Small Business Assumptions
What assumptions do you make about your business? About the way it operates? The amount of income it can earn? About the way your customers buy… even who they are?
In Chris Guillebeau’s brand new book, The Art of Non-Conformity, his mantra is:
“you don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.”
Chris challenges everyone to live the life they want, redefine work, and change the world. No short order. And his book is a beyond-basics guide for doing just that.
But I won’t spoil anything from the book, I just want you to think about that first guiding principle:
“you don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.”
At the heart of this principle, is that people make assumptions about the way you’re “supposed” to live. Whether it’s our parents or our friends or our teachers or even our children, we make assumptions about the way they view our successes & failures. Even more so, we make assumptions about what others expect from us. The thing about those assumptions is that they end up being self-fulfilling prophecies. They end up controlling us without having been given much consideration or even investigation to find out if they’re true. What assumptions do you make about what others expect from you?
Do you think that if you’re …
- an artist, you should be a starving artist?
- self-employed, you have no security?
- not happy, there are no other options?
- ta small business owner, you have to struggle to stay afloat?
- a responsible adult, you make a home & stay in one place?
If you know me, you know that I don’t believe any of those things. I agree with Chris –
you have the ability to create a life that is unique, passion-filled, and secure by following your own path.
I also believe that people’s assumptions are changing. That this kind of life is not so strange and that we have the power to challenge others assumptions and our own.
As a small business owner – or aspiring business owner, you instinctively know this already. But what you may not realize is that you’re making assumptions about your own business that could be holding you back. Do you assume that you:
- have to go it alone to make a profit?
- know what your customers want?
- have to keep prices low to get any business?
- need to put all your time into administrative tasks?
- must pursue balance at the expense of success?
Your business might be changing or maybe it was never the way you thought it was from the beginning. You’ve made assumptions about what it takes to turn a profit and how your customers interact with your brand. You’ve decided to push on through, to keep struggling, instead of waking up to the fact that things may not be as they seem.
Form your business around your hearts desires while forming your business with profit in mind.
You can create a life & a business that work together to make you happy, instead of opposing each other and leaving you frustrated.
Not every business idea we have is a good one, not every lifestyle decision we make is a positive one. But allowing assumptions about others expectations to dictate the course of our life is never positive.
Today, brainstorm what assumptions you’ve been making about your business. Examine what your customers want and how you’ve been delivering it. Dissect your product offerings, your workflow, and your business communication. Consider how your preconceptions have affected those around you. Allow yourself to devise alternatives. Embrace truth & reality instead of assumptions.
Today, I challenge you to have a business breakthrough.
p is for permission
Permission: do you have it? Can you get it? Do you foster it? Do you use it or abuse it?
Seth Godin published a fantastic – no, I use that word to often – monumental piece today called A Post-Industrial A to Z Digital Battledore. In it, he lists an almost alphabetical index of ideas that are defining the post-industrial age & the new economy.
I am reading it and rereading it. And I suggest you do the same.
While many future posts will be inspired by this resource, today is brought to you by the letter P.
p is for permission
In the past, advertising was obtrusive. We noticed it – it influenced us because it disrupted our routine — a commercial in the middle of your favorite TV program. It’s a pop-up ad on the internet or a door-to-door salesman. Sometimes these ads worked but over time, we began to be able to tune them out. Eventually, regulations & technology began to screen them out. Advertisers got nervous.
But with the dawn of Web 2.0, and certainly before, came the age of permission-based marketing — ads that we welcome into our homes & our lives because they are part of the context. Blogging certainly falls into this category. Product placement ads, Facebook fan pages, email newsletters, Twitter, and brand names on t-shirts those are all permission based too.
Some marketing is done with such style, grace, humor, or usefulness that it becomes a part of us. And we invite it in.
Are you seeking permission – and, better yet, excitement – from your audience? Or are you lambasting them with product pitch after promotion after poor ad?
It’s easy to say “get on Facebook,” “get on Twitter,” “network network network” – but is your brand message one of usefulness & style or one of self-promotion?
Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch aren’t just words on a t-shirt. Those words are a brand message that says cool, stylish, hip, sexy. The brand says, “If this kid is cool enough to wear me on his chest, certainly you’re cool enough.”
Does your brand speak to the people who give you permission to talk to them?
Or does it remain a silent distraction from the goings on of daily life?
500 million users & chris brogan can’t be wrong
Well, last week Social Media raced ahead with 500 million Facebook users. And this week, Chris Brogan announced that families run on Facebook.
Every demographic, every interest group, every religious & political group, every income level is represented on Facebook.
If you’re not using Facebook to market your business, you’re missing out.
Your customers are on Facebook.
When I worked for one of the big box bookstores with a capital B (there’s at least 3…), part of the mission of the company was to be the “third place.” We wanted to be that place you wanted to be when you weren’t home or at work. We were pretty good at that part… not so good at turning that affinity into sales though. But that’s a post for another day…
Point being, if you could provide an environment that offered comfort, style, entertainment, COFFEE, and a wee bit of education, you had great potential for being able to influence customers.
Well, forget “third place,” Facebook is the internet’s “second place.” As a society, we wake up, check our email, and then head to Facebook.
Using Facebook strategically & authentically, your business has the ability to insert itself into your customers’ second place. It’s an environment of comfort, style, entertainment, and education. All it’s missing is the coffee. Why, why can’t there be coffee?!
The good news is that building a brand on Facebook is easier than ever.
The bad news is that you’re probably doing a half-assed job. And, you forgot the coffee.
Consider these questions when building content for your Facebook page. Am I …
- speaking directly to my customer in a way that is meaningful to them?
- engaging my customer rather than broadcasting a message?
- sharing my entire brand message and not just promoting a product or service?
- building a community that is empowered to spread my message organically?
Providing content that considers those questions means that you’re not selling to your customers, you’re influencing them. You’ll have opportunities to sell down the line. Draw them in, build a community, get customers talking to each other. Selling – while oh so important – comes a little later. But it will come.