Cirque du Soleil broke the rules of circus.

Their choreography, their costumes, their lighting, music, themes, action, experience… all new. All innovative. Different.

But when it comes to marketing… they buy ads. They promote corporate tickets. They put up posters.

Their marketing is just like everyone else’s.

If your marketing plan suits you and works, it doesn’t matter a tin fart whether it’s a plain plan. A prosaic plan. Even a boring plan.

Cirque du Soleil reinvented the circus. They didn’t need to reinvent ways to tell people about it.

And neither do you.

Have you felt the pressure to create and Interesting Marketing Plan? Tell us in the comments!

Everyone in their twenties has a friend like this. Let’s call him G.

He was an old school mate of The Dude’s, a triple-threat geek, and let’s say he had some… issues. He was that friend you tell stories about years later: “Do you remember that time G accused me of cheating at UNO?”

(True story.)

G was exasperated by many things.

One of them was my approach to Tekken. Since this was back in my nascent days of transitioning from gamer girlfriend to gamer, I was not very good at Tekken. I certainly wasn’t much good at it compared to G, who played all the time.

So I did what many a game-playing n00b has done, and tried out the classic Frantic Button Mashing Technique. Mostly, this lead to my defeat: I certainly had no capacity to remember which button would block my opponent’s attacks.

But sometimes, I would pull out some epic up-down-up-down-A-B-A-B combo that would eviscerate my opponent.

And that’s when G said it.

One of the first things I did when we got settled in the new house (and had a firm date for the Internet to get turned on) was to buy the latest World of Warcraft expansion pack.

And one of the very first things I did when the modem lights started announcing the connection was live was to install it.

I logged in with audible squealing and an enthusiastic welcome back from the guild of folks I used to raid with three times a week. “Welcome back,” they said. “You better level up your character fast so you can raid with us again.”

G got exasperated with The Dude, too.

The Dude was playing Gran Turismo, with his best epic-hairpin-at-the-end-of-a-straight screechy turny sound effects.

He was upgrading his car when G had something to say. “You shouldn’t use the Supra, you should use the Nissan Skyline. It’s a better car.”

“But I like the Supra. And I just won.”

“You would have won faster with the Skyline.”

And then he said it.

I finally got a nice long uninterrupted stretch of time to play WoW in. I logged in, all ready to complete quests, kill monsters, and upgrade all my gear. Level 90, here I come!

Then I found the pet battles. This is a new feature, and is essentially Pokémon as imagined by Tolkien on acid. We’ve been able to collect pets in the game since the beginning, and I’ve collected Many Of Them, but this is the first time it’s been possible to make them fight, and actively collect new pets.

I promptly abandoned my epic world-saving quests in favour of beating up squirrels with a floating skull.

Many hours later The Dude caught up with me and made fun of me. “Collecting all the Pokeymans, huh. Aren’t you supposed to be saving the world?”

I laughed, ignored him, and went back to trying to catch a rare Small Frog.

I liked playing with G’s Warhammer 40K army.

I liked the stories about Space Marines and cryogenic Emperors and blood for the Blood God.

But I wouldn’t actually play the game, which was much more math than I was willing to enjoy. Instead I’d paint my one Chaos Warrior and call him Goatdude, and tell stories about him and his friends.

You could see G thinking it.

Yesterday, we were talking about WoW and The Dude said, “I’m glad you’re enjoying the game so much. I’m not going to say what G would say.”

“What would that have been?”

“You’re having fun wrong!”

We laughed together. Yep, that’s exactly what he would have said.

That poor, miserable, son of a bitch.

It’s not just early-twenties Friends With Issues that have this problem.

I’ve seen business owners throw the same you’re-doing-it-WRONG tantrum when their buyers find uses for their work they never expected, and when the buyers themselves are people they don’t expect.

Sometimes, this anger is justified: I know I’d be pissed and taking major action if a group of neo-Nazis decided to buy my products.

But most often it makes as much sense as G, and his belief that we were having fun wrong.

Are there ever times when you should insist that people are doing it wrong? Tell me in the comments.

I’m at my best when I’m talking with insightful people. There is something about the fizz and the to-and-fro that inspires me to be smarter, wittier, kinder than I am by myself.

So I’m going to start a podcast. I’m calling it, simply enough, The Cash And Joy Podcast.

It won’t be me talking to myself in a quiet room, because that doesn’t sound like fun to me at all.

Nope, I want you there with me.

Each episode, I’ll work with one of you to solve a marketing or business strategy problem that’s stopping you from building your best biz from your best self.

I shall be doing my part with silly voices, dramatisation, and possibly the occasional song. You know, my usual coaching style.

When we are done, we’ll share the recording with the world. Because your problem is absolutely not unique, others can learn from it.

Do you have a problem that you can summarise in one sentence, and the bravery to talk about it?

Then fill in this application today!

This sounds neato. When will the podcast go live?

No idea!

I already have a half-dozen episodes lined up for the near soon. But the recording is the easy part.

I shall be techifying and prepping and cussing out Audacity for some time – I have learned not to make estimates, because this stuff always takes much longer than I think it will.

I shall let you know when the podcast is ready to go live.

If you want to be part of it, fill in the application today!