Brian Clark, a blogger that talks about the art of copywriting and a guy I highly respect published an article today talking about the comedian Steven Wright. If you’ve never heard his stuff (Steven Wright’s that is) it’s absolutely priceless. His whole act is delivered very deadpan and monotone and is just one long string of one-liners after another.

I had never heard one of them before that Brian brought up, but it immediately resonated with me.

“Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.”

Gee…I wonder why that hit home? That may be a joke to some but to me, it’s deep truth

I thought I’d play along and have some fun with small business lessons you can learn from Steven Wright:

“I have a box of powdered water. I never know what to add.”

- Lesson: don’t make a product in search of a problem.

“I recently got a new camera. It’s so advanced, you don’t even need it.”

- Lesson: keep it simple.

“I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, “Got any shoes you’re not using?”

- Lesson: keep your eyes open for opportunity

“I went to a garage sale. “How much for the garage?” “It’s not for sale.”

- Lesson: Make sure your marketing messages are clear and above all, the prospect knows exactly what you can help them with.

“I’m a very difficult size to shop for; I’m an extra-medium.”

- Lesson: always be on the lookout for those under served niches.

“The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.”

- Lesson: understand your customer and what their pain is.

“When I was in school the teachers told me practice makes perfect; then they told me nobody’s perfect so I stopped practicing.”

- Lesson: don’t listen to those critical voices (especially the one’s inside your own head).

“I bought some batteries, but they weren’t included - so I had to buy them again.”

- Lesson: don’t nickle and dime your customer and lose an opportunity to make them say “wow”. Include the batteries.

“If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.”

- Lesson: don’t be afraid of failure. Edison failed hundreds of times to build the light bulb. When asked how he felt about the failures, he said he didn’t fail, he merely found hundreds of ways that didn’t work.

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