5 Ways to Say “No” to Being Predictable

“Gosh honey! I’m so apathetic! Today, I shuffled over to that average deli and ordered myself a dime-a-dozen turkey sandwich. I tell you what, that service there was almost pleasant and the people were just passable and generally tolerable. I think I will go back tomorrow.”

People don’t get excited over average sandwiches and passable service, so why are you running your business the way that you have been told to? The last thing that our current economy needs is more businesses to think like other businesses. We need people unafraid to unleash their ideas.

Check out this video of a guy who refuses definition:

Here are 5 lessons from the video on Pete Carroll:

1. Repeated failure is not necessarily an indication that there is something wrong with you. Perhaps, you just have not found what works, or you need to change your definition of failure. Carroll couldn’t win in the NFL and was despised upon entering USC’s campus, but he did not let past failures stop him from pouring himself into new opportunities. What is stopping you from working in the arena that you are most suited for?
2. True strength comes from something bigger than you. Your company or your brand has to be a cause. Carroll has been able, through his coaching and mentoring background to give hope to those most in need. He understands that the idea that he is a coach between certain hours and something else later on does not apply. He refuses to serve only himself with his gift. He is serving something bigger.
3. Authenticity is not always just a buzzword. Sometimes people really live by who they are, and it has an exponentially huge impact on those around them. I enjoy the interview with the sergeant who is a 13 year veteran of fighting gangs in LA. Even the most rightfully cynical of Carroll had to concede that things were better with Carroll in the picture. That he meant what he said. That he is who he is at all times.
4. Play is important. Carroll has a kid-like attitude toward his team. There is no failure in play. It’s always okay to ask “why?” when you play. While some would right it off as hopeless optimism, his attitude of looking for the next exciting thing has given him the freedom to have fun at all times in everything that he does.
5. Some people are plain crazy…in a good way. The most successful people I know do things that “normal people” think are unbalanced. Riding around some of Los Angeles’ toughest neighborhoods and handing out your mobile number is remarkable. It is unexpected, radical and powerful. You have to put aside the way that most people see the world. Allow people to see how crazy you are. You will attract the right partners, and you may change their worldview.

TRY THIS ON

What would southern California look like if Carroll saw himself as just a coach?

What would your community or business look like if you stopped allowing conventional boundaries to tell you what is and is not your business?  In the time we are in, we don’t need another small business. We need people dedicated to serving others in an authentic way. Small businesses are wonderful employers and excellent for the economy. But, behaving in prescribed patterns will get us nowhere.

It’s time we started thinking of our businesses as ways to reach others in new ways. We need to reawaken our imagination.

ANSWER ME THIS

Do you know anyone who has allowed for their creative imagination to run their business?

- Jeremy Nulik, Creative Energy Officer, St. Louis Small Business Monthly

Creative Freedom of a Restrictive Economy

The latest issue of Wired has a special feature on design. The subject that they hit upon is one that is close to my heart.  Here is the article. They are designing in a medium that predates embedded video and infographics. It is a blank white rectangle. “At Wired, our design team sees this as our daily bread,” they point out.

The constraint of the page actually inspires more creativity.

It reminds me of a creative writing course in college.  You would think that the most clever and creative work would come from a no-holds-barred approach to expression.  However, that was not the case.   The best work we produced came as a result of placing restrictive guidelines and forcing us to come up with a way to express an idea from inside a cage.  The most inspiring work happened when we had to write in iambic pentameter or rhyme certain lines or begin our stories with some random sentence (I saw the horse in the rain, and I knew I had to leave my wife…who couldn’t write a good story with that line?).

The constraint of the economy can inspire your creativity.

The beauty of our current economic situation is that it forces us to strip down our business into the essential elements.  I am not a neurologist, but it feels like there is a part of my mind that works better under restriction.  Be it real or imagined.

The same is true for many successful companies that I talk to.   They are coming up with ways to still express their value when prospects have less money.  One example is Kuhlmann Leavitt, Inc., a St. Louis-based design firm.  They have spun off a new company, Stax Modular, a mobile display product that can be used for anything .  So far, the response to their new product has been exciting, and they are going to showcase it as trade shows in the Spring.

With markets crashing around us and a breakdown of the financial world, this gives those who have always been on the outside of traditional forms of capital even more reason to innovate.  Small business owners have always had to be creative and design something striking and beautiful out of very little.

The trick now is distilling your idea of what your business is and allowing constraint to design your business better.

THE LIST

Here are questions you can ask yourself to get to the root who your company is:

1. Who would notice if my business went away? List the people, institutions, etc. These folks are your champions.  Get to know them better. Most people cover up when times are tough. People will be more important than ever now.
2. What is it that is valuable about my company? Is it people? Is it a product that is unique? You service. Whatever it is, don’t fall into the temptation to cut it lose for budget reasons.
3. What makes us money or raises our funds? These are revenue streams.  Pour resources to them.  They, as our former commander-in-chief says, “keep food on your family.”
4. What other talents do I or others on my team have that we have allowed to go by the wayside? These are new revenue opportunities. You have good ideas already. Use them now. See the Kuhlmann Leavitt example above.

This is only a beginning to a job that really should not require a crappy economy.  You probably have some better questions.  Now is always the time to continue innovation.

LET ME KNOW

Send me some better questions to distill a business down to its core.  I will send you a copy of the sestina they made me write in my poetry class. If nothing else, it will be a good laugh.

- Jeremy Nulik, Creative Energy Officer, St. Louis Small Business Monthly

5 Ways To Make Your Customers Publicly And Joyfully Sob Into A Microphone About How Awesome You Are*

Alright…I admit it. I like a train wreck. I complain about the gawker’s block on the Interstate, but…if you guys ever see a blue Honda Element slowing down near a wreck…you can guess that it is me.

So, that sentiment alone is enough motivation for me to post this video:

Favorite parts: “IT IS STILL REAL TO ME…DAMMIT!” and “Among the choices are Jim Carrey, Mike Myers and Philip Seymour Hoffman.”

On a more serious note, though. Take note of this:

The level of belief and enthusiasm that these guys have for wresting is amazing. This is WWF-style TV entertainment. Are they really that serious? Of course they are. The sport has such a hold on them that they have become more than just fans…they are followers. They are believers. They are unashamed worshipers.

Are you creating that for your customers during this recession? Are they at your office door asking who would play you in your autobiographical movie? Do they believe in you so much, they would cry fearlessly in a high school auditorium with other grown men?

Right now is the perfect time to do the things that no one else will do..the tough times allow you to stand out more. Here are some ideas to get you started that I received , but please create your own as well.

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THE LIST

5 Ways To Make Your Customers Cry Over You In Public Places

1. Face-to-face time with your key partners. This isn’t just customers, but investors, vendors or just plain professional friends who get what you are doing and support you. Go to more lunches. Attend more charity events that are important to you and your partners. The more people see your face, the more confident they will be in you and in their choice to do business with you.
2. Expressing authentic gratitude for business. This cannot be forced. It needs to be real. If you are not actually that grateful, then please don’t send cards, don’t call and don’t offer discounts, etc. BUT, there is nothing like tough times to make you grateful. Take this humbling as a wake up call. Now you have room for some gratitude.
3. Find out more about your key customers as people. What is it they really want out of their business? What goals and dreams do they have for their families? Do they have families? Do they have food allergies? What are their pet peeves? Get to know these people…in a tough time, they are going to save your ass and help you to thrive.
4. Get the right people on the bus. Don’t settle for less than great performance from employees or partners. If they are not performing with passion, then it won’t cut the recession mustard.You need ambassadors of your good news, and right now, there are lots of A-players available. However, the passion and the will to go above and beyond has to be yours first. Before you blame employees, look in the mirror.
5. Stop lying to them. If you are telling them that everything is “JUST GREAT” with your business, you are most likely not truthful. Be honest about weaknesses. Be honest about your concerns. You can still approach them from a position of strength and belief about your company. But, pretending that there is no elephant in the room makes you sound distant and naive.

SOME PERSPECTIVE

When I wrote “Right now is the perfect time…,” I really meant, “Right now is always the perfect time.” In other words, let’s not wait for an economic collapse before we decide to change the way that we do business – here is more on that perspective.

LET ME KNOW

What are you doing to inspire your customers? How are you reconnecting with them during hard times?

- Jeremy Nulik, Creative Energy Officer, St. Louis Small Business Monthly

*Results are NOT guaranteed to produce actual tears, the existence of a microphone or WWF wrestlers, but they will at least allow you to remain in business.

Stop worrying about the credit market…get creative

Tom Schlafly is one of the most successful business people (and human beings) I have had the pleasure of talking to. He built the St. Louis Brewery in the town that has…um..you, know… THE Brewery. However, since InBev came to town, Schlafly now enjoys status as St. Louis largest locally-owned brewery.

As Tom points out in his witty column Top Fermentation, “In any discussion of local industry in St. Louis, Schlafly is now The Brewery.” The irony is thicker than the head on one of Tom’s stout winter brews.

The man who:

• claims that he “would never have started his business if he knew anything about business”
• attracts an entire team of people with liberal arts degrees and no business background
• had to change Missouri laws on microbreweries to grow his business
• holds an irrational love for St. Louis
• continues to bring a creative wonder to his business

…is now wildly successful against all odds and in the shrined shadow of a St. Louis darling – Anheuser-Busch.

Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle choice and a way of thinking differently about:

• what it means to be in business
• what it means to have success
• what it means to be professional

Many times at the root of this decision (to rip the employee label off your life and think in this manner) is a very emotional and peculiar drive. As my friend Richard Sacks (author, consultant and entrepreneur) puts it, “most entrepreneurs are on plan B.” They are creative, innovative, passionate people who got ticked off at the way that their industry was working, or feel that some population is grossly underserved.

If there is this distinction between an entrepreneur and a manager or executive, then why do entrepreneurs constantly feel they have to behave like the rest of business world when it comes to financing their business?

I have heard many entrepreneurs complain:

• The banks don’t take me seriously.
• I don’t have the right contacts.
• The credit market has dried up.
• Venture capitalists aren’t giving out money.
• Angel investors are watching their portfolios dwindle away.

This reaction to our current economy is not an irrational response. This is fear-based thinking that will be a secure lockdown to any growth that your business could hope to have.

To survive the slowdown and the limited access to capital, you must see this fear, name it and move along on the path.  You must be irrational. (For more on this see Dixie Gillaspie’s article on moving through fear.)

You are an entrepreneur…be creative. Here are some practical steps that I have seen the best entrepreneurs take to make long-term financial goals. (All of these steps were taken assuming that you had the right attitude, have had solid business ethics and want to grow your business.)

• Get skin in the game. This is a battle. If you can’t stomach a big personal loss, you may need to find a job. While it does not sound pleasant, I have yet to meet a financial backer who is comfortable taking on all the risk. Collect up your capital and what you have of value. If it was a comfortable process, then everyone would do it. Two retailers I know have doubled their business in the last year by leveraging collateral to get credit.
• Negotiate and make terms with your vendors. Make it as simple as possible. “Hey, things are slowing down for me. Can I pay you $x amount per month?” Most folks will allow you some latitude.
• Find easy ways to monetize what you do. This is dangerous because you may end up going down sales paths that can distract you from a primary purpose. What do you do already do that adds value and you can easily charge for? This could be scaled-back versions of a larger service for a reduced rate. However it looks, find new ways to make money at what you are already doing.
• Find like-minded folks that share your vision. They may not be instant sources of money, but you can certainly find advise, empathy, friendship and accountability. The monetary value of true friendship is immeasurable. The most successful people that I know found and inner circle that they went to in good times and bad. You start finding these people by becoming an approachable person.

It may seem as though the universe is conspiring against you, but take a look at Schlafly’s situation 17 years ago. You do not face nearly the odds that he did. He made it. You can too. It may not look the way you thought it would, but your company will be better for it.

And, if you are a St. Louis-based entrepreneur, then you have access to at least 49 growth opportunities that are unique to your city.

TRY THIS ONE ON:

If you wanted to hear what it was like for a passionate, eccentric business owner, then read Tom Schlafly’s book, A New Religion in Mecca. There is a great deal of hope in there. It seems that Schlafly contends that the universe conspired to make his business successful, but, someone who knew what she was talking about once said: Luck is the residue of rigorous, persistent action.

- Jeremy Nulik, Creative Energy Officer, St. Louis Small Business Monthly

Comfortably Uncomfortable or The Way to Innovative Thinking

According to most business books and business geeks out there, the only sure-fire way to create a new sustainable business is by changing the game. Instead of competing with business-as-usual, you must create a new playing field.

Easier said than done. Many of us would love to be the craigslist of our respective businesses, but there is something that holds us back. What is it?

Out of my experience and conversations with business leaders, it appears the real battleground for innovation occurs inside our own minds. We are only as limited as they allow. So, how creative are we really? How can we break through the bondage of our own thinking?

My friend, Adam, sent me a link to a NY Times article on how the physical human brain works. Some of the findings speak volumes as to why it is that innovation is difficult and why it is that (even at our most “creative” of times) we have a hard time truly thinking differently. According to the article:

The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,” says Dawna Markova, author of “The Open Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking Partners. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide,’ just as our president calls himself ‘the Decider.’ ” She adds, however, that “to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”

The article goes on to explain that once a certain way of thinking is established in the mind, there is no way to dispose of it. The best that we can do is to try to create a bypass around this old habit with new ones. The benefits are endless.

What if Google saw itself as a search engine? What if ING Direct saw itself as another online bank?

They could have tried to play by the established rules and created yet another separate-but-equal option for consumers.

Instead, these companies chose to create a new habit. New playing fields. New categories. They did so by being willing to be unsure or uncomfortable for a period of time. Putting fears aside and being true innovators or explorers created their enormous success.

Our training tells us to be a decider. To appear sure and self-confident. However, how would it look for us to constantly question, pick apart and seek out new ways of exploring our world?

We must be comfortably uncomfortable to unlock the mind’s potential and create sustainable ideas with execution.

You cannot have innovation,” [Markova] adds, “unless you are willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder.”

HOMEWORK

What assumptions are you making about yourself or your business? Next time you run into a challenge or problem, say this to yourself: “I will see (insert problem) in new ways.” This is but a beginning, but I can guarantee that if you practice this in your daily life, you will begin to see prodiguous results. Write to me and tell me some of them.

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Jeremy Nulik, Creative Energy Officer (CEO), St. Louis Small Business Monthly

The blue circle on small business

“Do we have blue circle?”

The signs hung all over the offices of the Baton Rouge Business Report, one of the fastest-growing and most successful business media outlets in the country. I avoided asking what that was all about at first, but, after a few days I couldn’t help myself.

“What is the deal with the blue circle?” I asked Julio Melara, president of the Business Report. Julio’s entire face lightened into a smile.

“I’m glad you asked that question,” he said. “Often when I am in a meeting with my sales team or other folks, I will ask, ‘Do we have blue circle?’”

He then asked me to vision a blue circle in my mind. “Draw it on a piece of paper,” he commanded. Here’s what I drew:

“Did I answer correctly?” I asked, slightly nervous that I had done something wrong.

“That is perfect. Of course, that is a blue circle. But, look at the one that I had in mind,” he said as he turned my piece of paper around and drew this:

“So, we could have had a conversation about the blue circle that could go on for hours, days, weeks or even years, and we would never be talking about the same thing,” he says. “Do we have blue circle?’ has become a part of how we do business around here. It means, are you with me? Are we talking about the same thing? Because the biggest hurdle that we continue to face as we grow is communication.”

I was struck at the simplicity and apparent effectiveness of this model of communication. One definition that I have been struggling with lately is (embarrassingly) “small business.”

This has been especially true since I have had many meetings with bankers, lawyers and other service industries about their “small business programs.”

Some say 100 or fewer employees are a “small business.” Others said 500 or fewer. While some thought that any firm under $1 million in revenue was a small business, others said $5 million in revenue still qualified a company to be “small.”

This approach of using revenue or employees is problematic when you look at the numbers.

If you are using a revenue figure to gauge the size of a business, then most are surprised to find out that only 4% of businesses make over 1 million in revenue. The same is true for number of employees – 95% of firms have 20 or fewer.

Given that an overwhelming majority of firms fit into what most define as “small business,” perhaps we should change the name to just “business.” If being small is the norm, then the abnormal ones are truly the larger firms.

Are employees and revenue the only way that we can define the size of a business? Does being considered “small business” refer to more than size? How does “small business” relate to entrepreneurial thinking?

Scott Ginsberg (The Nametag Guy), an author, speaker and entrepreneur thinks that “small business” means more than size.

It’s an attitude of individuality and a lifestyle of freedom. Small is the new big. ‘Size matters not,’ as Yoda once said. Think about it. Craigslist is the 56th most visited site in the world. They don’t try to be big or look big. They just help people get what they want. So, comparatively, who would you rather be: the CEO of Innitech or Craig?”

Bo Burlingham, editor-at-large for Inc. magazine and author of “Small Giants,” also feels that size is necessarily a good way to distinguish what a business is or isn’t. He suggests that outside of “small” and “large,” there is a third type of business.

Some people refer to these companies as ‘gazelles.’ They are run by entrepreneurs who are very interested in growing, although not necessarily in terms of employees or revenues or geography. Some of these companies are the ones I call small giants: They could grow much faster and get much bigger but have chosen not to because they have other goals they consider more important. Others are, in fact, trying to grow as much as possible and get as big as possible. A few have already passed the threshold of bigness. Though they look like other large companies from the outside, they are still run by the entrepreneurs who founded them and still have a small business feel to them.”

A small business “feel.” An essence that cannot be easily defined.

Seth Godin has a straightforward definition that also is void of any “number of employees” or revenue figures:

I define it as a company in which the person who runs it acts like she owns the place, and in which all the people who work there understand that they have a stake that’s got leverage in the final outcome.”

So here is what I ask you:

• What is a small business, and how do you define it as being different from a regular “business?”
• How does the multiplicity of meanings of “small business” affect the way that businesses are perceived?
• How does entrepreneurial or innovative spirit relate to small business?
• Can we ever hope for “blue circle” on our definition of small business?

Write to me at jeremy@sbmon.com and I’ll publish the results in another blog.

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Jeremy Nulik, Creative Energy Officer (CEO), St. Louis Small Business Monthly