Small Business Revolution. Barry C. McCarthy
in the book.
Decision 2: Make All the Mistakes Yourself or Learn from Others
There's a certain semi-positive aura around working your way up from beginner to expert and having all the scars to show for it. “Hard-earned experience” and “hard-earned money” have kind of an honest feel to them.
You need to get out of that mindset and learn as much as you can from others. One of my favorite quotes is from German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, roughly a century ago, who said: “Fools say ‘experience is the best teacher.’ I prefer to learn from other people's experience.”
The last time you went to the bank to make a deposit, I trust that the teller did not say: “Did you earn this money from a painful process of trial and error? You did? Well then, we'll double your deposit.”
Kids learn from falling down and getting up, and we do them no favors by being helicopter parents, always shielding them from whatever. But this book is about your business and how to be resilient in the face of numerous challenges and setbacks. When you're in business, the expense clock is forever ticking, and time is simply too short to make all of the mistakes yourself.
Major Success Tip. Here's where many people get hung up. They think: Hey, I'm willing to learn from others, but the problem is that my business is unique. Those other businesses are not exactly like mine, even when they're in the same industry. I have to find out for myself.
Well, yes and no. Yes, there is no other music studio at 123 Main Street where yours is, so in that sense you're unique. But that does not make 90 percent (or is it 98 percent?) of your challenges any different from what other businesses face. The fact that at some cosmic level you are unique is fine; but how you should post images on Instagram is no different, and how you make your website look appealing should follow certain tested and proven principles.
What successful businesspeople do is look for similarities, not differences. If you're watching the episode in Season 3 about Lovett's, which is famous for selling the best fried pig snoots around, you may conclude that your law practice has nothing to learn from that episode.
The better way to approach it is to be taking notes when the Deluxe team noted that Lovett's had not used all its “designators” or tags that Google allows businesses to be known by. For example, “restaurant” may be a tag, but Lovett's didn't think to add “soul food” as a tag, and that turned out to make a big difference in more people discovering Lovett's.
The takeaway for an attorney should be: I wonder what tag Google has us under? Probably “law firm” but maybe there is an additional one for “personal injury attorney,” “estate planning services,” or “real estate law.”
Ignore all the differences and focus on what you can extract of value from any business you come across. A soul-food restaurant might get an idea from a dog-grooming operation that has an open floor plan where you can see the dogs being groomed. Maybe people would enjoy seeing all those snoots being smoked (maybe not); it's worth thinking about.
Decision 3: Follow the Recipe, or Strike Out on Your Own
I'm a firm believer in following instructions or recipes as closely as possible at first. Then later on, experiment to your heart's content. Unfortunately, many people will see a set of instructions and kind-of, sort-of follow them while adding their own twist. Then if the desired outcome doesn't happen, they blame the instructions.
The way I see it, you want the help of someone who's been down a particular road before. You may not understand why the instructions are the way they are, but if you've found an expert, trust the expert. Then after you've followed those instructions as closely as you can, evaluate the results. If possible, discuss it with the expert. Only then is it the time to modify anything. As with the other decisions, this is something you make, one way or another, whether you're conscious of it or not.
In Season 4, Casey Cox wanted help to expand or franchise her successful Nooma Life yoga studios. She opened Nooma in Searcy, Arkansas, to an incredible response and subsequently opened two more locations in Arkansas. Casey was sitting on a great brand, packed studios, and a potential franchise concept, but she was spending time on the wrong things. She loved to choreograph the sessions and create new routines, but that wasn't where the money was.
We brought in Stacey Anderson, president of Anytime Fitness, to help Casey focus on what would bring her more value. Stacey helped Casey think beyond the routines to membership prices, social media, paying herself, and empowering her employees. It was the kind of “been there, done that” recipe/help that gave Casey the confidence she needed. Though her passion lay in creating and teaching her classes, success would come from focusing on the business elements.
Decision 4: Bag It Early, or Push on Through
Success does not follow a straight line. Running a business involves many different skills, and those take time to develop. For example, with many of the businesses we highlighted in the SBR series, they were not using social media effectively. Some didn't use it at all, and others would post a few things but not in a way that generated maximum visibility for the brand and company.
The reality of social media is that it does not require one massive effort, but instead the steady creation and publishing of posts and images over time. The social-media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and others have highly sophisticated algorithms that closely monitor who is a regular contributor and who only posts stuff once in a while. They don't give much visibility to those who occasionally post, and they reward the regular contributors with visibility.
Now imagine a tired, busy, “broke” business owner who decides to try social media because she heard it might work. The owner creates a few posts and—not much happens. She tries again with a few posts, and maybe gets even fewer views or comments.
This is a crucial moment for the business owner. Does she keep going with her social-media efforts, or bag it and try something else? She'll make the decision, one way or another.
Unfortunately, if she is not able to ask a social-media expert about what to do, she's likely to call it quits. “Hey, I tried. I guess this social-media stuff doesn't work in my case.” Most likely an expert would have had suggestions on how to improve posts, but the real benefit of the expert would be to say, “You've got to give this some time! Rome wasn't built in a day and a social-media presence takes weeks and even months to really catch on.” An expert will also be able to know when an effort has in fact gone on long enough and should be modified or stopped.
Some business owners sprint for 200 yards and are looking around for a medal when business growth is more like a marathon, and they have another 26 miles to go.
Be Like a Duck
Sometimes simple imagery is best. I am known for saying that if you're in business, you need to be like a duck. You might have a difficult conversation with a customer, employee, or business partner, and it can get you down pretty quickly. That's when I think about three traits of a duck:
First, they're super buoyant. They may land on the water and go under, but invariably they'll bob right back to the surface.
Second, they're water repellant. No matter how much of a drenching they get, they tuck their wings tight, give themselves a quick shake and the water simply runs off their back.
Finally, no matter how hard they're paddling underwater, they present the same pleasant demeanor to anyone who's looking.
I've learned that as a business owner, you just don't have the luxury of letting things get to you for long. There's no time in business for a “bad day.” If you bake cakes and are having a bad day, you might ruin someone's wedding cake. Not only will your bad day have ruined someone's wedding, you'll have ruined your reputation too.