, everyone felt better about the experience, and my clients kept working with me.
I’m not going to say I was the first person to ditch the pain points and write aspirational copy.
I’m not even going to say I’m a trendsetter.
But I do know that in 2017, that wasn’t common practice and, at least in my circles, it was a contrarian opinion that got a lot of derision because pain point marketing and advertising were so widely practiced.
(And it undeniably got big results because people are motivated by pain; I just didn’t want to target those people.)
In the end, that’s how I created my first differentiator and took a stand for what I believed in.
No longer was I just your garden variety content writing and copywriter. I was someone who cared about the words I wrote and the impact they had — on both my client and their audience.
I wrote values-centered, aspirational copy in a world where most people wrote pain point, fear-based copy.
The thing is you can be different in a meaningful way too.
It just takes effort to question convention and push back against what’s considered normal to find a new perspective.
And as creators, we’re in the business of new perspectives.
Be different,
Cat