When you listen to my songs, you hear messages and real stories. That's what's setting me apart.
I'm very business-minded. I think that's something that sets me aside from other drag queens.
Think of a pitch in terms of advertising: You're trying to hook a reader the way a commercial tries to hook a detergent user.
It's not about creating something that eight billion people would like. It's about creating something and being able to reach the maybe, like, one million people that would like it a lot.
There are people that bring artists to me to look at it and it's a question of whether I like their music and their look and if I think there's something they have that makes them different and commercial.
The first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise... and cultivate the delightfully vague.
You have to be dope; you have to find an audience and reach that audience with your identity and your message.
Bars can't be everything to everyone. They must be everything to someone.
If you are going to be a big personality, you've got to have some kind of characteristic gimmick.
In the past, the U.K. got away with selling things that weren't unusual. Now it's no use trying to export without having something that's unusual and better.
Do I really want to do a mobile game that's one of 300,000, where discoverability is everything? You really have to have a little more sizzle on the steak. I would rather be one of 100 apps for Google Glass than one of 300,000 for iOS and Android.
I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can't do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can't get, because... you know... I don't have the tattoos; I have a different image.
You got to have a gimmick in this got-to-have-a-gimmick world.
When you're thinking about your next product or current product and wondering how to make it different so you don't have competition, understand the job the customer needs to get done.
I thought the marketing was really smart and really clever and unique at the time. It positioned 'Saw' as a horror film that was different from the other horror films that were in the crowded marketplace.
Figure out your niche and maximize it.
You can't compete with Walmart. But you can have smaller businesses that are successful.
I told the Mucinex people, 'You picked me because I always sound sick'. They were like, 'Well, it doesn't hurt'.
If you're different somehow and have made yourself unique, people will find you and pay you more.
If all you're trying to do is essentially the same thing as your rivals, then it's unlikely that you'll be very successful.
We've found that the more niche you are, the better off you are.
Never expect that your startup can cover every aspect of the market. The key is knowing what segment will respond to your unique offering. Who your product appeals to is just as important as the product itself.
I've always avoided making being a woman my main asset and unique selling point. If it is then you'll start seeing other women as competition, and that's the last thing you need when entering a very male-dominated field.
Don't change a thing. That's one of the best gimmicks a band could ever come up with.
No publication is a staple of life. It's not bread and water. You have to make it noteworthy in people's minds and even in their hands as they're holding it.
