Who Runs Your Business?
Who runs your business? Like most business owners, you think you’re in the driving seat when it comes to making the important decisions about how you run your business.
Are you really?
Have you ever sat back and asked yourself “Is this how I really want to live and work?”
If the answer is a resounding “Yes!”, well done!
Or, maybe you’re doing what most start-ups, small businesses and self-employed are doing?
– following what others tell you you ‘have to’ do to be successful
– following what others tell you you ‘have to’ do to earn a certain ROI
– following trends that tell you what ‘success’ and ‘self-worth’ mean in business
If you’ve answered “Yes” to any of the above, read on.
How to own your business
There is another way to run your OWN business, you know!
You start by learning how to own your business.
That means YOU make the important decisions. To do that, you don’t start at the end point – the financial outcome (ROI)
You start at the beginning – with YOU.
– Start by defining the lifestyle YOU want to live, e.g. how much time you want to work, your lifestyle needs, what values determine your decisions, identify your strengths, talents, experience, etc. and focus on developing and strengthening them.
– Calculate how much you need to earn to live that life
– Then design & run your business around THAT
– Ignore the rest.
Setting your own business goals
More and more business owners are doing just that, particularly young start-ups and service-based professionals. They are setting the outcome according to their needs, values and lifestyle choices, not by what the market tells them and not according to the business commandment “that’s the way it’s always been done”.
And the difference?
You now work in your FLOW, not struggling and constantly pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.
You’ll be far more effective, i.e. successful, happier and truly running your OWN business in your OWN way.
You’ll be a role model for those looking for real alternatives to the conventional hustle and struggle model of running a business.
How are you actually running your business now?
Following the guidelines set by others, or working in your flow?
So, back to our initial question: Who runs your business?
Talking Business – so people want to listen
How to talk about your business so that people want to listen to you? Too few business owners ask themselves that simple question. It’s a pity. Because the answer could radically change how you run your business.
My conversation with Jerry began with his question: “How do I get people to listen to me without trying to own the whole room?” He’d just returned to the networking scene after a two-year pause due to Covid.
How to talk about your business is a problem for most, but particularly for quiet, private professionals and business owners like Jerry, who are genuinely interested in having a conversation with a few people at these events, instead of ‘playing the room’. And his dilemma is just as applicable to the online world.
The Alternative way to Communicate
What Jerry wanted to know was this: could I offer him an alternative way to communicate beyond the standard solution – shout louder and longer as a way of being heard (which doesn’t work anyway)? He wanted to learn this essential business skill: how to talk about your business so that you easily reach the right audience.
Yes, I could. But it’s not a simple, one-step solution.
Basically, to get people to listen to what you say, YOU have to first become a better LISTENER yourself. Remember the basic principle of successful communication. People are more willing to listen to you when they feel heard by you.
Becoming a better listener is about becoming an ACTIVE listener, not, as is often suggested in the abundance of cheat-sheets on the topic, someone who simply nods, interjects with a “mm-hmm” and summarises what the speaker has just said. When we ‘perform’ the act of listening, we are focused on ourselves and our own responses, not on what the other is communicating. Active listening demands our undivided attention on what the other is saying.
The Art of Active Listening
Active listening is about engaging, interacting with the other. It’s a two-way exchange – it’s a dialogue.
Dialogue is about listening deeply to what the other is saying with interest and curiosity, reflecting on it with openness and non-judgement and only then responding. We can respond with relevant questions which let the others know that we didn’t just hear their words. Our questions tells them we want to understand them better, know more about them, go deeper.
The opposite to dialogue is a one-way broadcast, or monologue, usually a series of monologues in the fashion of a game of tennis, with each side trying to score a point, i.e. win the argument as in the art of debating.
Practising Dialogue
So how do we practise dialogue in our daily business interactions?
Here are ‘few’ dos and don’ts to help you recognise the difference between dialogue and monologue – and, of course, choose the better option. They don’t just apply to quiet, conscientious people, like Jerry, nor to your business communication. They are relevant for how you communicate in every aspect of life.
Don’t:
- start talking about yourself. Start by discovering who the other is.
- use buzz-words and jargon. They are empty fillers and they kill dialogue (how ‘super’ and ‘awesome’ is everyday life?)
- put forward you opinions and beliefs as ‘The Truth’. It puts the other on the defensive immediately
- try to impress or convince with arguments. They are counter-productive – and they also kill dialogue.
Do:
- speak in simple, clear, direct language
- go for being your imperfect, real self, not some ‘best version’.
- choose honesty instead of influence. It’s one of foundation stones to building mutual trust
- strive to understand what drives the other – especially if it challenges you
How we communicate is how we live
Dialogue is a way of communicating and how we communicate is how we live and how we relate to the world around us. In our increasingly polarised world, isn’t it time we all learned and practised the art of dialogue with each other?
And if you want to know more about how to practise dialogue, check out my services page here or just send me an email to arrange a chat.
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Advice for the Self-Employed
I’ve been self-employed for 10 years after spending decades of my working life in permanent, pensionable jobs. My advice for the self-employed is based on real, on-the-ground experience.
When I made the decision to jump into the unknown, I got a lot of encouragement from some and a lot of criticism for others – about 40: 60 (criticism 60%).
There was no middle ground in the advice I received, even though none of those who gave me advice had ever been self-employed. It was either ‘go for it’ or ‘you must be mad’.
Advice as hidden agenda
I didn’t ask for advice, but advice poured in from both sides. And in those outpourings, I saw that my decision to become self-employed was touching people’s own buried dreams or their secret fears. Their advice masked their own hidden agenda.
I didn’t expect that my personal choice would make so many people uncomfortable – remind them of their unfulfilled lives, confront them with their insecurities, expose their deep unhappiness with their ‘success’, etc.
So, ten years later a lot of water has flown under that bridge.
I’m older, wiser and happier than I was back then.
And I’d do it all again – only sooner.
My advice for the self-employed
Recently I was asked by a group of younger self-employed consultants what advice would I give after my 10 years.
Here’s my top 3.
1. Your Well-being
Make your well-being your non-negotiable top priority. I worked in environments where ‘busyness’ was the mark of your worth and it led to enormous suffering, self-effacement & sickness.
2. Build Relationships.
You cannot run a business on clicks and numbers. Invest in the long-term, because that’s where the gold is. Create a mutual support group – you’ll need it in the lean times and in the good times. Ask for help when needed – and you’ll need it. Invest big in client relationships because the return is huge.
3. Know Thyself
Invest your energies in what flows for you and outsources what doesn’t flow. What that means on the ground is this. Don’t work with clients who don’t ‘get you’ and your service. Practice saying NO to what doesn’t float your boat and what drains your energies.
Is there a hidden agenda in my advice?
If there is then it’s this. The self-employed life is both challenging and rewarding. To keep a healthy balance you have to take care of yourself first. And to do that well, learn to identify the following:
– what devours your energies; what gives you energy
– what is aligned with your values; what compromises them
– what brings you the most joy, what creates the most struggle.
When you pay attention to those issues, the day-to-day decisions in your self-employed life fall into place.
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Storytelling in Times of Crisis
Storytelling is about creating connection – it’s an essential part of building trust and relationships with clients, customers, affiliates and investors. This blog is about the role of storytelling in times of crisis and how it helps us survive them.
As a Storytelling Consultant and someone who worked on the relationship between story and trauma for over two decades, it is sobering, tragic and painful to follow the crisis in Eastern Europe and around the globe.
We know that the war and suffering of today are tomorrow’s trauma, which for the most part will be left untreated and unhealed.
So what has storytelling got to do with war? Does it even have a role to play when lives are being destroyed every second?
While stories don’t stop bombs or bullets, nor bring back lost loved ones, stories are a form of power in times of crisis. Stories are a different and very important form of power.
A different form of power
For so long history, with its claim to objective truth, was given prominence in how traumatic events were remembered and who remembered them. That has changed over the last two decades as stories about experiences that were once silenced are now being told.
Stories bear witness to those experiences and their aftermath.
Stories are the voices of those who managed to survive the despots and their war machines. They are also the voices for those who didn’t survive.
And stories are the memories for the individual and for the community in the present and the future. That’s vital for the other form of survival – how do we make sense of what we’ve witnessed?
If stories connect us, then in times of crises, they connect us with the past, help us emerge from the silence and build relationships in the future.
How Stories give Meaning to Experiences beyond our Reach
It’s the stories we tell that help us give meaning when meaning is well beyond our reach. In times of crisis the writer Ursula K Le Guin shows how art and story do that:
“One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience. There are always areas of vast silence in any culture, and part of an artist’s job is to go into those areas and come back from the silence with something to say.“
I’m sure another great writer, Maya Angelou, was also referring to storytelling as a sense-making tool when she said that in times of trouble, the artists go to work. The Nobel Laureate for literature, Toni Morrison, echoes this sentiment. Here’s how she put it:
“Certain kinds of trauma visited on peoples are so deep, so cruel, that […] only writers can translate such trauma and turn sorrow into meaning, […] A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.”
It’s artists and writer that help create the future out of the silences and the ruins of the past.
And a society that doesn’t support and nourish art and artists leaves itself defenceless in times of crises.
Marketing for Introverts
I specialise in marketing for introverts. That means I help my clients be heard, seen & found in a loud and noisy world, without compromising who they are (quiet, solid, sincere) or how they do business (value-driven, hype-free, client-centric).
When Eugene, who fits the client-description above, asked my opinion on a new offer he was about to purchase, I was actually stunned.
The glossy, sales page promised a template for all your business communication needs. It was written and packaged according to every cliché, gimmick and ‘hot’ tactic in the book. (One template is free, but to get the whole package you have to buy the full, over-priced course!) Does this sound familiar?
Do not sacrifice your uniqueness for a one-size-fits-all template
– Why would Eugene, a quiet, honest professional, buy a product that promised to remove his own voice and replace it with a bland and hollow template?
– Why would he sacrifice his uniqueness to disappear into a sea of sameness?
Like so many self-employed & small business owners, Eugene offers a unique, personal service that he’s customised over the years for his niche. He’s truly one-of-a-kind, who cares deeply about his work and his clients.
And that’s precisely what makes him stand out.
However, Eugene doesn’t see it that way.
He doesn’t value his unique way of doing business because he is not even aware of it. Like so many conscientious, quiet business owners, Eugene struggles with marketing, especially with social media.
He explained to me why he thought this expensive offer would solve his marketing problems. It would allow him to get away from the pressure to be active ‘out there’! He doesn’t find social media ‘easy’. In fact, he finds it exhausting and stressful.
The online world of communication was designed for extroverts – for people who love the excitement of being part of social activities. They feel energised ‘out there’ and thrive on pubic platforms.
Between 15% and 25% of us are not. And Eugene is one of them.
Marketing for Introverts
What are the options for introverts?
Erasing our uniqueness with a conventional template is NOT one of them.
I already talked about alternative approaches to marketing here beyond the conventional ‘pitch-approach. Here’s some simple advice I give to my clients:
Don’t try to fit into a world that was not designed for you. Instead, focus on developing your unique voice and speak only to those who ‘get’ you, i.e. those who value your approach and your service.
And how do you do that on a practical level?
You can connect with those who value you on social media without having to create a personality or presence that are not aligned with who you are. Instead of trying to shout louder than everyone else and ‘go viral’, take a more strategic approach. Aim to connect on a human-to-human basis with fewer people. That allows you to build your credibility and connections slowly and more organically.
The same approach applies when you attend a networking event. Connect at a personal level with one of two people. Listen to them. Ask questions. Respond to their answers and let the conversation develop organically. The best way to make an impression with someone is to let them know you’ve heard them, that you’re interested in them as a human being and not just as a click or a number.
Communication begins with developing your own unique voice. It’s not something you can achieve in a week or a month. It’s a process that develops as you develop. To get you started on that important journey, check out my self-study course here.
It’s one of the best investments you can make in your business.
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Your Bio – Your Story
If you’re in business, then you know that Your Bio or Your Story is one of the important brand stories you need to help you communicate core information to your potential clients: Who you are and What you do.
You personal story, or bio, is one of your important brand stories.
Dos and Don’ts of writing your Bio
Here are a few things you should be aware of when writing your personal story:
- Your Bio is NOT a summary of your CV. It is NOT a linear list (often in reverse chronological order) of your career, starting with your education.
- Your Bio is your personal story, so it follows the structure of a STORY (before – turning point – after). And like any good story, it should arouse curiosity & interest.
- Your Bio is a condensed version of your personal story. Depending on the platform, aim for between 50 and 150 words. Your Bio, like all your communication, benefits enormously from a ‘less is more’ approach.
One of the main features of your story is this. It should connect you on a personal level with potential clients, so drop the hype & hollow phrases. Write as you would talk to someone who’d like to get to know you, i.e. without needing to convince the other how ‘passionate’ and ‘committed’, and ‘awesome’ you are. To do that successfully you have to first own your story, then share it in a way that engages the reader on a personal level with you. And keep it simple – simple stories facilitate communication as I’ve pointed out many times.
What is the purpose of your Bio?
Contrary to popular tends, it’s NOT a text version of your favourite selfie.
It should create credibility in the reader/potential client who doesn’t know you that you are capable of doing the job you claim to do and that you are someone they can trust to do the job well.
To create that credibility your story should build confidence in the READER, not, as is often the case, demonstrate your confidence. It’s the reader who needs to find a reason to have confidence in you and subsequently wants to connect with you.
Want to test whether you Bio fulfils its purpose?
Have a read of your Bio, then ask yourself:
“If I didn’t know this person, would I consider hiring him/her?
And if reading your Bio doesn’t produce a definite YES, then maybe it’s time to get some professional help so that it does just that!
Why not get in touch and arrange a free session or email me directly.
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The Tyranny of Productivity
Like the annual business review, our New-Year-Resolution ritual belongs to a culture that celebrates the tyranny of productivity. Our obsession with goal-setting and to-do lists is a self-imposed method of monitoring our output and adjusting our productivity accordingly. We almost always adjust our productivity upwards.
Covid has Exposed the Mirage of the Promised Secure Future
Why do we willingly participate in an end-of-year ritual that gives us a false sense of control over our lives and our future? Is it because we have become so convinced that our worth in the workforce and our self-worth can be itemised, monetised and measured by living a ‘productive’ life?
If the crisis created by Covid has taught us anything it must surely be that the price of living a socially-approved productive and successful life is enormous. We have sacrificed our physical, emotional and spiritual well being for the promise of a secure future for ourselves and our children. In less than two years that promised future has turned out to be a mirage.
The Home Office has Given us Time to see how Empty our Full Lives actually were
As we finish our second year working from home we’ve learned that the home office is certainly not the perfect answer to the work-life-balance question. But we’re also discovering that is has potential to become close to that when both sides are willing to be open and flexible. Shattering the 9-to-5 daily routine has given us new options about how we want to live. It has also given us is more time to discover what our best options are.
Covid has also given us time to reflect on the lives we were so busy living we never had the ‘time’ to question whether this was the life we actually wanted to live. Covid put the brakes on our busyness. When we came to a standstill we could clearly see how empty our full lives actually were.
For all the misery and pain Covid created, it also gave us the down time we strove for with our to-do lists, but never achieved. We never earned that longed for down time because our to-do list was never empty. Reaching our goals demanded that we amplify more, optimise more, strategise more … We were so busy being busy, we didn’t have time to notice just how tyrannical our productivity goals actually were … until we were no longer so busy.
A New Year – Without the Tyranny of Productivity?
So how do we move forward into the New Year without falling victim to the updated version of the tyranny of productivity? Here’s one simple option. Instead of trying to manage our lives more efficiently, we can begin to create lives that give us joy, fill us with a sense of personal fulfilment, open up new creative possibilities, allow us to prioritise our well being, etc. And still find satisfaction, enjoyment and reward in our work.
Instead of goal-setting and to-do lists, we could take the advice of the great 20th century poet R. M. Rilke and savour the space in our lives that allow us to finally create the life that serves us best:
“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been,
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Alternatives to the Sales Pitch
As we emerge into the ‘new’ normal, there is no better time to test ethical and effective alternatives to the sacred cow of conventional marketing. It’s time to find alternatives to the sales pitch and here are a few simple suggestions to get started.
What if we stopped doing the following:
- perfecting the sales pitch
- framing our offer in 7-digit outcomes
- emphasising the fear-of-missing-out argument
- boring everyone with our contrived rags-to-riches success story
It’s Time to Ditch the Sales Pitch
When interacting with potential clients here are some alternatives to the conventional sales pitch.
What if we:
- stopped talking so much and ditched the monologue-pitch altogether?
- slowed down, switched to a dialogue-mode and started having a real conversation?
- didn’t push our offer onto the potential client as the silver-bullet-solution and instead asked them questions to discover where they really need help and LISTENED to their response?
- communicated with them as if the sale was not our primary concern but building trust and giving value were?
It’s time to take an ethical, human approach to business
What if we decided to take an ethical, human approach to how we do business?
If you’re wondering about the viability of switching to an ethical approach, here’s something you should know as we slowly emerge into a post-pandemic world:
There is a growing mass of people looking for exactly that approach right now: viable and ethical alternatives to the sales pitch.
Are you ready to step up and provide it?
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“Risk my public credibility?”
It’s a challenge to get your communication ‘right’ – achieving that special blend of professional competency and personal connection. Yet, so many professionals and business owners have long ago sacrificed their humanness for the sake of public credibility.
The Great Divide
One of the main reasons is that the business world still considers ‘professional’ and ‘personal’ to be opposite ends of the spectrum. Despite many achievements in bringing the two ends closer together, many businesses still see such a merger as too risky.
And that’s exactly where Robert, a highly skilled engineer in his early 30s, was stuck when we started working together. Robert had managed to get funding for his start-up while still finishing his studies and had eventually launched a micro-business with a university colleague. However, even though they worked 24/7, they had serious issues attracting enough clients to survive.
Robert had spent his life gaining academic credentials and working in his specialist area. Only as a business owner did he hit the communication wall. He hadn’t yet realised that people do business first of all with people – who can also prove their expertise and professionalism. Robert believed that he could skip the first step – human connection – and focus solely on his professional credentials.
It wasn’t hard to identify Robert’s problem connecting with clients. He talked exclusively in scientific and business jargon. Even as he explained why he had contacted me, he could only talk about the problems of ‘leveraging’ and not having the ‘bandwidth’ yet.
Robert clung to the idea that professionalism and personal were polar opposites even when I mentioned how they could actually compliment and enhance each other, especially in the way we communicate. “I can’t risk my public credibility”, was his definitive response to my suggestion of replacing the jargon with a more personal style.
What’s behind the public credibility argument?
Once I began to scratch beneath his public credibility argument, another layer of Robert’s communication problem appeared.
When I explained the importance of communicating person-to-person to build rapport and trust, the deeper issue emerged. Robert emphasised how much he “hated” the way so many businesses “rolled out intimate details of their personal lives as a cheap trick to get attention.” As a quiet, private person, he found such open sharing of personal details in public very intimidating and even embarrassing. He also explained how challenging he found engaging with the public at trade fairs and marketing events. All he really wanted, was “to do the work he was good at” and not have to be part of that “fake world of marketing and social media”.
Until now, Robert had ‘solved’ the problem of engaging with people at public events by distributing expensive brochures from behind his trade stand. He had actually hired me to ‘redo and improve’ the PR-material. His hope was that distributing ‘better’ PR-material would somehow solve all his marketing problems.
Better PR-Material is not the Solution
It was a challenge explaining to Robert that the solution was bigger than re-doing his marketing material.
I assured him there was a huge difference between having a personal conversation with someone and sharing irrelevant, personal details. Also, as a conscientious person, he didn’t have to engage in the fake-it-till-you-make-it approach to marketing his business. He did, however, need to find a strategy that was aligned with his personality and worked for his business, too.
Jargon as a Mask
Using and overusing business jargon is often a mask to hide behind. Sometimes it’s to hide a lack of expertise and experience. Or, as this article claims, it’s a tool used to hide the “rise of meaningless work”. It’s also used in the workplace to exclude those who don’t speak it. And, as this article puts it, using jargon “is a form of control. If you can get people to talk like you, you can get them to think like you.”
In Robert’s case, he used it to protect his privacy and shield himself from the sleaze and over-sharing that dominate a lot of marketing styles. But as Robert slowly learned, there are alternative marketing strategies that are very effective.
One of them, as I’ve pointed out here, is to develop your own voice as a marketing tool that is aligned with your values, your personality and those you want to work with. To find out how to do that, check out my short self-study course on developing your voice.
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How to be heard in a noisy world?
Have you noticed how noisy it is ‘out there’ and how it’s getting noisier by the nano-second as more and more ‘hot’ tactics and glitz are rolled out? The increasing noise level raises the question ‘how can we be heard in a noisy world so that we can be found by the right audience?’
However, It’s not just that is getting more difficult to be heard in a noisy world. There’s also something else going on, as Sarah, one of my clients, pointed out recently.
“Why is everyone sounding more and more like copy-and-paste versions of everyone else,” she asked.
She’d just read a new post by a ‘respected’ coaching professional, who she said, “should know better”. (i.e. she’s been in business for some time!).
According to Sarah, she’s now talking about “deets” and “peeps” and her every post is now “a thinly disguised ‘pitch’ that I can see coming from the first sentence.” Then she summed up her frustration:
“I can’t feel the person writing these posts anymore with all the fancy words and tricks, so I’m not going to bother reading them!”
I’ve noticed the same trend, too, and find myself unsubscribing and un-following more and more to what I call ‘template junk’ content.
Why are we sacrificing our voice at the altar of algorithms?
Why are we sacrificing one of our greatest assets – our unique voice – to the algorithms?
What I mean with ‘voice’ is not just the ‘how’ of writing (style, language, etc.). It’s also about how you show up in your communication – having your own perspective, the topics you choose to write about, the way you interact with the reader, etc. Having a voice is about having a distinctive identity that others can see, feel, sense, identify and hear. It’s about showing up as YOU!
In a world that seems addicted to the automated ‘clicks & likes’ game, isn’t it important to stand back and just be yourself?
The pressure to conform
Being yourself, however, is not so easy in a world where the pressure to conform is enormous.
When clients ask me how to be heard in a noisy world, I encourage them to develop their voice. There is an immediate resistance to my advice and they generally give me a list of reasons on what is holding them back.
This list below includes the most common ones, but it’s certainly not comprehensive:
- No one would want to listen to them if they used their own voice. (If you haven’t tried, how can you know they won’t want to listen?)
- The voices that are seen and heard ‘out there’, i.e. the ones that have high numbers of views & likes, all sound similar. (Numbers don’t automatically convert into paying clients)
- They’re afraid that using their own voice would expose them in a public space, which makes them feel very vulnerable. (If you concentrate on connecting with your own audience, it greatly reduces the ‘dangers’ of being exposed)
- Using the same language as everyone else makes them feel like they belong to the group. And having a sense of belonging is important to them. (Exchanging your identity and individuality in order to fit in, is a very high price to pay)
The benefits of developing Your Voice
While the pressure to conform and fit in is huge, it also overshadows the benefits of developing your voice. And it does take courage to take that step.
Not only do you enjoy the freedom to discover your unique voice and express yourself in way that feels aligned with who you are and what you do, it makes it so much easier for those looking for you to find you. As I’ve already pointed out in relation to your story, your voice is also your USP.
Why is speaking in your own voice one of the best ways to position yourself to be easily found?
Because your voice acts like an antenna for those on your wavelength. They are the people already tuned into the service or product you provide and how it can help them.
Developing your voice also helps distinguish you from the crowd. It makes you ‘one of a kind’ for an audience that will spot you immediately.
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