We often try so hard to be something, to say something (important) that we actually forget to relax. To just have a conversation. To be authentic in our dialogue with those we know, or those we don’t know.

I have Adam Duritz from Counting Crows to credit for this blog post. For changing my world view on marketing. And for most importantly inspiring me to stop trying. To just BE. To be ME.

Yes, I work for Zinio. I wear a brand. I wear my own personal brand. We all do.  But underneath it all is just one human being needing to talk to another. To share a funny, to share a tear, to educate one other about something novel you or I have just discovered. Multiple those like-minds into tens, hundreds, thousands…you soon have a single conversation that evolves into a tribe, and that tribe sparks a business.

Adam challenged me and hundreds more at Pivot Conference this past week to “just be yourself”.  He stripped away the academia, the buzz words, even the industry tendency to get caught in tactics-by-tools and brought it all back simple truths – that marketing is about connecting people with similar passion points. It’s about having real conversations.

If you too would like to hear more of Adam’s viewpoint on people and social commerce, read and listento the Zinio Living Magazine interview. You can also listen to his session on the live stream recording from PivCon (see Day 2, 3:14).

Enjoy. And happy conversing. Be real and be genuine with your customers. The rest and most memorable part of the journey as a business will follow.