• Home/Blog
  • Podcast
  • About
    • Contact
  • Portfolio
    • Advertising
    • Strategy
    • Taglines
    • Filmwork
  • Subscribe
  • search

Amy Swift Crosby

the story is in the telling

Resolutions.

December 26, 2016 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Smaller jumps. Softer landings. More frequent finish lines.

Every year, come December 31st, we are marketed an opportunity make grand proclamations…to do whatever…better, more often, with more gusto. We promise to stop, to quit, and abstain. We make lists and set goals, mock up visions of better, more beautiful or closer to perfect. We launch an internal battle cry that says…this year, yes I will! This year, no I won’t! And then wonder why, by March, they felt ambitious.

At worst, we chastise ourselves for already failing.
At best, we forget we made these personal mission statements at all.

Maybe we’ve always made resolutions as a way to design our lives in a way that feels intentional and sure-footed, en route to creating better versions of ourselves for the year ahead. Naturally, progress is a reasonable desire. No one wants to stay the same year after year. Our goals and ambitions give our lives meaning and purpose — they light a fire under our feet and offer a reward for our actions — from a stronger body to a more successful business.

But do rigid resolutions create unintentional trip wires? Could we instead premeditate a more forgiving attitude in anticipation of the inevitable people or hurdles that might interrupt those earnest targets? Even the best business models/vision boards/flight plans encounter surprises. So why not, along with the big dreaming or prolific ideas, build in agility? Flexibility? Go with the flow-ness? Human-sized steps?

For me, this feels more sustainable. It doesn’t deny the big pie in the sky of the ultimate — but it puts a focus on frequent finish lines, rather than a single, momentous one — as a means to attaining it.

Small is the new big. Steps are the new leaps. And minutes are the new milestones (I’m starting to feel relieved already).

#littlebylitte #onebyone #yesyoucan

P.S. Happy New Year to all of you who read and support this blog and message this year. We really grew because of you! I appreciate every single comment, forward and share.

Work.

December 20, 2016 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Big ideas rarely come from sitting at your desk.

It is almost always easier to work.

Even when work is stressful, it’s an environment that has a beginning and end, with tasks associated with workflow that equal some-kind-of-something in the end. We generally know what our contribution amounts to, how our presence impacts the whole. There’s a certain metric that we innately understand when it comes to work — less gray area, more punctuation.

Consider the discipline it takes to meditate, workout, sit down and read with your child or play Legos — even to go on vacation. These are all beautiful, fulfilling, healthy activities once you do them, but so often, work swallows anything deemed “extra” because it’s, A. Culturally justifiable and B. Infinitely easier to be productive when it’s obvious. I think most of us would agree that there are days and weeks that with all our “busy-ness” we weren’t actually that impactful toward something we really care about, that we really want to happen, that would really make a difference.

So as we go into this holiday period, one of my “rest” goals is to think bigger and upward, rather than in bits and pieces moving forward. I want to try to stay in the idea stratosphere — rather than the production one. We don’t get that luxury too much because we have jobs to do, people to pay (and get paid from), and missions to make real. This “blue sky” level of creative thinking (or blue ocean as a friend of mine insists), is a unique muscle that “works” without being at a desk, “produces” without typing a single Google search, and “grows” without a marketing strategy.

With that, I wish you a very happy holiday — and hope this gentle push gives you added permission go higher and deeper into something good. For me, it will only qualify if I can do it and have nothing to show for it –except a renewed energy (and potentially an idea worth executing) by January 1st.

Idle.

December 12, 2016 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Remember back in the day, when you ‘d go to a restaurant, and if you found yourself to be the first of your party to arrive, you had to wait at the bar — alone?  You looked around. You watched other people having fun or in intimate conversations. You glanced at your watch. It was a little bit painful, especially if you were waiting on a date, or a professional contact you’d never laid eyes on. There was a vulnerability to it.

I worry that these transitional moments, or any moment when in the past we might have had to sit in our own presence, have been hijacked by our devices. We either find ourselves feeling pressed to be productive in EVERY POSSIBLE SECOND, or worse, feel that in moments when we could be pausing/breathing/observing, that we should at least look like we have something to do. If I’m at a party, and feel uninterested or introverted, my phone provides a paradise of relief and distraction. But, that’s kind of bullsh$t, right? What a copout.

I’m worried that no one knows how to be bored or clumsy or awkward anymore. In fact I’m thinking the younger generation is missing a litany of other sufferings that make for a multi-dimensional person, and we (elders) are cheating ourselves out of some unexpected epiphanies that come from choosing (actively) to do something in real time/real life — even when we could be swiping/checking/responding.

Just like actors used cigarettes as a storytelling device, and regular people used them as a social wingman, so must we view our phones for what they’ve become; something to do….when we need something to do.

But I think we may be missing out. Imagine the people we might meet or cool things we might witness or conversations we might overhear or character we might build…by not looking down and disappearing into an alternate, easier universe at the first possible discomfort?

We might have to actually live with ourselves and all our confronting humanity. Huh.

Details.

December 5, 2016 · By Amy Swift Crosby

H&M wisely tapped director Wes Anderson, a master of detail, to make a short holiday film. Note the focus on story, not clothes. Everything, in every frame, was a decision.

Isn’t it refreshing (I’d even say exciting) to go into a business / restaurant / office where they care about the details? Where a potted plant sits in ceramic instead of plastic? Where the floor of a fitness studio gets swept or mopped between workouts? Where the dentist gives you rose tinted glasses to ward off glare? Where meeting rooms are stacked with pens and pads of paper? Little things often move the needle on whether we come back / buy more / comment / reTweet/Gram / recommend.

I found myself at an athletic club recently, a bit perplexed by the clock on the wall that still hadn’t been changed since daylight savings time, a wrapper on the floor — right next to the garbage. The absence of Kleenex (anywhere.) Television sets in multiple corners — all on the same channel. And my favorite — an exclamation point after the gym’s address in the footer (maybe they’re excited about their location?)

Thoughtfulness often appears in the smallest of ways. And some would argue that customers don’t really notice these seemingly minute details because the bigger goal — the service or product itself — should take center stage. But it’s all part of the experience — from what they see on your website, to what they experience in person, to what they view on social media. You’re one brand, not five. And you’re always saying something — whether you put thought into it or not.To think our choices, as business owners, as brands, don’t impact sales, retention, loyalty — is a blind spot.

Sweat the small stuff.

You don’t have to do everything (resources are usually limited and most of us don’t have Wes Anderson-style budgets), but make sure what you DO decide to do is intentional and says what you set out to say.

Presentation.

November 28, 2016 · By Amy Swift Crosby

No matter how obvious or clear or needed your product or service or personality is, we all need a presentation layer. The world doesn’t immediately “get” what we do without one. This is part of what we call “brand” — but let’s get away from that over-used, mostly misunderstood word for now. Let’s call it your skin or message, which encompasses not only the words you use but the images, typefaces, customer service experiences, decisions… that all go into the world’s experience of your product or service.

One of my favorite challenges is to work on a turnaround project, the repositioning a company who finds itself challenged in the marketplace, not because it isn’t amazing (it often is), but because they haven’t hit the right note in explaining why their offering matters. It’s a message problem, not a product problem.

This year, we had the honor and pleasure of working with S Factor creator and founder Sheila Kelley. The brand needed a shift in perception, and a new way to tell their story.

S Factor has been known as a pole-dancing workout. But to relegate it to that is like saying you use a computer to type, or your phone to make a call. A computer / phone / pole is the device — but the impact / results / value go so far beyond the accessory. Sheila created a brand that gives women a map back to their own feminine bodies and souls. Our job in refreshing their brand was about delivering an unapologetically feminine message — to capture the fierce, the soft, the angry, the joyous — the everything — that women could explore through S Factor. It was a message of reclamation, rejoicing and rebirth. But how do you explain that in a way that women want to hear it? How do you get the pole out of the way, without dismissing it? See how we did it here.

So proud of our work together, and so convinced that if our customers don’t get us — right away — we can’t blame them for not showing up.

Don’t put the burden on your audience or get upset when they don’t “get” you. Make it clear, moving and completely irresistible.

Uncover your truth. And then tell that story (or hire people who do it for a living.)

Editors.

November 21, 2016 · By Amy Swift Crosby

La Caronne, a concept in New York City. A great example of saying yes, and no, to the right things.

I was recently in a LA/NYC hot spot — a true den of trends — where it felt like the team, earnest as they probably are, said yes a little more than no. Apart from wool-vested, man-bun clad bartenders and suspender wearing, Japanese denim-adorned waiters, they had somehow captured every interior restaurant trend of the past ten years, in 3,000 square feet. Macrame? Check. Distressed wood? Check. Subway tile? Check. Repurposed shipping container? Check. Faux-industrialized materials in every corner possible? Check. I saw Austin, Brooklyn, Portland and Venice — bundled up into one unedited concept.

Every writer, every designer, everyone, everywhere, benefits from an editor. If I could have an editor every time I publish this blog, I would, and typically I have a very good one edit my work before clients see it. Writers benefit because we can’t discard what we don’t know is in the way. We can’t replace ‘meh’ words with better words when those were the words that seemed best when we wrote them. Editors have a perspective that sees the good, replaces the less effective, and removes the rest. They de-clutter. They see the mission and make sure you’re meeting it. All creative endeavors benefit from such a person, but it’s hard to for some of us to admit it because we mistakenly see their participation as an intrusion on something sacred.

In my role as a brand strategist and writer, I often wear the hat of creative director as well. Overseeing design means I see what’s working, and what isn’t, and support the designer to land in the right place. It doesn’t mean I can design — I can’t. And it doesn’t mean I know more than she does — I don’t. But we all want the best work, and that usually requires a healthy tension between the first version and the third.

Editors are essential.
Find a good one.
Then, let them take your precious ideas, concepts and manifestations — and force a focus, a distillation and a commitment to something better.

Because it almost always will be.

Older Posts

Topics

  • Small Business
  • Work Life
  • Big Life
  • Small Towns
  • Big Brands
  • Popular Posts
  • Uncategorized

Subscribe

Get Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
View on Instagram

About Me

photo of Amy Swift Crosby

I’m a brand strategist and copy writer. I mostly work with partner agencies or directly with the leadership or founding team at a brand. My primary mission is to connect design and messaging solutions to business missions. I work with start-ups and Fortune 500 companies, across beauty, hospitality, wellness/fitness, CPG and retail. This blog reflects my personal writing and explores our humanity – often as it relates to work, space, time and language. You can review my portfolio here or connect with me here.

Photo - Andrew Stiles

The Brandsmiths Podcast



Brand Strategists Hilary Laffer and Amy Swift Crosby tackle business questions with candid, (mostly) serious and definitely unscripted workshopping sessions. Guests – from small business owners to CEOs, executive directors and founders – bring their head-scratchers, hunches and conundrums to Hilary, the owner of a boutique creative agency in Los Angeles, and Amy, a copy writer.

Search Posts

 

Latest Posts

  • Barefoot.
  • Mileage.
  • Everything.
  • Eddy.
  • Company.

 

Follow

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Copyright 2023 Amy Swift Crosby