Turn It Up to 11
Turn It Up to 11
Why Authentic Commitment Is Your Greatest Marketing Strategy
The Stoplight Concert
Let me set the scene.
It's a Tuesday afternoon. I'm in my car, minding my own business, cruising to my next stop. The radio is cranked, and I mean cranked, because Def Leppard is on. "Rock of Ages” to be specific.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking: Def Leppard? 80’s rock? Aren't you a Beatles guy?
Yes. Yes, I am. Lifelong Beatles devotee. British Invasion evangelist. 60s and 70s rock purist. Guilty as charged. But I have a confession to make: Def Leppard is my guilty pleasure. Power chords, soaring harmonies, gritty guitar riffs that could peel paint, and loud. Gloriously, unapologetically loud. When they come on, the volume goes up. All the way up. Past the polite zone. Past the neighbors-can-hear-you zone. All the way to what I can only describe as the concert zone.
So, there I am, at a stoplight, fully committed to my one-man arena rock experience. Windows up, air conditioning on (it’s Florida after all), singing my heart out. There may have been some steering wheel drumming involved. There may have been some head movement that a generous person might call headbanging, and an honest person might call enthusiastic nodding.
And then I notice the car next to me.
A carful of teenagers had rolled their window down. Which is impressive, because my windows were up and they apparently heard the show anyway. Rather than looking at me with the particular mixture of pity and horror that teenagers usually reserve for adults behaving badly in public, they were pumping their fists and singing along.
We had a whole thing going. A genuine, joyful, cross-generational, stoplight rock concert. For about 30 seconds, we were all in the same arena.
Then the light changed. They waved, laughed, and drove away.
I sat there for a second and thought about what had just happened. I'm 67 years old. White hair. Driving what can only be described as a conservative SUV. And I had just successfully rocked out with people who could have been my grandchildren.
I probably should have been embarrassed. I was not embarrassed. I was delighted.
And then, because I genuinely cannot turn off the part of my brain that sees business lessons in everything, I thought: there's something here.
The Spinal Tap Principle
If you've seen the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, you know the scene. Guitarist Nigel Tufnel proudly shows off his custom amplifier. The volume knobs on this amp don't stop at 10. They go to 11.
"But does it really make it louder?" the interviewer asks.
"Well, it's one louder, isn't it?"
It's one of the funniest moments in rock comedy history, and it's also, whether Rob Reiner intended it or not, a perfect metaphor for the difference between adequate and fully committed.
Most amplifiers stop at 10. Ten is plenty. Ten gets the job done. Ten is professional and reasonable and nobody complains about ten.
But 11? Eleven is what happens when you stop worrying about adequate and just go for it. Eleven is commitment without apology.
Ten feels safe. Ten feels responsible. Ten feels like the right volume for a conservative SUV driver with white hair. But ten doesn't punch through glass.
Here's the thing about entrepreneurship, especially for those of us doing this later in life, building something new after decades of career experience: there is a massive temptation to play at a ten. We know enough to know all the things that could go wrong. We've seen enough to understand how we might look if this doesn't work out. We've spent years in environments where measured and professional were the highest compliments anyone could pay you.
Ten feels safe. Ten feels responsible. Ten feels like the right volume for a conservative SUV driver with white hair.
But ten doesn't punch through glass.
Volume Alone Is Just Noise
Now here's where I want to pump the brakes, just slightly, before we all go crank our metaphorical amps.
Because loud, by itself, doesn't work.
We've all encountered that entrepreneur. The one who is everywhere. Shouting. Posting constantly. Showing up in every inbox, every comment section, every networking event, talking at volume eleven about... something. You're never quite sure what. Their energy is high, their presence is impossible to ignore, and their message is somehow completely forgettable.
That's not commitment. That's noise.
Those teenagers at the stoplight didn't pump their fists because the music was loud. Loud music coming from a stranger's car usually just makes you want to drive away faster. They pumped their fists because they could feel that the music was real.
This wasn't background ambiance. This was a person genuinely, joyfully, completely in the moment with something he loves. Something he's loved for sixty-something years, starting with Beatles records at eight-years old.
Authenticity isn't a marketing strategy. It's not a tone of voice or a brand guideline or a carefully calibrated "personal brand." It's just... actually meaning what you say. Actually caring about what you do. Actually being the thing you claim to be.
When that's real, people can feel it through glass.
The Combination That Punches Through
So here's the framework, and it's simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker, or a t-shirt:
It has to be real. And it has to be loud.
Not one or the other. Both.
Real without loud: You have genuine passion, genuine expertise, genuine value to offer, and nobody knows it. You're the best band nobody's ever heard of. You're playing a great set in an empty room.
Loud without real: You're everywhere, and nobody rolls their window down. You're generating attention without generating connection.
Real AND Loud: Teenagers pump their fists at a stoplight. For a 67-year-old in an SUV.
I believe this so strongly, I created a t-shirt for it.
We know what we actually care about. At 25, you're still figuring that out. At 50, 60, 67, you have decades of evidence. That's not a small thing. That's an enormous competitive advantage.
This is especially relevant for encore entrepreneurs, people like us, building something new after substantial careers. Because here's the thing: we have an authenticity advantage that younger entrepreneurs simply don't have access to yet.
I've talked before about the MIT research on 2.7 million startups, the finding that 50-year-old founders are 2.8 times more likely to succeed than 25-year-olds. Part of that is experience. Part of it is judgment. Part of it is knowing which problems are actually worth solving because you've lived long enough to encounter them.
But part of it, and this is the part nobody talks about enough, is that we know what we actually care about. At 25, you're still figuring that out. At 50, 60, 67, you have decades of evidence about what lights you up, what you're genuinely good at, what gets you talking in parking lots well past the point where you realize you've been standing there for twenty minutes.
That's not a small thing. That's an enormous competitive advantage.
The only question is whether you're willing to turn it up.
What Does "11" Look Like for You?
Turning it up to eleven doesn't mean yelling. It doesn't mean posting seven times a day or paying for ads you don't need or wearing a sequined jacket to your next Zoom call. (Although I would like to note that my stoplight concert suggests loudness is about commitment, not aesthetics.)
It means showing up fully. It means saying the thing instead of the cautious, hedged version of the thing. It means letting your content actually sound like you wrote it, not like a committee of Very Responsible Adults approved it for public consumption.
It means telling the Def Leppard story even though you know some people are going to read it and think, this guy doesn't seem like a serious, mature adult.
And then noticing that the people who actually needed to hear it felt it through the glass.
Here's what eleven looks like in practice:
If you have a point of view, share it. Not the diplomatic "on one hand, on the other hand" version. The actual one.
If your story is weird and specific and a little embarrassing, tell it anyway. The weird specific stories are the ones people remember. (Exhibit A: the story you just read.)
If you love something, classic rock, baseball, fly fishing, mid-century modern furniture, whatever it is, bring it into your work. It's not a distraction from your expertise. It's evidence that there's a real person behind it.
And if you find yourself at a metaphorical stoplight, wondering whether the people in the next car will judge you for the music you're playing, turn it up.
Keep Rocking
The light changed. They drove away. The whole thing lasted maybe thirty seconds.
But for thirty seconds, age was irrelevant. The vehicle was irrelevant. The hair color was irrelevant. There was just music, real, loud, joyful music, and a bunch of people who could feel it.
That's all marketing is, really. Finding the people who can feel what you're putting out. Not tricking them into noticing you. Not performing something you think they want to see. Just turning up the thing that's genuinely, authentically yours, loud enough that the people who need to hear it actually can.
Your audience is out there.
Give them something worth rolling their window down for.
Keep rocking.
Alan McKee is the author of The Amplified Entrepreneur: Building a Business That Rocks and the founder of AmpMyBiz.com, a business education platform for encore entrepreneurs — professionals 50+ who are ready to move from background singer to headliner. Previously founder of Netwurx Technology Group and co-founder of Acurata Hospice Software Solutions.
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