Seth Godin regularly talks about “shipping art.”  This means getting past the procrastination phase and actually doing something.  It could be writing a blog post, playing an open mic, selling paintings on the side of the road or anything else that allows you to express yourself in a unique way.

There are very few people that I see shipping more art than Scott, aka the “Nametag guy.” Scott is a content machine and he consistently builds relationships by taking a very creative approach to marketing.

For example, at the bottom of almost every blog post he offers bonus content if you email him directly.  I’ve tested this and Scott quickly returns the email with a personal note and the info he promised.  This is brilliant on so many levels.

Scott just released his eleventh book and offered up a challenge on his blog that inspired this post.  The first 50 people who write a blog post about his new book and link to it on Amazon will get a free copy.  They will also be featured in his upcoming e-book on the same topic.  Again, this is a great example of smart marketing for a number of obvious, yet brilliant reasons.

The book is called –Able: 35 Strategies for Increasing the Probability of Success, in Business and in Life, and the premise is that you can greatly increase the chance that you’ll achieve your goals by making yourself more –able.

He shares the following examples from the book to illustrate what he means by ‘-able’ and challenged bloggers to come up with a word of their own:

Advanceable. Addictable. Bookable. Brandable. Breakable. Buyable. Buzzable. Callbackable. Checkbookable. Discoverable. Engageable. Googleable. Invokable. Meetable. Nameable. Needable. Non-nextable. Openable. Pursuable. Referable. Requestable. Retweetable. Revisitable. Sellable. Show-Up-Able. Sought-after-able. Spreadable. Successable. Superiorable. Trustable. Unbullshittable. Unequalable. Yessable.

The one I came up with is differentiatable.  This word comes to mind after a number of conversations with young job seekers.  We all know it’s a tough job market out there and recent college grads are having a tough time finding employment.  Therefore people need to work even harder to differentiate themselves.  I think the Web offers many opportunities to do this, yet so many of the “digital citizens” I’ve spoken with don’t seem to take advantage of the tools.  Start a blog about the industry you want to be in, create a video of you debating a relevant topic, launch a Google Adwords campaign related to the company you want to work with, etc.  A little creativity will go a long way and those who are differentiatable will nab the best gigs!

They should also be LinkedInable, Twitterable and SEOable…..but that’s another post.

For five more ideas on how to land the job you want email me at bradysadler (at) gmail (dot) com

Thanks Scott!

2 responses to “The Nametag Guy and How to be Differentiatable”

  1. Brett Houle says:

    No joke Brady – I read this in its entirety in my Google reader and then realized it was your post at the end! Ha!

    Seriously great post. Love this and I had admired the nametag guy for a while.

    Now – come talk to me – I'm always trying to locate differentiatable.

  2. HELLO, my name is Scott! says:

    Way to go Brady! Love it man. Keep shipping. Keep executing. You're quite -able 😉