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The Shortcut
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
The secret to overnight success is that there is no such thing as an overnight success.
Here’s the formula.
DO GOOD WORK x TIME = OPPORTUNITY TO SUCCEED
This is how a self-published Kansas mother of three became the number #1 Amazon Business Bestseller in a week when ‘online influencers’ backed by big publishing houses launched books.
Crystal’s success didn’t happen because she wrote and published a book. It was built one blog post, one new subscriber at a time.
It turns out that taking the first step and caring enough to do it again and again is the shortcut.
Image by Dade Freeman.
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Making Things Happen
filed in Entrepreneurship, Worldview
Making things happen is about making a choice.
The question you need to ask is “What do I want more?”
This or that?
Another slice of cake or smaller hips?
More time on Facebook or focus and increased productivity?
One more mind map in your notebook or something for all the world to see.
The best part is, that like puppeteer Kevin Clash you get to choose what you bring to life.
You get to decide what you want more.
If not this then what?
Image by Dan Thompson.
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The Story Is Your Advantage
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
“Whoever tells the best story wins.”
—Annette Simons
This is the whole truth, and it scares all kinds of people, from creators to scientists, fledgling entrepreneurs to established brands. The best man doesn’t always win. It’s not enough to be bigger or better, and that frightens us because our understanding of the world comes from what we were taught at school.
The best students get the best scores, get places at the best universities, get the best jobs, have the best life.
That’s a myth. Every day people who are ‘good enough’ succeed because they tell a better story.
It seems easier to sell features and benefits.
The facts.
Things we can easily explain.
A concrete advantage.
But anyone can make and sell a better widget for cheaper than you can tomorrow. There’s another genius across town writing equally elegant code. Your job then is to build the great thing, but to care enough to tell the best story you can tell about it too.
People don’t buy your widget, your app, your code, your smart phone, your music player, your homemade cupcakes, your fresh flowers, your candles, your music, your computers, your front row seats, your hand poured candles, your organic soap, your graphic design, your printing, your coaching or even your 7-inch tablet.
They buy how it makes them feel.
The story is your advantage.
Image by Robin Robokow.
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Speak Human
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
The new perspex sign in the toilets of fast food restaurant read…
“It is our intent to provide you with the cleanest possible facility.
If the room needs attention please notify a Manager.”
I stood in the mirrorless bathroom looking at it for some time wondering how this was supposed to make me feel. There was no room, no time, no budget and no thought for a mirror, and yet someone had carved out a way to make this sign work. A ‘manager’ with a capital ‘M’.
If you go to the trouble of speaking to your customers, speak their language.
Write like you speak. Speak like you care, not like you’re trying to impress.
Give them what they want, not what enables you to put a tick in a box.
If you’re selling bananas, sell the bananas and do it like you mean it.
Image by littlevanities.
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Selling The Facts
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Front row seats. That ring in a certain ‘blue box’. 70% dark chocolate. Business class flights. Pumpkins at Halloween. Botox. iPad mini. Frappuccino. 12 months gym membership in January. Free range chicken. The bestseller everyone is talking about. That black BMW. Vitamins.
The honeymoon suite. Gluten free bread. Wrinkle cream. Overnight shipping. Black stockings.
$50 charity donation. Recyclable toilet paper. Muesli bars. Car insurance. Low fat yogurt.
A trip to Paris. Nike running shoes. Red roses on February 14th. Private health insurance.
The collectible album. Angry Birds. A college education. Fireworks. A kitten. IKEA furniture.
People aren’t buying the facts.
They’re buying how what you do, and how you do it makes them feel.
So why are you selling them the facts?
Image by Pietro Izzo.
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What The Cold Caller Forgot
He forgot to think about you and not just him.
He forgot you were busy.
He forgot to work hard to add value and build an asset over time.
He forgot to give before trying to take.
He forgot that you don’t care about his emergency.
He forgot that he can’t buy your permission.
He forgot that without permission he has nothing.
He forgot you don’t like being interrupted.
He forgot that he can’t create demand in a moment just because he needs to.
He forgot to care that it was time for dinner.
Image by Nathan Rupert.
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Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
The tiny suburban cafe is full to bursting every day. It’s become more than a cafe really. The early morning cyclists punctuate the end of their ride at the tables on the pavement outside. Their last stop before heading off to work for the day. It’s the place where young mothers grab a takeaway coffee once the school run is done. Where the lone businessman catches up with his email, and tops up with espresso before he heads off into the fray.
The place is buzzing, they’re doing great, but they could always do more. They get plenty of helpful advice about the possibilities. You should do this and that. Why not open another branch? Set up a twitter account? Take SMS coffee orders? Open for dinner and on and on.
Yes, they could do all of this, or none of it, but how do they decide?
The husband and wife owners think about the story they wanted to tell in the first place. About being a community cafe where people come not just to drink great coffee, but to feel that they belong. And they choose. They choose not to scale because scaling will take them away from their vision and further from where they wanted to be. They decide that they are not willing to sacrifice joy and fulfillment for growth.
They choose because they understand what will take them closer to their goal.
There are a thousand and one tactics you can use to grow your business, but each one is useless unless it aligns with your strategy and keeps you on the road you want to be on.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
You get to choose the story you tell.
Image by Peter Morgan.
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The Bottom Line
filed in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Strategy
There’s an irony about entrepreneurship or starting a business and it’s this. When you begin you’re obsessed with the starting part. Just starting it seems is enough. You may have a vision for what could be, but there is not so much pressure to get there in the beginning. Once you’ve succeeded a little it is expected that you will find ways to scale.
When people ask you how business is going they generally want to know if your bottom line is heading in the right direction. Are profits up? Are you expanding or growing? And so business success is defined by one bottom line. A single metric.
It turns out though that many successful entrepreneurs don’t begin by focusing on just one bottom line. Visionary leaders, who build lasting brands don’t simply concentrate on revenues and profits. They begin with the ideal. They start with a problem they are itching to solve, or with the will to change something and the desire to make a difference.
If money is your only metric then you lose sight of the reason you’re in business in the first place. If you have one way of measuring your success then those numbers are what you focus on, and while your attention is there you forget what made your business successful in the first place.
The words of Neil Gaiman is his commencement address apply to entrepreneurs, creatives, freelancers, aspirational startups and MBAs alike.
“I decided that I would do my best in future not to write books just for the money. If you didn’t get the money, then you didn’t have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn’t get the money, at least I’d have the work.
Every now and again, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me hard and reminds me. I don’t know that it’s an issue for anybody but me, but it’s true that nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever worth it, except as bitter experience. Usually I didn’t wind up getting the money, either. The things I did because I was excited, and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I’ve never regretted the time I spent on any of them.”
—Neil Gaiman
Pay attention to the bottom line. Just don’t put your whole focus there.
Image by Becky McCray.
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How To Get To Do The Things You Want To Do
filed in Entrepreneurship, Worldview
The best way, the only way in fact, to get from where you are to where you want to be is to begin.
You get to do what you want to do by doing it.
Maybe not all day every day at first, but it’s easier than ever now to start.
Decide what you want to see in the world.
Then go make that happen.
Image by Zen Sutherland.
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Practice The Art Of Making People Matter
Walk along any suburban street. Sit in any cafe. Listen to telephone conversations at the airport lounge. Here’s what you’ll find. Everyone is having the same conversation.
The early morning gym junkies, the startup hub members, the mothers catching the train to work, the fathers in the book store and the teens glued to their Facebook walls. All worrying about the same things. Each with similar hopes and cares despite their differences.
All wanting to feel that whatever it brings, that this day, they mattered.
How are you helping your customers to belong and to feel that they matter?
Image by Ed Yourdon.