December 14, 2018

World’s Best Cup Of Coffee

There’s a scene in the movie Elf where the main character Buddy (who grew up at the North Pole and is visiting New York City for the first time) sees a sign in the window of a greasy spoon diner that says:

“World’s Best Cup Of Coffee”

Upon seeing this, Buddy bursts into the diner and exclaims:

“You did it!!! Congratulations! Wow, the world’s best cup of coffee! Good job everyone!”

https://youtu.be/dvaja9AE2rs

The reason this is funny, of course, is that everybody except Buddy knows that the sign is not true.

It’s just a baseless claim that is probably meant more as decoration than anything else.

Here’s the thing...

I see software developers and other independent professionals make the same sort of baseless claims all the time on their websites, social media profiles, and other marketing materials.

Claims like:

“Rails Experts”

“JavaScript Ninja”

“Marketing Guru”

“Sought-After Speaker”

“Best-Selling Author”

Epithets like these, when expressed about oneself and lacking reference to a third-party, are not credible, not persuasive, and do not build trust.

They don’t project “street cred” because they are unverifiable.

Compare the previous list to the following:

“Rails core contributor and three-time winner of Rails Rumble”

“Creator of the jQuery JavaScript library”

“Agency behind Apple’s ’Think Different’ marketing campaign”

“Most-watched TED speaker of all time”

“50 weeks at the top of the New York Times best-seller list”

See the difference? Boasts vs facts. As the old saying goes:

“It ain’t bragging if it’s true."

Yours,

—J

BackRandomNext