My friend Joshua Russell shares some hard-won lessons he learned from being a cowardly, flawed,  a*#hole. Not for the timid…

The Art of The Flaw

I’m going to tell you something horrible.

And, if you’re the kind of marketer who can’t get follow through from potential customers, or who has struggled with capturing sticky followers, then this will scare you… and it will change your life.

This is what I want to tell you:

I’m a coward.

You see, I’m an artist and I’ve been working as part of a writing team for three years now and, truth be told, I’ve put in the minimum amount of time possible as opposed to the maximum. I’ve been non-committal. When my co-writer and I would have a disagreement, often I would take things personally and become knee-jerk defensive. Worst of all, I’ve abandoned the project at times to jump onto another because it looked like a quicker buck or an easier score. I’ve been opportunistic. What I’m saying is, I’ve been an asshole.

Stop.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that this article is going to turn that statement on it’s head in a clever and cheeky way to make being a coward and an asshole a good thing. But that’s not what I’m going to do. Because being an asshole isn’t a good thing. It’s a bad thing.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve been a heroic and clever partner and that I have been exercising some hidden secrets of the universe that, if I were to tell them to you, would make you both rich and beautiful.

But that’s not true. The opposite is true. I have the secrets of the universe that rich and sexy people can use to get poor and ugly. And you know what’s worse than that? I have rich, sexy friends…. Like Perry Marshall (he’s sexy in a geek-genius sort of way, but that’s still sexy… more so every day, in fact)…

My point is that I have become a coward…

And my friend Perry Marshall has had a front row seat to the entire spectacle.

In fact, Perry has watched me completely, spectacularly, and utterly fail, publicly, at least three times. And (very likely to the surprise of many of you), I have watched Perry wrestle with stubborn personal issues of his own. I haven’t just seen Perry win. I’ve seen him fail. In fact, we’ve shared the ugly details of our small wars over coffee at Connie’s Restaurant in stolen early morning hours.

I’m friends with Perry Marshall.

And you know what? Over the years, Perry has given me real money, real time, and real love. He’s backed me and supported me and kept me in the ring when I was ready to duck the ropes. You might think this is a testament to how truly spectacular Perry Marshall is – and you would be right – but on another level, isn’t that what real friends do? They support each other because they trust each other. A true friend puts his money, time, and love where his mouth is and spends resources on his friends.

So what’s my point? How does this relate to marketing and why should you listen to a self-proclaimed coward and asshole?

Fair enough, I’ll get to my point.

My point is that you’ve been faking friendship with your audience and they’re getting smart to your antics. They get smarter and smarter every year because they’re adapting to the five billion marketing gimmicks that run past their hyper-adaptive brains every week.

How do I know you’re faking?

I know because you’re not being vulnerable.

Let me illustrate my point:

As I mentioned a moment ago, I’m co-author of an indie broad-audience science fiction book series called Universe Eventual. The first book, Chimera, came out last month (this whole article is a secret sales pitch/pyramid scheme that will suck you dry – stop reading!). As part of our launch, we sent out over 200 Advance Reader Copies of the novel to reviewers and bloggers. One consistent theme in the feedback we received was that a supporting character named Meghan was “very hard to like” and therefore distracting, since she’s supposed to be one of the “good guys.”

Of course, our first reaction was to “tone down” her flaws. You see, in the book, Meghan verbally shreds the protagonist, Theo, because she catches him in a huge lie. He’s in love with her of course, and so this hurts him on many levels.

Meghan dressing down Theo made the audience dislike her: “she’s way too bitchy,” read one note from an ARC responder. “Does she have to be such a square?”

Tone her down. Make her more likable. No brainer, right?

Not so fast.

Audiences, whether novel readers or those we hope to market our products and services to, are smarter and more human than we like to think.

When you tone down a character’s flaw, you reduce the conflict and therefore the tension. And tension keeps the audience on the hook. And isn’t that our goal? To keep our audience on the hook? To keep them captivated by your story, your process, your answers?

My co-writer and I think so. Which is why we didn’t change one thing about Meghan’s flaw. We left her as bitchy and square as she was before.

Instead of “toning her down,” we created a painful wound for her. How did Meghan become the sort of person who chews out her best friend? That’s what humanizes her, that’s what makes her captivating.

We bulked up her backstory and let the reader in on some painful details: Meghan’s dad was a chronic cheater and therefore a chronic liar. She hates liars. They remind her of how many times she’s been hurt before. How many times she’s had to ignore the fact that her family lives a lie.

She’s not just bitchy because it’s something to do on a Sunday afternoon. She’s hurting. In fact, she’s bitchy because she’s hurt.

Meghan knows she can be overbearing. That she wears her emotions on her sleeve. Most important of all: she’s fighting it. Like all of us. Working to become better, knowing we’ll never arrive, but working nonetheless, because we love each other… because we don’t want to hurt each other. Because we don’t want to create new wounds that result in new flaws.

Our ARC readers were stunned.

Meghan is as flawed as ever, but they love her. In fact, now the audience hurts for her and even feels guilty for judging her… “she’s bitchy.”

I admitted something to you at the beginning of this article that was genuinely difficult for me to admit: that I’ve been non-committal, knee-jerk defensive and opportunistic. That I’ve been an asshole. And I could have hidden that from you. I could have told you that I’m a story expert who has been teaching story at tier one university for eight years and that I’ve won countless awards for my work. That would be one version of the truth. That might convince you, at least for a moment, that I’m one of those people who holds the “insider secret,” that can make you rich and sexy.

But that wouldn’t make you care about me.

You want to hear a real secret?

Since I was a child, I’ve fantasized about being a truly special human being. When I was eight, I decided that I was an artist, and would earn my specialness through my art. I chipped away at drawing, writing, and most of all, making home movies. When I was twenty-five, I decided it was time to go big and I rallied every ounce of favor and love and money that myself, my wife (I was newly married) and my friends could muster and I made a film that cost four years of my life and $400,000.

When the film came out, my wife, my family, my friends and about a thousand other people involved in the project watched the thing roll over and die.

We didn’t make one dollar. Total failure.

The film destroyed my life: complete humiliation. Financial ruin. The whole bit.

After that, my confidence was shot. I felt like a pariah. Or a pirate. Limping through life with a peg leg and patch over one eye… all my scars on the outside.

And when it came to my next project, I played a coward. I became an asshole.

Do you get my point?

Here’s what I’m saying:

1. Tension is Glue.

2. Your flaws are essential for creating tension.

3. Vulnerability spins your flaws into affections.

To make your casual consumer a chronic consumer requires that you bring them closer. To let them into your imperfections. In a Ted Talk with 6.5 million views and climbing, Amanda Fucking Palmer (that’s her longstanding nickname, just ask Tim Ferris), talks about how she uses extreme vulnerability to build her audience. She crowd surfs at every show she gives. She couch surfs in stranger’s homes. She lets perfect strangers draw on her naked body with sharpies. She OWNS vulnerability.

You can watch Amanda Palmer’s TED talk here.

My point: be vulnerable.

Be brave.

Don’t hide your flaws.

Expose them.

In the process you won’t just gain customers, you’ll win yourself some true friends. Win yourself a sticky audience that will follow you through thick and thin. Win yourself lifelong support. This is the marketing guru ninja-master TKO move:

Vulnerability.

Here’s four action steps to get you going:

A) Rather than hiding your flaws under marketing gloss, incorporate them into your “story.” You are the protagonist of your life, of your business.

B) As a good protagonist does, clarify your goal and how you intend to overcome past obstacles to get there. Give examples of how you currently walk this out in business and life. This is the meat and potatoes of your story… the struggle.

C) Once your audience is slack-jawed from your counter-intuitive honesty, be even more vulnerable and share your wounds! Truth is stranger than fiction and being victimized defies reproach. You’ll win the trust, respect and empathy of your audience. No strings attached.

D) Never judge the haters, but nor should you cater to them. You have more important things to do: love the lovers. Pay attention to the sticky audience that rallies around your wagon. These people will be your lifeblood. Your inner-circle audience. Your friends.

This is the brave new world of audience-building: honesty that defies expectations and has real actual stakes. We don’t believe in the Photoshopped celebrities in Maxim Magazine anymore. We’re not satisfied with pre-packaged answers that risk nothing. This is audience-building for the brave and the bold.

Be courageous. Be vulnerable. Win your audience.

Joshua Russell is one-third of the authorial pseudonym, N.J. Tanger. His novel Chimera is out now and can be ordered HERE.