Last week, entrepreneur, angel investor and author, James Altucher, created a cyber-stir when he published, “10 Reasons You Have To Quit Your Job In 2014.” It is well worth spending around five minutes to read it. The article is one of the best I’ve read that both defines the current job reality and challenges those who yearn for the status quo.

Gone are the days when you could just show up for work, put in a regular 7.5 hours in a day and then go home, secure in the thought that as long as you weren’t caught stealing or punching out your boss, the job was yours indefinitely.

Instead, those who have faithfully performed their job duties (no more, no less) have often been the ones shown the door when massive layoffs occurred. Others who have experienced health issues that took them out of the office for a few weeks, have found that when they returned, their jobs were either “re-structured” or gone altogether.

Just as the new economy has shifted the tide for employees, so it also has for getting new business.

It used to be simple. Buy some radio, newspaper or television ads and talk about the great features of your product or service. Throw in some good-looking models and you were done.

That was marketing.

But now the interruptive-style of marketing has given way to permissive-style marketing. Buyers no longer want to be disrupted during their daily routines. They want to choose when they see marketing, how they receive it, and what they view.

Marketing departments are in chaos. Ad agencies are having to make a huge adjustment to how they serve their clients. It will obviously be an ongoing process of testing different approaches to see which one resonates better than another.

Marketers realize that “business as usual” is gone. You can’t just clock into your cubicle and keep churning out the same crap that worked in 1997. Now it’s all about telling a story, engaging your buyer and getting across the “why” you do what you do, not so much the how.

In Altucher’s article, he says this:

The only retirement plan is to Choose Yourself. To start a business or a platform or a lifestyle where you can put big chunks of money away. Some people can say, “well, I’m just not an entrepreneur .”

This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. Or be an entrepreneur at work. An “entre-ployee”. Take control of who you report to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side. Deliver some value, any value, to anybody, to somebody, and watch that value compound into a career.

What is your other choice? To stay at a job where the boss is trying to keep you down, will eventually replace you, will pay you only enough for you to survive, will rotate between compliments and insults so you stay like a fish caught on the bait as he reels you in. Is that your best other choice? You and I have the same 24 hours each day. Is that how you will spend yours?

I see the same scenario playing out on the business side.

So here’s 10 reasons why you must break out of playing it safe and start playing a bigger game:

1) Marketing is a moving target and you better be, too. I was just listening to Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose’ podcast, This Old Marketing, and they were talking about “failing fast” (Episode 22). The days of taking 4 – 6 months to plan a campaign are over. With the speed of the Internet and the immediacy of social media, you simply don’t have the time. Your audience wants relevant information now. Today. Not six months down the road. There are certainly larger projects (white papers, video productions, trade shows) that will require more planning and executing time, but overall, businesses—every business, from small to enterprise—needs to move faster on their initiatives.

2) Buyers are looking to join a cause. Simon Sinek explained in his famous TED talk: people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it (“How Great Leaders Inspire Action”). Sinek used the example of Apple because it’s a well-known company that uses this approach. He says this:

If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this: “We make great computers. They’re beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?” “Meh.” And that’s how most of us communicate. That’s how most marketing is done, that’s how most sales is done and that’s how most of us communicate interpersonally. We say what we do, we say how we’re different or how we’re better and we expect some sort of a behavior, a purchase, a vote, something like that.

Here’s how Apple actually communicates. “Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?” Totally different right? You’re ready to buy a computer from me. – Simon Sinek

Buyers want to feel good about their purchase. Buyers buy Pepsi-Cola because they buy into a fun, trendy lifestyle. Buyers want to feel cool. Part of a club. Smart. Accomplished. How does your company make them feel?

3) Get over the fear of rejection. I’ve spoken about this in my bi-monthly newsletter, Morning Copy. When you start to market more often, you may have the fear that you’ll be seen as a spammer. Email a list more than once a month? Definitely. Some email their lists on a daily basis. Give your list every opportunity to opt out of the list. Make sure they know where the opt-out button is and let them know frequently they can (and should) use it if your information no longer brings value. If you’re focused on helping your clients, customers and prospective buyers, then don’t worry if anyone calls you a “spammer.” You know you’re bringing the good stuff and that’s all that matters.

4) Resist the temptation to be clever. In my blog post, Writing Headlines That Work: Part 3, I talked about a car sharing company that tried to be cute with their taglines. It didn’t work. Companies that try too hard to be witty with their marketing often fail to attract their audiences. Your marketing needs to persuade someone to buy something. If it just entertains someone, then it hasn’t done its job. Clever creative may win agency awards but it often doesn’t increase sales. Take the time to discover your buyer’s concerns and desires. Then create copy that will grab her attention with a proposition that is irresistible.

5) Don’t do what everyone else is doing… be different. Look at your competitors. Make sure to take a look at 3 – 5 of them. Do they all have the same marketing message? Can you distinguish one from the other? Whatever it is they’re doing, don’t do it. Take a different path. Carefully examine what you have to offer and identify why you’re different from the rest of your competition. Take a risk. Don’t be boring or predictable. Do something surprising and delight your customers. The more you can stand out, the better.

6) Make sure you know your unique selling proposition forwards, backwards, and inside-out. As some companies have grown, so has the complexity of their offering. Using Apple again as an example, they’ve grown from a computer company to an entertainment device company. They’ve added audio (iPod, iTunes) and visual (iPad, Apple TV) to their product line. But throughout their growth, they’ve stayed true to their core proposition: Think Different. Whatever they’ve done, they’ve pushed themselves to create products that are different and challenge the status quo. Their fans expect this, now—to the point that if the newest version of a product doesn’t deliver amazing features, they’re disappointed. The more you know your USP, the more you’ll improve your marketing efforts.

7) Use the metrics you’ve got. Measurement has become… complicated. But every business needs to get a handle on it, otherwise they’ll miss out on creating marketing assets that will truly be remarkable. Take a look at what pages on your website are getting attention. Which blog posts were the most popular? Is your audience viewing your website and marketing collateral on a mobile device? If so, how does it look? What can you do differently to make it a better experience for them? Pay attention to the numbers and ask questions. But make sure you go beyond the asking and implement what you’re noticing. Make those numbers work for you.

8) Be agile. Be responsive to trends and use social media to create content that is relevant to what your audience wants. This goes along with #1. Marketing is moving faster because our attention span is moving faster. Trends are also moving faster. Whenever you catch something new that seems to be bubbling up, take advantage of it by testing it to see if your audience will like it. If your audience doesn’t seem to hang out on Facebook as much, pivot to Snapchat or Instagram. The point is that you need to be open to new things and test them constantly to find what works.

9) Learn to tap into your buyer’s emotions. A copywriter’s maxim: People buy with their heart and justify it with their head. Too many companies try to focus on presenting a logical reason why a buyer should buy from them. A more effective approach is to use emotions to catch their attention and keep hammering on those emotions throughout your marketing. Fear and greed are two of the most powerful emotions that exist. Either your buyer wants to avoid something (fear) or gain something (greed). Find a way to work emotional appeals into your marketing. You want your buyer to be magnetically drawn to your offering. That magnetism is not a product of the logical part of the brain. It comes from the heart.

10) Look for ways to have a conversation, because this is what it’s all about. You bring value to your buyer but you’re also looking to start a conversation. For that, you need to have places set up to have one, such as Google+, Instagram, and Twitter. You need to be responsive. This doesn’t happen through publishing a blog post once a month. Be interesting. Post photos of your work environment and give some insight about what you’re doing. Add some fun to a Monday by posting funny videos. Share inspirational quotes. Give your opinion on a new trend. All of these will generate conversation. And please… for the love of all that is good and holy… respond to your fans. Nothing is more frustrating to a customer than when they comment on a company’s social media page and NO ONE responds. It’s a quick way to kill any interest from them.

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So make sure you’re taking a good, long look at whatever you’re doing in business and ask yourself, “Is this engaging the people I want to engage? Or is it putting them to sleep?” The race is on for your buyer’s attention. You’re not just competing with your top competitors for it. You’re competing with Netflix, iTunes, podcasts and TED talks. Your buyer has a dizzyingly array of information trying to capture her attention. You’re just one more blip to investigate or ignore.

You must be alert and flexible. You also have to consume an insane amount of information, yourself, in order to stay current. But ultimately, you have to know and love the soul of your business and explain clearly to your buyer why she should care.

Because if you don’t, why should she?