Words That Work

Wabi Sabi Small Business Marketing Ideas

What's holding your business back?  Some days its cranky prospects and customers; occasionally it's employee, supply chain, or financing issues that get out of control -- but some days it's just YOU.  Successful executives, it is sometimes said, are motivated by a grandiose belief in their own abilities;  successful entrepreneurs, by a desire to prove their abilities to themselves and the world. 

Many great entrepreneurs come out of dysfunctional families, UC Berkeley's Lean Launch Pad  professor Steve Blank points out.  Their chaotic childhoods help them learn a resilience that works well in the chaos of a start-up:

Founding a company is a sheer act of will and tenacity in the face of immense skepticism from everyone, Blank says —investors, customers, friends, family, and employees, to name a few. The founder takes his or her vision of the opportunity—one only he/she may see...to execute against all rational odds ... product development and customer input collide, the facts change, the business model changes, and stuff happens.

Anyone who can’t manage chaos and uncertainty, isn’t totally oriented for action, and has no sense of urgency, is in the wrong business.

via www.inc.comDysfunctional Family? You'd Make a Great Entrepreneur | Inc.com

There's a downside when things start going well, though.  If you are energized by crises and uncertainty, success can seem boring.  You may not even recognize it when you come up with new ideas, or disrupt the smooth flow of your business, because chaos is your comfort zone.  Currently I'm watching one entrepreneur whose genius I've admired completely dissassemble a successful brand and head in a new direction.  In his wake is a tribe of loyal, committed customers scratching their heads wondering what services the company offers now and where do I fit?  A woman who has been extremely successful brokering national media for her organization advertises new services so often it's hard to tell which is what -- creating a paralyzing confusion for prospects and leaving existing subscribers in the dust.  Both are brilliant entrepreneurs who seem to be getting in the way of their own success because they don't think they are good enough, or growing fast enough.  As marketing strategies for small business, they seem disruptive.  Hopefully their brands and messages will get clear before their customers wander off.

Want to look at your own company in this light? Here are some questions to get your thinking started:  Look back at interactions with your employees or contractors -- are you allowing them to do their jobs, or micro-managing and getting in their way?  Do you hire experts to coach or advise you in areas that are not your expertise, then ignore or argue with their advice?  When things are rolling along smoothly, do you tend to come up with a new idea or new direction before your customers, contractors or employees are ready?  You might need a good dose of Wabi Sabi.

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese notion that beauty is not perfect. It is seeing the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete -- modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional... So what is Wabi Sabi for a small business?  Taking a deep breath, recognizing and accepting with humility your own imperfections and those of your team.  Seeing them as the right kind of imperfection, like asymmetry in a bowl that shows the handmade craftsmanship, instead of a perfect, but soul-less, machine-made bowl. Celebrating your successes with the team who helped you achieve them and dialing back on striving for the much more you think you "should" be achieving.  "Sabi" in Japanese, is the kind of beauty that can come only with age, such as the patina on an old bronze statue.  For you it means recognizing that building a business requires time -- 3-5 years say the retired C-level advisors at Score.  Discounting yourself, your support team and your business for not achieving great things within that first five years only drains away your momentum.  Whether you are a sole practitioner, leader of a large organization, or doing small home business marketing, Wabi Sabi is that balance point between keeping your operation energized and getting your anxieties and need to be seen as brilliant out of the way.

 

For more on Wabi Sabi look at:  Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, by Leonard Koren ISBN 1880656124

or http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WabiSabi

 

About the Author:

If you are ready to take your business vision to the next level, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you look at all the new media marketing solutions for small business today and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

 

 

 

Excellence and Creativity at Work

I saw the amazing violinist Joshua Bell perform with the Symphony on Sunday, and was reminded how moving unself-conscious excellence can be.  Bell glides about the stage seemingly pulled and played by his violin rather than the other way around! Fully wrapped in music creation, he seems to give himself over to focus on the music with little on himself.  The result is a unique and moving sound.  How does this help your small business marketing efforts?  Stay with me and I promise a very short marketing course that I hope will spark some innovative ideas for you. There has never been a time when entrepreneurs had so many new media marketing solutions available, but as many of my clients complain, they do require work and constant creativity and innovation from us.

Joshua Bell's kind of deep, creative focus is satisfying for the player and for the audience who experiences his uplifting, regenerative performance. As I work with entrepreneurs on how to stand out, I help them differentiate their company by defining a niche based on their strengths and work they are passionate about. If they achieve that kind of full satisfaction for themselves they can more easily delight and engage their ideal prospects.  This analogy may seem like a stretch if you are putting out fires and racing to catch up all day at your desk.  I admit it is -- but wait a minute. Joshua Bell was playing full force -- if you follow your passion it's not that the the work is easy, but it is fully satisfying.  Look at these comments about the role of play, creativity and innovation at work from a world reknown American design firm, IDEO:

To me, play is what you're passionate about doing. You want to do it because it's enjoyable and you want to keep doing it because it brings you joy. But play is a ton of effort. ... The core difference we're trying to incorporate at IDEO is that play is part of the innovation process not just something you do when you roll out the ping pong tables ... it's about pushing the boundaries and discovering something.  (From Brendan Boyle and Joe Wilcox of the award-winning global design consultancy, IDEO)

Recently I spent a weekend writing poetry with John Fox.  He would read us a few poems, then pick a few lines as starters and give us the loosest of boundaries:  Where can you go with that?  What does that move in you?  And our group of would-be poets went off with trepidation and no ideas, but came back with bits of experience made into sometimes amazingly graceful lines of poetry. The day went by disappointingly fast.

One of the perks of being an entrepreneur is the freedom to innovate, create.  Please share some of your favorite ways to spark your own creativity.  How do you push your boundaries, add play or a deep creative focus to your day to innovate and improve performance?   Let us hear from you!

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If you are ready to take your business vision to the next level, let us help you look at all the new media marketing solutions for small business today and help you create more visibility and credibility as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Internet, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or DIY with the Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how: