Big Thinking, Business Brainstorm
Warning: What follows is a lede you probably never expected to see in a business publication…
In the last 4 months, I’ve found myself in a position to give online dating a go. I’m merely a dabbler, but the process has left me wondering about what lurks in the murky depths below the “matching & winking” at the surface.
When I initially wrote my profile, I made it big and bold. I used words like “ambitious” and “driven.” And I reasoned, if a guy is turned off by that, he’s not the right guy for me.
And that’s not untrue.
But it’s not the whole truth.
The whole truth is that ambition and drive are characteristics that don’t often lead to attraction. I don’t just say that because I’m a woman. Those same qualities in a man might mean he’s prone to workaholism or keeping relationships at a safe distance. Not exactly sexy.
Four months into this little personal experiment and I can say I’ve come to one conclusion.
I put “ambitious” and “driven” at the front of my profile for 1 reason: I wasn’t as serious as I thought about trying to attract attention. It made it easy for me to say “There are no good men on this site!” or “Men just can’t handle a woman like me.”
This week, I came across two resources on online dating that piqued my interest. First, a book by the founder of eFlirt Expert, Laurie Davis, called Love at First Click. The second was a Wall Street Journal article called “Hacking the Hyperlinked Heart.” Both are about online dating strategy. They’re based on loads of personal experience and gobs of research.
Last night, I adjusted my profile. I followed the advice in the WSJ article and toned down the work stuff, concentrating on what I like to do when I’m not working. I talked about being driven by curiosity instead of ambition. I led with my love of travel, lattes, and wine. I talked about cooking and eating out.
It was true. It was sincere. And it felt attractive.
Then I messaged a few guys, winked at a few more, and ate dinner. In the span of a few hours, I had more activity on my profile than I’d had in 4 months.
It’s a good (re)start. No telling where it will go from here, but I feel like I’m taking myself and my goals seriously, all the while not allowing myself to blame anyone else.
“What does this have to do with business?” you might ask.
I’ll tell you. Many business owners nowadays do and say a lot in the name of sincerity, authenticity, and transparency. Sometimes this takes the form of blatant over-sharing, but it can also take the form of not following through on a big idea, not polishing their sales copy, or simply ignoring solid practices because they want to do it “their way” in an effort to be different for different’s sake.
Just as I wrote my dating profile in a way that allowed me to blame the guys, many business owners choose to operate in a way that allows them to blame their potential customers.
“They just don’t understand the value of what I do.”
“If they can’t handle my honesty, I don’t want their business.”
“No one is looking for what I create.”
When you choose sincerity without a care for strategy, you set yourself up to lose. Click to tweet. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for. Though, I’d put my money on the cause being your fear of true success. It’s not that you’re trying to lose (who does that?), it’s that you’re fearful of succeeding.
You’d have to serve the big client. You’d have to write the book. You’d have to create the life-changing program.
You’d have to put it all on the line despite the uncertainty of the outcome.
Sounds pretty much like dating to me…
Strategy and sincerity are not mutually exclusive. The question is: Does allowing sincere communication to fit within a strategic framework make it less true?
I wholeheartedly believe it does not.
On the contrary, allowing strategy to be your framework for relating sincerity means you have a much better chance of actually communicating in a way that allows your customers to see the whole picture, understand how your business can serve them, and make a true impact in their lives. Best practices, tried & true techniques, and definitive strategy work because they shed light on what we share as human beings.
When you inject your own personal truth into a framework of strategy, your truth comes in contact with our most profound sources of connection. You can do the good you’re meant to do through your business because you give your potential customers the best chance of being attracted to what your business has to offer.
Like so many aspects of business today, it’s both/and, not either/or. Choosing to engage both sincerity and strategy is a winning combination.
But, business owner beware, if you start combining sincerity and strategy, you might actually have to go on a few dates.
—
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Art of Growth, Big Thinking, New Economy
“Only you can do what you do” is a pop culture principle of the microbusiness movement. But it only tells a very small part of the story. And in doing so, keeps the impact these businesses can make on their customers and the world–as well as their owners–very small.
Yes, you have a unique set of skills, talents, and experience. Nilofer Merchant calls this “onlyness” and my friend Michelle Ward, the When I Grow Up Coach, calls this “uniquity.”
You’d be remiss to underestimate what that adds to the value your business creates and how it engages customers. However, your onlyness or uniquity is not the value itself. It is simply a channel for that value. It’s a differentiator. It may be a selling point but it’s not what sells.
I see this misunderstanding stemming from one problem and contributing to another:
First, microbusiness owners–and predominantly women–all too often see their businesses as a method of discovering their self-worth and an engine for igniting their personal development. While entrepreneurship and business ownership can, in fact, be part of the process of developing both, it is not the source of either.
Business development and personal development are not one in the same. One might inform the other but your attention to both should remain separate.
“Only you can do what you do” tries to validate your specialness through your business.
But until you can stand confidently in your beliefs, experiences, and worth as a human being, your business isn’t going anywhere. You’re already special. You don’t need a business to validate that fact. And your business won’t.
Your business can’t make your special. You already are.
Click to tweet.
Let your business grow on its own merits not yours. Focus more on selling the value it creates for your customers and focus less on selling yourself.
Second, microbusiness owners use “only you can do what you do” as an excuse not to create leverage in their businesses. The adage blinds us to opportunities for scale. If only you can do what you do, then it reasons that you must be involved in every aspect of your business.
This is not the case. I’d much rather believe that you, in fact, can do what I do. But even if that doesn’t work for your business, it’s important to know that just because your perspective is unique, executing it is not.
Your perspective is unique, executing it is not.
Click to tweet.
What if instead of running yourself ragged, trying to do it all, you trained someone to act on your insight? What if your business was driven by your unique perspective and realized by others skill?
If you choose to forget “only you can do what you do,” what new ideas could you dream up? What new areas for growth could you explore? What ways could your business create a greater impact on the world?
— PS —
The Art of Growth, my book on redefining business growth for a new generation of entrepreneurs shares more ideas like this one. Grab your copy today.
Art of Growth, Big Thinking, Self-Care for Your Business
Business not as hot as you’d like? Repeat this simple mantra, “hustle.”
That seems to be the answer you’re most likely to find for all your woes. Write more, create more, network more, pitch more. Hustle.
Really? Hmm…
I don’t have an across-the-board problem with hustling. My problem with it is that it can easily lead to more ugliness than it solves.
When you’re measuring your work against the hustle imperative, it’s hard to see others success in perspective. You end up repeating others hustling instead of figuring out what actions would best serve your own goals.
The hustle imperative can also force you to work from a sense of scarcity. There’s only so much time, only so many tactics, only so many connections that count. You’re constantly racing against the clock and your own sanity.
It’s not that it doesn’t work; it’s that it’s exhausting.
Hustling is not the key to growth. It’s the key to getting individual things done, checking things off the list, sealing the deal. It’s not a long term strategy.
Growth is big. It’s expansive. It’s nourishing.
Growth requires effectiveness. It thrives on ease.
If you’re ready to grow your business–make a bigger impact, reach a wider audience, or generate more revenue, you need to focus on discovering what creates the most returns (as you define them) with as much ease as possible.
Doesn’t sound much like hustling to me. What do you think?
Let’s go a bit deeper with this conundrum, though. It’s not enough to say that growth is more about ease than hustle. There’s a pervasive belief that, while concentrating on ease, strengths, and core desires can lead to plenty of good feelings and a softer variety of prosperity, these things don’t lead to the kind of immense impact that hustling creates.
What I want to see in this new year of growth is a melding of ease & effectiveness with big goals & hardcore prosperity. It’s not a choice.
A brave approach to ease really can lead to bold growth.
Click to tweet.
As you begin to execute on your plans for this year, consider what bold growth might mean for you and your business: a bigger team, a shorter workday, 10,000 downloads, a life transformed, a 6-figure year, a book deal, a vacation, a baby, an investment. And as you’re tempted to do more and more and more to achieve that growth, remember that there’s a path–albeit, not well marked–by which you do less to reach greater success.
Effectiveness leads to expansiveness.
–PS–
My new book, The Art of Growth, tackles exactly this subject. How do you make a bigger impact with your business without working yourself to the bone?
Big Thinking, New Economy
It seems cliche but small – even micro – businesses are the backbone of our [global] economy. In the United States, 91.5% of businesses have fewer than 5 employees. And according to the US Census Bureau, $837 billion in sales are generated by non-employer businesses (businesses of one) in 2009. That’s equal to about 70 Apples. That’s big business.
Small businesses employ more people and turn more dreams into reality.
Small is mighty.
No doubt your inbox, mailbox, Facebook stream, and main street are littered with “Shop local” and “Support small business” flyers this weekend. Between cash mobs, Small Business Saturday, just general Black Friday backlash, you are feeling the heat from small business owners and their friends this holiday season.
That’s not bad.
But it’s not good either.
See, we are hurtling towards a new age in commerce where businesses are no longer big or small.
All businesses have access to the most powerful tool of the day: the network. Some use it, some exploit it, some ignore it, some serve it… but all have access to it.
What made business BN (before-the-network) a boys’ club was that only certain boys had access to the most important tool of the day: money. Money meant machinery, human capital, real estate, technology, training, supplies. Controlling financial capital (or being able to turn other assets into financial capital) was the only way to enter the market and do business.
But with power concentrated among those with access to financial capital, things got real uneven, real fast. The more things got uneven, the more financial capitalists saw an opportunity to squeeze profit & productivity out of human capital, environmental capital, and organizational capital.
In other words, we got the shaft.
So we started to see big business – financial capitalists – as the enemy.
“Shop local!” “Support small business!” Cash mobs, the maker movement, food trucks, the modern farmer’s market movement–they all developed in response to a system that had enslaved us and our culture for so long. For many–though certainly not all, these developments were fueled by Us vs Them energy. Rage against the machine.
But we don’t live the in the industrial age anymore. We don’t even live in the information age anymore. We live in the connected age or, as Nilofer Merchant refers to it, the Social Era.
It’s not the steel-fisted financial capitalists that hold the power.
It’s each of us, network capitalists, that hold the power. It’s distributed influence and it’s based on your ability to cultivate connections between you and others around you.
The Us vs Them paradigm just isn’t accurate anymore. A microbusiness, with just 1 or 2 people, can produce a video that is seen by millions. They can grow a subscription base that makes newspaper corporations swoon. They can develop apps that sell for a billion dollars. Small is powerful.
Perhaps small is more powerful.
“In practical terms, here’s what all of this means: a person or team anywhere in the world can create scale without being big.”
— Nilofer Merchant, 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era
(emphasis mine)
The problem is that the Us vs Them paradigm is what we’re accustomed to. It’s what we’ve always lived. So we tend to put people/business/regions/organizations in groups that need to square off.
The “versus” paradigm I see so often taking shape now is Unsustainable vs Thriving.
We’re cheering on those who have created businesses that don’t work, don’t create viable connections, and don’t grow. I’m all for cheering them on — but what are we doing to turn them into Thriving businesses?
Here’s an example: I shared a recent post on how “Facebook is not an advertising charity.” The article makes the case for how Facebook’s fairly new “sponsored stories” option is a triple win. It’s good for Users because they get to see better content, more often, from the people & pages they actually care about. It’s good for Facebook because, well, they make money and seeing how they’re a business, that’s important. It’s good for Page Owners (read: many small business owners) because it challenges them to create better content that will be shared well beyond the initial ad buy.
Every day it seems I see a small business owner bemoaning and condemning a change on Facebook. Generally, it’s not about privacy–it’s about cost. “Facebook is evil” was a comment that graced my screen a day or two ago.
Besides the fact that if you think it’s evil, you should probably not be using the platform, Facebook is a business. Their job is to make money (not unlike yours). To do that, they’ve built the most powerful social connection platform the world has ever seen. As far as I know, it’s the business with the biggest, broadest user base the world has ever known.
Facebook–like it or not–performs a huge service through it’s software. It will learn how to make money. It can (and probably will regardless) make money selling data. But it can also provide immense value to small business owners (that’s a helluva big market) by providing inexpensive, scalable, targeted advertising.
The problem is not that Facebook is evil. It’s that it’s successful (by many measures, if not financially yet).
Facebook, for it’s valuation and reach, it’s very small company with around 3500 employees.
Unfortunately, I see the “Support Small Business” movement as all too often trying to prop up dying business models. Mom & pop shops (virtual or analog) are often run in entirely unsustainable ways. They rarely translate sweat equity into financial equity. They often rely on cheap or free labor instead of trained employees.
I’m convinced that more-faster-cheaper big box stores won out in the Eighties and Nineties because the mom & pops more often than not failed to convince us that they had something better to offer.
I believe we’re not hardwired to prefer paying less, we’re hardwired to pay to get what we want.
Click to tweet that!
Big box stores figured out how to present a package that appealed to us. Small business has the same burden.
When mom & pops provide a package that appeals to us more than the big guys, we pay more, shop shorter hours, and jump through more hoops. But so often, they do not.
Small business abdicated power to big business not so much because the big business muscled their way into the domain of small and more often because small business had failed to deliver a compelling reason for customers to jump through the hoops.
Maybe you’ve heard how a new Starbucks can actually increase business for popular independent coffee shops?
The Us vs Them paradigm we use to celebrate small business glorifies failing business models and practices. It glamorizes the refusal to evolve.
This isn’t Us vs Them anymore. It’s not Small vs Big anymore. It’s us and them. It’s small is big. Small is mighty. Small is powerful.
But not if being small means relying on the generosity of others to prop up what is broken.
So my question is, how do we encourage small business in an era when small is mighty?
How do we celebrate small business in a way that acknowledges its immense opportunity today?
Click to tweet that!
Here are three of my ideas. I would love to hear your own in the comments.
Education is encouragement. Know a small business owner that doesn’t take credit cards? Introduce him to Square instead of cash mobbing him. Know a small business owner that is exploiting free labor? Let her know how much you value well-trained, engaged, attentive service.
Change public policy. Public policy in the United States was built for a different era of employment. With small businesses & freelancers, often unincorporated, becoming a larger & larger part of the workforce (estimates as high as 50%), we need regulations, policies, and laws that make the social safety net (including health insurance, worker’s compensation, unemployment, and bonus retirement savings) the norm for everyone.
Buy what you value. Don’t support a small business or friendly freelancer because they’re small. Support them because they create a quality product. Support them because they add value to your life through their work. Support them because they believe in the same things you do, whether they’re family, faith, the beauty of finely crafted single origin coffee, or the importance of a dozen different mac and cheese recipes.
So yes, shop local and shop small this holiday season. But don’t do it out of sympathy. Shop where your values and value-desired align. Shop where you can get exactly what you want, the way you want it.
Celebrate the opportunities that await small businesses today–not their shortcomings.
Big Thinking
On Friday, friend and client of 2.5 years, Rebecca Bass-Ching said to me, “I’m tired of dreaming small.”
Now, Rebecca doesn’t suffer from small dreams. She is an accomplished marriage & family therapist with an integrative, evidence-based practice in San Diego. Her practice includes other therapists, a dietician, massage therapist, and a yoga therapist/instructor. She’s on the hunt for more practitioners, as well.
Potentia Therapy is a big dream.
So her statement took me aback at first. I thought about it a little more.
What I think Rebecca was really talking about was the quest for something not yet envisioned — innovation.
She wants to innovate in the way she builds her practice, in the way she serves her clients, and in the way she grows her influence. She is tired of following a formula for success. She’s ready to forge her own path.
Most of us start by dreaming small. It’s the small dreams that encourage us & guide us. This regularly happens in the blogosphere. One person’s success leads to a litany of others who try to replicate it. But it also happens in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and main street. But, at some point, most of realize that dreaming small isn’t going to cut it. We wake up to the fact that things aren’t as they seem and either quit or look towards our own paths.
Of course, the difficulty in forging your own path is that you have to clear all the mental brush that stands in the way of moving in the direction of something that is not yet known.
In business, that means that you aren’t following the map of someone else’s success from tactic to tactic, but instead you are measuring every next step against the needs & desires of your customers.
Where before there was this-is-how-it’s-done imitation of others’ success, there can now be all manner of products, business models, and solutions that allow you to achieve your big dreams.
Your big dreams may take the form of an app, foundation, event, licensing, facilitation… or an as of yet unimagined kind of product.
When you’re tired of dreaming small, you’re really saying that you’re tired of dreaming others’ dreams.
Click to tweet!
You are ready to imagine all that is available to you, including that which might even have been imagined yet.
Innovation – dreaming big dreams for yourself and the people you are leading – requires unwavering confidence in your ability to deliver. It also requires the confidence to tell your customers where you want to take them. As Michael Schrage wrote, “They’re not stupid; they’re skeptical. They want to make sure they’re going in the right direction.” Offer a vision of where you wan to take your customers – through a message, an idea, a product, or a service – and they’ll gladly try something new.
The success of your business doesn’t rely on a formula — and it sure doesn’t rely on predictability.
You have the tools – a bright & clear vision and the ability to deliver – to imagine new areas to explore in your business that are anything but small.
The best thing you can do is get outside the comfort of the small dream you’ve been living up until now. Instead of seeking out the experts of the dream you’ve been dreaming, seek out the leaders of other dreams. Talk to business owners in other industries, other business models. Discover new ways of doing old things.
Allow yourself to connect the dots in different ways and you’ll find that you’ve got the schematics for a much bigger dream.
Big Thinking, personal
Today, enjoy a small break from strategy & economics. I’m writing in Tiffany Moore‘s Big Questions series. These are the kind of questions that lead to real dreams and true self-actualization. Will you get deep with me & nine other writers?
A week from today, my daughter, Lola, and I will be on our way to the coast. The Oregon coast. By car.
That’s a journey of nearly 3,000 miles. We plan to hit the Navy Pier in Chicago, the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Mt Rushmore in South Dakota, Yellowstone in Wyoming, and, if there’s time, Mt Saint Helens. I’ve never done anything like this before.
But that’s not what I’m afraid of.
I know I can handle myself on the road trip. I know that Lola will love it even when she’s aching to get out of her car seat. I know that she’ll be able to wow her pre-K classmates with tales of mountains, rivers, and forests. And I know she’ll have a renewed love of airplanes at the end of it.
Airplanes?
Yes, once we hit the coast, we’ll turn back around and head to PDX. At PDX, we’ll take a red eye back to Harrisburg International Airport, leaving my car on the West Coast. I’ll take Lola back to her dad’s house in Reading. And I’ll hop a flight two days later back to Oregon.
Follow that? Good, because I’m not sure I have my brain around it completely.
Lola’s dad & I separated almost a year ago. I haven’t written about it previously because, well, it doesn’t have much to do with business. But it is truly a story of two people understanding that they want different things out of life and that all three of us would be happier if we actually achieved those things, albeit separately.
And truly, all three of us are happier. Sure, there are some scars and plenty of things to still work through. But I have no doubt, as does my ex, and as does Lola, that this was the best course of action to take.
As part of this decision, I knew I would be moving. I had high expectations for the place I wanted to live: more like-minded people, more cultural activities than going to Target, and access to plenty of other cool spots. I planned on moving to Philadelphia because it seemed easy.
But I had this nagging feeling… “If only… if only… I’d be on the West Coast by now.”
As I sat pondering this feeling in late July, I had a glimpse of possibility. What if I was missing something? A perspective, a clue, a tidbit of information. Then I saw a tweet from Danielle about an interview she did with Gabby Bernstein about miracles. Yes, that’s it. I need a miracle.
“Miracles are a shift in perception.”
“The choice is usually just about being softer.”
I watched the interview in its entirety. But those were the two lines that really got me. I finished the interview and I sat with myself. I softened my gut, I quieted my mind, and I dialed in my heart. I erased the “can’ts” and “if onlys” and concentrated on possibility.
And I saw things differently.
I had a vision for co-parenting long distance. I had a trust in our ability to maintain a sense of family across this great continent. I saw the beauty of a child who understands what is important to both of her parents.
Then I texted my ex, “I’d like to talk this afternoon about the possibility of me moving to Oregon. Nothing to worry about.”
He, of course, worried. But we had an appointment to talk about other things that afternoon anyhow and so I told him my idea. I let him in on my vision of living most of the year in Oregon while Lola went to school in Pennsylvania. I would come back to PA in November, and then for many weeks for Christmas & New Year’s, and again over the Spring. She could visit me on the West Coast in the Summer. I would concentrate on creating really quality time & amazing experiences with her. Then we would reevaluate what was best for Lola, for him, and for me.
One day at a time, one month at a time, one year at a time.
He listened and said. “I know you’ve wanted that for a long time. I think it can work. Let’s talk about it more.”
So I moved ahead with plans and arrangements and hope. Trust & faith have enveloped the entire process.
In just over two weeks, the move will be made.
So what am I afraid of?
This is a gamble. What I am ultimately afraid of is that the gamble won’t pay off.
This is what I believe with my whole heart:
“One of the most important things we do for our children is to present them with a version of adult life that is appealing and worth striving for.”
— Madeline Levine
But my fear is that my daughter won’t see our lives that way. My fear is that my daughter won’t remember growing up with the advatnages of bicoastal living; she’ll remember being abandoned. My fear is that my daughter will still let others expectations dictate her own life choices. My fear is that my daughter won’t open her own heart to miracles.
Of course, that’s not the truth. Fear rarely is.
And few things in life (and business) are as big a gamble as we make them out to be.
I have faith. I have trust. I have love. And that’s what I will offer to my daughter instead of fear.
And she’ll know that the big gamble is the only truth we can know.
***
Update: I’m closing the comments on this piece only because I believe each & every one of your amazing comments deserved a response and I simply can’t keep it up anymore!
One thing I want to clarify, and I think this is extremely important, is that this move isn’t about “following my dream.” For me, this is about the journey to create a new experience of life both for myself and for Lola. Lola is lucky to have a close-knit family unit in the town she has so far grown up in. But there are other things that a lacking from that experience. Both her father & I see this move as an opportunity to both pursue the life I want to live and to pursue a full & rich life for our daughter.
This post isn’t advice. And it’s not an account of a singular decision. Just like everything in my life, it’s the story of an unfolding process. It’s experimentation. I believe that life in the 21st century allows us to live with the beauty of uncertainty in a way that we’ve never been able to before. My family embraces that uncertainty and we’ll maintain the flexibility that is required of us to make it work.
Miracles & all.
