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b'\\u201cAll advice is bad advice unless it\\u2019s contextualized to you.\\u201d As marketers and brand builders, we get advice left and right. Do this, not that. Send this many emails. Write this many blog posts. This week, Jay Acunzo of the Unthinkable podcast reminded us that we need to always ask ourselves why we\\u2019re doing this and who we\\u2019re doing it for if we want to close the chasm between average and exceptional.\\n\\xa0About\\xa0Jay Acunzo\\nJay Acunzo jokes that he\\u2019s the world\\u2019s most passionate \\u201ccraft-driven\\u201d marketer. He is a highly sought after keynote speaker, writer, and host of the atypical-sounding podcast Unthinkable. Jay launched his career at Google as a digital media strategist, led content marketing for multiple startups, followed by the VC firm NextView, and today, he hosts his weekly show and travels the world exploring how people can trust their intuition to do more exceptional work.\\nEpisode Highlights\\nJay calls himself a \\u201ccraft-driven marketer.\\u201d\\xa0\\u201cAnything that\\u2019s craft driven is where the process is the point.\\u201d While your overall volume of work is important, ultimately you need focus.\\nThe chasm. As Jay defined his work on the Unthinkable podcast, he framed it as answering one question: \\u201cHow to be exceptional? There\\u2019s a chasm today between average and exceptional.\\u201d\\nHow do you bridge the chasm? \\u201cYou need an aspirational anchor. Something that you\\u2019re striving toward. If you \\u2018why\\u2019 something to death, you\\u2019ll find clarity.\\u201d Jay told us of Drift in Boston who ungated all of their content and ultimately grew their subscriber list.\\nHow can you get started today? As it\\u2019s the new year, I asked Jay if there was an easy exercise to move your brand toward the exceptional end of the chasm. \\u201cThere\\u2019s a real simple exercise. I call it an extraction.\\u201d Simply put, you find something from outside of your echo chamber or industry that you admire and you extract the aspects of their brand that make them exceptional. For example, you may want to be the Anthony Bourdain of business. How would you go about doing this?\\nWhat brand has made Jay smile recently? He pointed us toward Bill Simmons and the project he has going at TheRinger.com.\\nTo learn more, go to unthinkable.fm and follow Jay on Twitter.\\nAs We Wrap \\u2026\\nBefore we go, I want to flip the microphone around to our community \\u2026Recently Dylan Diewold gave us a shout for our 100th episode featuring Seth Godin. Thanks for listening!\\nDid you hear something you liked on this episode or another? Do you have a question you\\u2019d like our guests to answer? Let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #OnBrandPodcast and you may just hear your thoughts here on the show.\\n\\n\\nSubscribe to the podcast \\u2013 You can subscribe to the show via iTunes, Stitcher, and RSS.\\n\\n\\nRate and review the show \\u2013 If you like what you\\u2019re hearing, head over to iTunes and click that 5-star button to rate the show. And if you have a few extra seconds, write a couple of sentences and submit a review. This helps others find the podcast.\\n\\n\\nOK. How do you rate and review a podcast? Need a quick tutorial on leaving a rating/review in iTunes? Check this out.\\n\\n\\nRemember \\u2013 On Brand is brought to you by my new book \\u2014 Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small.\\xa0Order now at Amazon and check out\\xa0GetScrappyBook.com\\xa0for special offers and extras.\\n\\nUntil next week, I\\u2019ll see you on the Internet!\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'