The S.W.I.P.E.S. Email (Friday November 11th, 2022)

Here’s some clever ways to turn boring data & stats into easier visuals:

1.) This was a clever way to spice up a boring “bar chart” and make it into a “Battery Bar Chart!” 📊

2.) Instead of boring bar charts show boring megaton data, this chart uses nuclear explosion visuals to show the different sizes of nuclear blasts.

3.) Instead of using words and data to describe lethality of different drugs, these viles each show a lethal dose of 3 different drugs, and shows how shockingly little is needed to overdose.

This visual hits home harder than plain numbers and data:

We are visual creatures. Our minds are ~6X likely to remember a message if it's combined with an image:

So if trying to get data across, sometimes it's beneficial to make it an image!

This is a neat quote:

Quote

“The amount of money a person receives will always be in direct proportion to the demand for what he does, his ability to do what he does, and the difficulty of replacing him.” 
- Earl Nightingale

This is a cool way to judge which career path or business to get into:
→ Demand for what you do
→ Your ability to do it
→ The difficulty of replacing you

In fact we could make a measuring scale out of this:
→ Demand for what you do (Rate 1-5)
→ Your ability to do it (Rate 1-5)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (Rate 1-5)

A janitor is a job associated with low pay because MOST people in the world are capable of doing the job.

If an average janitor needs to be replaced, it's very easy:
→ Demand for what you do (3)
→ Your ability to do it (3)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (1)

If an average brain surgeon needs to be replaced, it's very difficult:
→ Demand for what you do (5)
→ Your ability to do it (3)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (5)

I've given other note-taking and organization apps like Notion and Coda many solid tries....but I keep winding up back on Google Docs.

90% of what I love about Notion is being able to navigate to different pages quickly via it's sidebar menu.

If Google Docs had something like this, it would like beat the pants off any other up-and-coming app.
I wish Google Docs would add this functionality, like:

Editing a physical paper "back in the day" had a whole markup language of its own, shown in this graph:

If you were an editor or proofreader, you would know most of these!

I only knew two of these symbols: The "insert" mark ^ and the paragraph mark ⁋

How many of these symbols did you know??

Features -vs- Benefits is a common discussion in copywriting. 

Feature: Something your product has (ex "Water Resistant Cloth").
Benefit: Result after using your product (ex: "You stay dry in the rain").

For example you can sell the features of an umbrella: 
Unbreakable stems, wooden handle, water resistant cloth.

-or-

You can sell the benefits of an umbrella:
Keeps you dry in the rain, keeps the sun off when it's hot.

Selling the "benefits" of a product is usually the wiser decision. Even David Ogilvy said so:

My advice on the Features -V- Benefits debate is:
 

USE BOTH!

I prefer trying to sell the benefit, and backing it up with the features. So:

Love the use of "rhyme" to help people remember important stuff.....such as which bear to run from 😬

Something I got from people's comments on Twitter were Polar Bears are by farrrr the most dangerous bear!

• If they're Polars, they'll soon be spitting out ya molars
• If it's a Polar, you cannot control her

If you take away one thing from this email....it's don't play with Polar Bears 😂