It used to be that if you wanted to earn a little extra money, you’d get a part time evening or overnight job at a fast food restaurant or Kinko’s. Now there’s everything from part-time multi-level marketers to renting out your home or car – or a portion of it – to secret shopping and piece work for both industrial and personal assistance tasks. The last numbers I saw recorded approximately 16-million freelancers in the United States.

What was once a growing trend quite simply exploded during the recent Coronavirus-induced lock down. While many industries suffered at first, people working for Postmates, UberEats, and InstaCart got considerably more work. And, thankfully, as essential workers, they were valued by the people receiving those deliveries. I had one friend, who between larger and more frequent deliveries and higher grateful tips, earned more in three months than he had for the prior year, even working multiple jobs.

Once we recovered from the initial shock of sheltering at home as a nation, many companies shifted immense amounts of their daily tasks to both online and freelance applications. But as often happens when there is such a quick, radical shift, some of the early benefits to freelancers started to evaporate or be subsumed by corporate interests. Even in small businesses.

In the words of Darth Vader, “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter any further.”

Not the Best of Both Worlds

One of the biggest issues I’ve seen are companies pivoting to more freelance arrangements, with a caveat. The companies want the benefit of employing freelancers, but expect the freelancers to behave as employees.

So they only pay by the hour – but they expect full availability. This can be a company that wants their employees to work for 5 days, but is only willing to pay 20 hours – 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. Or a company that demands that their freelance employees “clock in” every single day, seven days a week.

Sometimes, they’ll ask freelance workers to attend training or meetings, but as unpaid time. They’re paid by the project accomplished. That’s great when you’re getting $13 for remotely monitoring a phone conversation that runs 20-30 minutes. That’s $26-30 per hour, not bad in many parts of the country…until you add up the extra hours that they’re not being paid, because of how time is billed.

It’s not fair to take advantage of the benefits of having freelance workers while limiting the benefits to them. What’s more, you will see the best workers disappear as they get frustrated or seek better situations. Suddenly, you’ve cut off your nose to spite your face.

Something employers never seem to think about, but employees wrestle with all the time, is whether or not to pad their time, or look for loopholes in the system to benefit them. The more good freelancers you lose, the more likely it is you’ll hire one of these less scrupulous contractors – and the only one you have to blame is yourself.

Plus, if you don’t see the issue or course correct, you’re establishing a very negative work culture. It may not legally be a hostile work environment, but it’s certainly not a pleasant one.

Interesting Conflicts

Another related issue is restricting freelancers from working for other people. Now, I’m not talking about conflicts of interest. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t want one of your employees or independent contractors working for your nearest competitor. But I’ve seen situations where employers will only guarantee a small amount of work, yet require the freelancer to sign an agreement that she won’t do the same type of work for anyone else.

Again, that’s fine if it’s a competitor, or if you’re employing them full time. But it’s technically illegal to restrict someone’s ability to make a living. This also crops up in unusual ways. When I was working for Paramount Television back in the day, my boss came to me angry because she found out I was working part time for the Home Shopping Network.

Now I wrote and produced commercials, promos and the occasional movie trailer for Paramount’s UPN network. At HSN, I was sitting in a cubicle, taking phone orders. I was in the same building as their broadcast facilities in St. Petersburg, but I was not in any way doing the same work.

What We Have Here is… Failure

With the sudden advance in adapting to virtual work, there’s one factor that may have fallen through the cracks. It’s not even necessarily anyone’s fault, it’s just that sometimes a new situation leads to added challenges.

When you’re in an office setting, quite often you hear and know even more than you’d like to. Unless you’re a busybody, or an energy vampire like Colin Robinson from What We Do In the Shadows, there’s almost too much information. But now, we have no water cooler, no office gossip, no back and forth. And, also, less communication, from both the leadership and your colleagues.

In most cases, it’s not intentional. But now that you’re aware of it, that’s exactly how you must handle communication – intentionally. As the leader of your business, you need to adequately communicate. This might even start with over-communicating, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page. You use tools like Basecamp, Slack or Cliq, to keep everyone in a very large loop. That way no one’s left out or forgotten about, or finds themselves suddenly in the middle of an emergency because they were uninformed. You must communicate with your team.

Fire in the Hold

A potential side-effect to lack of communication is the last minute fire bomb. The famous quote from Bob Carter comes to mind: “Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine.” But all too often, especially if you have hard working, loyal employees and freelancers, they don’t invoke that clause. Instead, they bend over backwards, making an extreme effort to save you or your business from your failing. Imagine how frustrating that can become when it happens over and over.

You can have the best laid plans, everything in place, ready to go… But if you haven’t communicated that to your people, they feel left out or ambushed when things start to happen. Or, if you’re blessed with freelancers and employees who take initiative, they may be stymied or made to feel unappreciated. They’re not trying to usurp your position – they’re trying to help out by taking the reins, because you’ve left them uninformed.

When handled appropriately, freelancers can become some of your greatest assets. The wrong ones can also sink your business ship very effectively. The key to finding and keeping the best ones lies in making sure they feel appreciated. Income is nice and necessary, but hundreds of studies have found purpose is a better driver of achievement.

Keep them informed. Make them feel like a team or a vital part of the team if you’re split between full time staff and freelancers. Allow them to reap the benefits of being part of the gig economy without micromanaging them within an inch of their professional lives. Try to find the best win-win situations, and reward the ones who stick with you.

When we work as a team, we make everyone’s lives better. Let’s Grow The Dream together!

Working as a screenwriter in Hollywood, I can tell you there are a lot of opinions on story structure and development. Some people save the cat, other’s delve deep into formula and break everything out into minute by minute guidelines, and some swear by Aristotle’s Poetics.

But the most consistent and persistent story structure that all of them follow, to some extent, regardless of their stated approach, is one discovered a little over 70 years ago. I say discovered because the prevailing belief is that it was there all along, it just wasn’t fully examined until this century. It starts with psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Jung was originally a protégé of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychology, but after a long collaboration, the two split off. In fact, Jung eventually redefined his system of psychology separate from Freud’s approach.

One of Jung’s prevailing beliefs was the concept of a shared subconscious or collective unconscious mind. Jung believed that the consistency found in various mythologies and folk tales across cultures and generations came from the fact that our minds all drew from a universal well of thought and idea.

Later, mythologist Joseph Campbell proposed that Jung’s theories were proven by a concept called monomyth – all stories follow a specific pattern of development. Campbell wrote the definitive text on the subject, The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

May The Force Be With You

When George Lucas was studying film at the University of Southern California (USC) he became enamored with the study of mythology and Campbell in particular. So much so that when he was working on drafts of the script that would eventually become the original Star Wars film (now subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope”), he modeled the entire story on Campbell’s monomyth structure.

Other movies and books follow the pattern – after all, it wouldn’t be a universal pattern if they didn’t.  But some stories go about it differently and sometimes you have to wrangle a bit to make the pattern work “perfectly.” George Lucas, along with his editor and ex-wife Marcia Lucas, followed Campbell’s pattern to a “T.”

And the beauty of that is, I can simplify Campbell’s overly complicated 400+ page book by just pointing to Star Wars. And what I want to do today is walk you through the monomyth approach to telling your stories – by making your customers the heroes.

The Ordinary World

This is where we meet Luke Skywalker. Space battles on the horizon aside, Luke’s life is pretty consistently standard. He works on his Uncle Owen’s moisture farm. He negotiates and buys droids. He’d rather hang out with his friends and/or join the Rebellion, than stay one more season on the farm. But Uncle Owen needs him, so he stays.

Your potential clients live here. They think everything is fine; it’s the way it’s always been. They don’t consider that there might be a better option. They might be in pain, but be so used to it, they can’t imagine there’s a solution that could fix the problem. They’re numb to the pain and to change – or even the possibility of change.

The Call to Adventure

In Star Wars, Luke’s call to adventure is literally that – a call. It’s not directed at him. Princess Leia has encoded a message for Obi Wan Kenobi. Luke wonders if she means Old Ben Kenobi, but doesn’t pursue it until R2-D2 disappears into the night. And once Luke connects with Old Ben after finding R2, the Jedi master tells Skywalker, “You must come with me to Alderaan.”

Your customer’s call to adventure isn’t quite so obvious most of the time. Although it could be, if your company does a lot of cold calling. But anything that gets your customer’s attention and connects you with them is a call to adventure. It might be a billboard or radio ad. It might be a useful blog post. More likely than not, in our world, it’s a Google search that leads the burgeoning hero towards his journey. Or the referral of a trusted fellow business owner.

Meeting the Mentor

Luke has met Obi-Wan Kenobi, the man who would teach him the ways of the Force, so he can become a Jedi, “like my father before me.” But he just sees him as an old man. Sure the light saber and the man’s ability to make the Tusken Raiders scatter are both amazing, but… In Star Wars, the call to adventure is intertwined with meeting the mentor – just as it is with Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, and often the hero realizes it when she is granted a new perspective.

In a business sense this is often the case as well. The introduction of your potential customer to your small business may seem incidental. It is often connected to that call to adventure, because the call also conveys how your company can relieve their pain. But they don’t see it, or don’t trust it quite yet, which leads them into…

Refusing the Call

Luke immediately responds to Ben Kenobi’s promptings, saying he can’t possibly go to Alderaan. He needs to stay on for one more season. He doesn’t even realize he’s using the source of his earlier frustration to justify his resistance. Even when Ben points out, “That’s your uncle talking.”

By and large, humans are resistant to change. Even if we suspect it may make our lives or businesses better, we sit on our hands and make excuses, and dwell in the pain. As I mentioned before, we have become numb. And sometimes even pleasure can seem painful when you’re not used to it. Routine has its own rewards. Simply knowing there is a problem doesn’t mean they’ll embrace the potential solution.

Crossing the Threshold

It doesn’t have to be, but this often can be one of those all or nothing moments. Luke doesn’t just return to the moisture farm. Because he sees the inherent danger – even though he wants to ignore it – he races back. To find the homestead gutted, and the burning corpses of his aunt and uncle left by the Stormtroopers.

Your potential customer crosses the threshold when they schedule the first exploratory meeting, or 30-minute free consultation. This may seem like a poor comparison to what happens to Luke Skywalker, but think about it. In order to accept help, to even consider that help, a part of the customer’s ego must die. They must admit that what they are doing now won’t fix the pain they feel and/or it’s not something they can accomplish on their own. They must die to the concept of doing everything themselves.

Tests, Allies & Enemies

This is exactly what it sounds like. The hero has met the mentor, now he meets the other players. Luke & Ben fend off goons in the cantina, after Ben uses the Force to manipulate the simple minded Stormtroopers. The droids have already encountered Darth Vader, to some extent, but Luke hasn’t, so the Stormtroopers represent the Empire.

After the initial altercation in the cantina, Ben hires Han & Chewie. The Stormtroopers appear again, chasing the heroes off Tatooine. And the Empire somehow beats them to their destination – arriving to see an asteroid field and a moon that isn’t one.

They get trapped on the Death Star, find Princess Leia, almost killed in the trash compactor and Luke faces the loss of his mentor.

In the storytelling world, this is often a longer section, and may be referred to as the “fun and games” portion of the story.

For your clients, it can be any number of things. Their investors or advisors may not see the value of what you are offering, or at least enough value to justify the cost. Your client may not see results right away – if you’re providing a service, it may be something that takes time to grow or to show results on – like Google rankings or social media.

Fellow business people or the board of directors may be just as numb to the pain of change as your new customer was. They didn’t have an answer before, or a sufficient one, but they also haven’t gone through the same change as the client did. Often times they can derail efforts.

At the same time, they may be allies who are helpful and excited about the new possibilities. Tests, allies, and enemies. It all leads up to…

The Ordeal

This is the final battle. The elixir or treasure has been brought back and now we have the final test of the hero. Will she win the battle, or die trying? Luke has the plans to the Death Star – had them all along, but didn’t understand what they were until they encountered the battle station for themselves. He must use the knowledge of the engineering design flaw to save the Rebellion and their home planet.

In many instances, you may not be around to see this moment for your new client. Or you may learn about it much later, after they have successfully navigated the ordeal, and blown up their small business ‘planet killer.’ Hopefully, they’ll share the story with you. Maybe they’ll post it on Yelp or in a Google Review. Or maybe, hopefully, you’ll learn how much the treasure you brought them has become valuable because they referred a new client to you.

Resurrection/Master of Two Worlds

In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi is the one resurrected, from a certain point of view. He returns as the voice of faith in Luke’s ear, telling him to trust what he has learned about letting go. Luke remembers his trial with the test probe in the Millennium Falcon and shuts off the targeting computer. He’s relying on faith.

But he’s also relying on R2 and the X-Wing fighter he’s flying. Much like the droids and the moisture vaporators when we first met him on Tatooine, Luke is still utilizing technology. He has become a hero by embracing both of his worlds/identities. The mystic and the mechanic. Sometimes we call this ‘entering the new normal.’

We know a little too much about ‘new normal’s’ these days, I think. In an example from our own business, we’ve learned to embrace the usual model along with the virtual, work from home model, and attempted to fuse the two. Like a phoenix rising from the COVID ashes.

But for your client’s, this is the moment that your product or service really comes into its own. The client is so happy with it, and/or understands it so well that they use it all the time. It becomes part of their new normal.

This is also when they freely give referrals, just by using the product or service. In court, testimony is presenting evidence. For Christians, it’s always being ready to give an answer for the hope they have. When your client is that happy with your product or service, they can’t stop talking about it. Or it’s so much a part of her life, that others see it and ask. The circle is now complete.

Now It’s Your Turn

You can see The Hero’s Journey as the one you are on. And that’s fine; I encourage that. In fact, I recommend utilizing this story structure as you build and tell your small business’ story. But if you can also use it to tell your potential customers a story that resonates with them – that’s where the gold lies. It’s great to be the hero of your story. But if you can make your prospective clients into the hero of your story, you’ll truly see your business change. You can be the entrepreneurial Han Solo or Obi-Wan Kenobi encouraging and guiding hero customers to win the day. That’s what we like to call a win-win situation.

I challenge you to reverse the perspective of how you see your clients and how they see you.

If you’d like help identifying those prospective clients – the perfect customers that you can serve best and bring the most value to – or help connecting to them, please reach out. We’ve built our small business helping other businesses succeed, and we can help you too. Let’s Grow The Dream together!

I tried a few online services before settling with one suggested by my sister in Texas – Elevation, based in North Carolina. Pastor Steven Furtick just connected with me, as he did many others. Their church actually grew during the shut down, and one sermon in particular caught national attention.

Like many people, I struggle with seeing myself and my true identity as I see my seemingly more successful, happier friends posting online. But I can’t put the blame on them – I am just as prone to post only positives on my social media channels.

And not just to make myself look better – sometimes you don’t speak your mind for professional reasons, or you share positives to maintain good relationships, or because of contract stipulations, or any number of reasons. I personally try, as much as I can, to not complain, and only post positive, uplifting things, in the hopes that it helps others.

As business owners, or when we represent a business online, we can be just as prone to curating only positive content. Only good news, only positive vibes, nothing that can make us look bad or diminish our apparent value.

Yet…

It’s a Trap!

I can point to hundreds of articles online that vouch for the necessity of being as authentic and genuine as possible online. And they’re not talking about people, but about businesses. As far back as 2013, credible marketing and business analysts have pointed out that authenticity is more important than ever. And I have to agree.

Now more than ever, your customers need to see that there are real people behind a business; that sometimes mistakes happen. That the best laid plans are sometimes not followed – and even if they are, often still go awry.

Sometimes, you have to be willing to admit that nobody’s perfect. That the cobbler’s children have no shoes. And as bad as that sounds – it actually helps build credibility. Disclosing these truths may be painful, but sometimes it’s exactly what is needed.

Lessons From the Trenches

One of my favorite examples is from the other industry I work in. Streaming giant Netflix reports their subscriber numbers, good or bad, every quarter. They could just report this information to their shareholders and it would inevitably leak anyways. But as much as Netflix guards certain information – like total viewers of any particular show or movie – they do share some stats freely with the media. Even if they are not in their favor. Most recently, they noted that growth was lower than they had projected.

Of course, the knowledgeable industry insiders did what they always do – proclaimed that the bubble had burst, that Disney+ or HBO Max were stealing viewers from Netflix, or that we had reached a market saturation point. I’m sure Netflix knew those headlines were coming. As I said, it’s not unexpected, cause every time numbers dip, that’s the anthem.

But can I tell you a secret? Netflix is okay with those headlines, and releasing the data that’s interpreted that way. Because even when their numbers are down, or under projections, they know they will bounce back. They have data that confirms it.

Just like the big money men in 1929 invested more when the stock market crashed, Netflix can point to their charts that show their numbers always increase – in the long term. For them, the streaming race is a marathon, not a sprint.

What’s more, Netflix is still controlling the story. By being transparent, even when the industry insiders try to knock them down a peg, they show confidence. They don’t pretend everything is perfect. Yes, numbers are down – but guess what, the company is still generating buzz.

That whole, P.T. Barnum ‘no bad publicity’ thing? It’s sometimes very true.

Blessings in Disguise

When you’re honest and embrace your failures as well as your successes, you are telling your story. Your authentic, real, and trustworthy story.

Every failure becomes part of the foundation, a stepping stone towards continued success. We all know the aphorism, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” but we want everything to be perfect now. I know it sounds counterintuitive, so let me repeat it again. Being transparent about your failures builds credibility with your audience – your current and potential customers.

Because just like Netflix, we need to look at the long game. Minor setbacks are just that – minor. By ignoring missteps, or sweeping them under the rug, we betray some of the confidence our clients put in us.

Do your customers want to be the ones whose ball you dropped? Of course not. Nobody wants that. They prefer that your interactions with them – your products or services are as flawless as possible. Be open that you – like everyone – has fallen on your face a time or two. But, despite that, you got back up, and continued to work to deliver as promised. They won’t see the failure as much as they see the perseverance.

Perseverance has value. So does a track record. When you combine those with transparency and authenticity in your message – you’ve got an advantage over your competitors.

The Story Behind the Story

You may be wondering how I settled on the topic for this week’s blog. I’ve talked numerous times about drawing from your own experience when creating content. I just did a long series on content creation, leading to a push to an event that we at Grow the Dream were hosting on the first Saturday in June.

If you didn’t sign up, you might not have noticed – but many of our clients are already aware… That event, the Strategic Marketing Workshop for 2021, did not happen as planned. There’s no one reason, several factors, some within our control, some outside of it, collided, or coincided, and we had to postpone the event indefinitely.

I’m not happy to be telling you this. It wasn’t pleasant to inform the people who had signed up for the in-person event that we were forced to cancel. It was necessary. We’re shifting gears, recalculating, and looking at several options. And I feel comfortable telling you this, because our ideal clients are often in a similar position.

As entrepreneurs, we often have to adjust, reconsider, be very adaptable and agile in our approach to business. For some of us, that’s when we flourish. Heck, some small business owners repeatedly put themselves in troubling situations because that’s how they get the dopamine flowing. They love solving problems – even if they are of their own making.

We get it. And just like you, we aren’t stopping. We might be offering different services – maybe returning to our roots, maybe charting a new, less traveled path. We’ve done it before – so we know we can do it again. And just like our timeless marketing principles, we’ve thrived doing it in down times and good times.

The Road Goes Ever On

We hope you’ll take this journey with us. If you had signed up for the Strategic Marketing Workshop, we’ll keep you informed via email, in addition to what you see on this blog. But regardless of where you stand, we’re moving forward.

We’re going to keep serving our clients and finding new ones, just like we teach them to do. We will persevere. We will keep reaching for success. If you’d like to find out how you can be a part of that success, I hope you’ll reach out.

As I’m fond of saying every week, we built our business helping other small businesses succeed and expand. That continues to be our mantra and our commitment. Let’s Grow the Dream together!

I’m not going to rehash all of the particulars. I just want to look for a moment at bare facts. The emotions of this ‘adventure’ have been all over the place and in many ways have distorted our perception of time. While it seems so much has changed, and so many things have happened, this apparent lifetime-length journey really has only been 18 months.

Even though it has only been 18 months, because of these seismic shifts – Coronavirus, social changes, political upheavals – our world will never be the same. It’s not just a feeling. We literally have either stunted the growth of or rapidly advanced many expected developments. And regardless of how you feel about it, as small business owners, you need to adapt – and there is a lot less time for dithering or thoughtful consideration.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t take the time to make an informed decision. But you absolutely need to adopt a strategic approach to your business – and you need to do it quickly. Otherwise, it’s way too easy to get overwhelmed by the options, the decisions, and to lose sight of the future.

We’re in a brave new world. Even the futurists have lost track of what’s coming.

But there is good news.

While there are new decisions to make and approaches to consider, the principles of small business strategy are still the same as they were decades ago.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

You may be approaching your business as more of a remote entity. Yes, you may be employing more gig or freelance workers from all parts of the country. More of your business may be online than ever before. And, sure, Google is changing their algorithm one more time.

Oh, yeah. Did you miss that? It was supposed to happen this time last year, and the folks at Alphabet opted to delay it in light of everything that was happening. But it’s still coming – it’s on the horizon now, and businesses everywhere are scrambling to prepare.

If it feels like you’re suddenly overwhelmed with too many things going on, you’re not alone. That’s kinda been the theme of these past eighteen months – scrambling. Trying to keep up. Working to adapt. Trying to do anything. But most importantly, trying not to do the wrong thing. Cause there’s just not time, right?

We talk about strategy a lot at Grow the Dream. Not just in these articles I post every week, but overall strategy. Strategy for our small business. Finding ways to connect and communicate. Are we helping others? Can we assist ourselves?

There’s an old English idiom: “the cobbler’s children have no shoes.” And we struggle, like many businesses, wondering if we’re helping or educating others on our principles, at the expense of not following them ourselves.

We love to help entrepreneurs define and share their stories – but we need to share ours too. Our success is a direct result of us helping your business succeed.

Brass Tacks

I could go on for a few hundred more words (and have in the past) justifying and explaining why companies in general, and especially small businesses, need to adopt a strategic approach. But I know who our target audience is. I know that they will take action when informed of what they need to do. Even if they sometimes often wait ’til the last minute.

There’s a reason I waited until today to do this article. And a reason for last week’s call to action. Last week I needed to make you aware that an event was coming. Today, I’m banging the drum, letting you know – sign up, because it’s only a couple of days away.

It might feel random and precipitous. It might feel like that moment when the preacher is giving a message and it seems like he’s staring into your soul and his words are only for you. I’m all about letting God work – but the twinge you feel in your stomach is the result of well-executed strategy.

I wish I could invite everyone to this – but we are limited in space and time. So if you live and work in the Sarasota-Bradenton area – or you’re willing to get up early enough to drive there – I have a special treat for you.

Saturday, June 5, 2021 (yes, this weekend), Grow the Dream is hosting a face-to-face strategy seminar & workshop. You’ll learn all about that Google update and how to leverage it for your business. You will learn how to tell your story – by actually working on it in the moment. You’ll get hands on literal experience as David G. Johnson deconstructs one of the participants’ website – maybe even yours – and shows how to make it work better. And we’ll even do some social distance networking.

Now Is The Time

I know your inclination is to wait, to be cautious, to get to it tomorrow after you’ve thought about it. I get that – I am probably more guilty of uber-overthinking everything than most. But as I’ve mentioned, the workshop is only a few days away. The Google changes are right on the workshop’s heels.

I have two quotes by my desk. One is anonymous – “When there is a hill to climb, don’t think that waiting will make it smaller.” The other is from the Biblical book of Habakkuk. It seems to contradict the first one, because it mentions waiting for the appointed time. But the first part defines the waiting – write down the vision, that he may run who reads it.

My deepest desire is to motivate people with my words. I want to help as many incredible, world-changing small businesses succeed as I can – and that starts this week with our “Strategic Marketing Workshop: 2021 & Beyond.” If it helps convince you to attend, breakfast is even provided!

It’s time to get back to business, and that means getting ahead of the changes – online or otherwise – that are coming. It means knowing and telling your story effectively. You owe it to yourself, your family and the people whose lives you hope to change with your business to be there.

The future is now. Don’t be left behind. Sign up for the workshop today. Let’s Grow the Dream together.

Return on Investment.

And if you’re more of a creative type like I am, you may have grumbled a time or two (or sixteen) about the difficulty of quantifying the ROI on an artistic venture. My go-to for those arguments is a quote by author Kurt Vonnegut:

“The arts… are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward.”

Unfortunately the people holding the purse strings usually want a more monetary return on their investment. So these days I point them to the ubiquitousness of Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, etc. – the services that got us through the pandemic shutdown without losing our sanity or murdering someone – all filled with creative endeavors. Pieces of art that the platforms have (and continue to) pay a pretty penny for.

But that’s not what we’re looking at today. While we’ve all considered ROI, for the money lenders and our retirement accounts, I’m betting most small business owners haven’t considered the corollary: the Cost of Inaction.

What Are You Waiting For?

I can tell you, from my time educating people about retirement options, that bankers and investment specialists also focus on the flipside of ROI – COI. The most poignant example is the one where you take a look at how compound interest works. A dollar properly invested at age 20, even if it’s never touched again, after 10 years is worth nearly 100 times what investing $10 is at age 30. Even during the recent recession.

Stock Brokers and Mutual Fund salesmen are fond of pointing out that when the stock market crashed in 1929, the people who survived and thrived in the Great Depression were those who didn’t panic. While the average consumer was pulling their money out of investments and savings and loans, the Rockefellers and Carnegies “let it ride.”

Opportunity Cost is defined as “the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action.”

Opportunity cost can be positive or negative. Cost of Inaction is the negative side. In Tim Ferris’ “Fear Setting” exercise, he calls the Cost of Inaction possibly the most important consideration you can take. For him, understanding the emotional, physical and financial costs for you and the people in your life is what truly drives us to take the uncomfortable action that moves us out of the status quo.

Put simply, every choice is in fact two choices. Every time you say yes to one thing, you are saying no to something else. And every no is really the choice to prioritize another yes.

Investing Your Time

In many ways, building credibility and visibility online is like investing for retirement. We don’t have an exact formula with marketing like they use in calculating compound interest, but it’s a similar mindset. The more you do now, the more your results will build on each other. The longer you wait, the smaller your potential returns could be.

Brokers will also tell you, the more consistent you are at putting away a few dollars every week, the more your investment will increase, not just compounding, but growing exponentially.

And just like investing for the future, consistently producing valuable, actionable content blog posts will exponentially grow your search engine visibility – regardless of how often Google changes their algorithm. Consistently providing extra worth to customers and searchers boosts organic search traffic. Adding value will always yield a profitable return.

Trust Doesn’t Rust

I’ve written extensively on the fact that 99% of the time, you won’t make a sale from a first visit to your website. In nine out of ten cases, searchers will never return to your site after the initial visit. I wrote those articles a few years ago, and I think if someone studied it, those numbers may have adjusted slightly since the pandemic began, but for the point I’m making they’re still valid.

You exchange valuable information like Lead Magnets for the potential customer’s contact information. That way you can keep in contact with them on a regular basis and when they’re ready to make a decision, hopefully you’re top of mind.

Online, there are seldom opportunities to do the old Tom Hopkins sales presentation to build company credibility. Even if you tried, people don’t have the patience for it, and often distrust the presenter, even if they appear interested. But every time someone visits your site and finds the answers they’re looking for, it adds to your trustworthiness in their minds.

The more often, and more consistently you provide value to the people who find you on search engines, the more you build credibility. And it’s an even stronger, more emotional connection, because they’re making the decision to trust you – not just taking your word for it. And as ol’ Tom has often told us, emotions make sales.

Investing in Emotional Impact

Psychologists tell us that as human beings we are more emotionally affected by losing something than by gaining something. We like to win, but we hate losing even more. To the point that if we worry that upsetting the status quo will cost us, we’ll sometimes ignore the fact that it can also greatly benefit us. Even with a track record of knowing change has been beneficial, we can still be stymied by the fear of loss.

The doctors call this “Escalation of Commitment.” But you might know it better by the economic take on it – the sunk-cost fallacy. Fear of losing, especially after we’ve invested so much time, money, resources, causes us to justify throwing good money after bad. To remix a couple of metaphors.

But as small business owners, we must resist this urge. Or better yet, counter it with emotional regulation. Emotional regulation strategies employ cognitive skills to redefine the meaning of a stimulus or situation. For example, both therapists and Weight Watchers employ and teach a technique called  “reframing.”

In therapy, the counselor helps you see things from a different perspective, presumably allowing you to put yourself in another’s shoes and see the behaviors you experienced as negative in a positive light. Weight Watchers, its own form of therapy, you look at why you overeat. In many people’s cases, the root cause is stress. So the program teaches you to look for alternative ways to relieve stress and try one of them.

The end result is the same – changed behavior due to a redefined emotional state.

Sacrifices Must Be Made

I know I got a bit technical with the last section, so let me bring it back around. Our topic last week was delegation and outsourcing.

There are only so many hours in the day. Even if you try to drive yourself 24/7, you’ll discover, as I did in college, that after about 72 hours of being awake, your brain starts sleeping for you, whether you want it or not. The phenomenon of microsleeps (mentally sleeping while awake) can occur in some subjects after just 48 hours without sleep. And after you pass 96 hours – awake for four days straight – your perception of reality is severely distorted.

Not the best situation for running a business.

Even if you’re the type of person who only needs four to five hours of sleep per night, you’ve still only got 19-20 hours to work and live life. Something sometime has to give. No one, no matter how talented, can do it all, not all the time.

One of the things we encourage our clients to do is to focus their attention and efforts on the things they do well. The places they succeed and get energized and do better than anyone else. It just doesn’t make sense to sacrifice your best time and effort – in areas where you are mediocre at best. I’m not saying that to be insulting, just asking you to face facts.

Spending time on one thing means less time for other things. Trying to do everything is not only untenable, it’s costing you the success your business could have. You’re wasting resources to save a few bucks – when it’s really costing you much more in the long run.

I can’t tell you how to run your business, but I can tell when you’re stretched too thin.

Faith Without Works is Dead

About halfway through this article, I repeated a phrase I’ve used often in the past five years of writing this weekly blog. You need to be “consistently producing valuable, actionable content blog posts.”

Valuable. Actionable.

I work very hard to research and write interesting, valuable content that will help your business succeed, even if you never once consider hiring Grow the Dream in any capacity. I do it for a variety of reasons. The most important being that I believe we should operate our business the way we recommend others operate theirs. So giving added value to every article is important to me.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a call to action. In most instances, I try to be somewhat subtle. I encourage you to reach out, if you need help or want to learn more. I remind you that we built our business helping small businesses and entrepreneurs scale up their businesses.

But today, I want to, at the risk of coming off as “salesy,” be very direct. You could read every word we’ve written in these blog posts, going back nearly 20 years. You could memorize them. Tell them to others. But unless you take action – it’s all pointless. You get nothing out of it.

So I’m going to tell you very bluntly. We can help. Grow the Dream has taught and executed small business marketing strategies for more than 20 years. We get results. Our work is successful and we are very talented at what we do.

On June 5, 2021, we are hosting a LIVE, face-to-face Strategic Marketing Workshop.

This workshop will provide you with the tools you need to succeed in the digital marketplace – and how to manage your time and reduce your stress. It’s an amazing morning, breakfast and coffee provided, worth at least five or six times the amount we are asking from each business owner.

And we only have 30 slots.

We have to limit attendance due to COVID Safety Parameters, but also because we want to give you very detailed, hands-on attention. You’ll walk away with the top strategies and most up to date information. No question will be left unasked – and you’ll know exactly what steps to take next.

This is a program you cannot afford to miss.

This is your opportunity.  Don’t miss out. It’s time to take action.

Sign up here.

It’s an entrepreneur’s problem, typified by statements like “It’s just faster if I do it myself.” Which is something I hear a lot. And my response usually is, “is it?” I can say that, because I’ve both suffered from the perfectionist (and economical) drive to do it all myself. And I’ve dealt with supervisors who would suddenly offload – or try to – a huge project with an unrealistic deadline that they’ve suddenly run into.

And because of my own personal proclivities, I usually all but kill myself to try and relieve their emergency. But that’s a discussion for a later time.

As David says later in the podcast, “There’s only so many hours you can work in a day, or a week or whatever… You’ve got to be able to hand off the things that keep you from delivering your best value.”

I’m going to repeat that last phrase again… “delivering your best value.” You see, I think that most entrepreneurs and small business owners really do believe that they’re responsible for giving the best value to their customers. But at the same time, they often lack the perspective to see that they’re unable to do that. They’re spreading themselves too thin, trying to do too many things – and things they are not best at.

Expect the Ineffectual

Next week, I’ll talk about the specter of opportunity cost – and the cost of lost opportunities. But today, let’s look at an old analogy from John Maxwell. Or maybe it was Warren Buffet. Doesn’t matter. What’s important is the lesson, not the teacher.

Suppose that your earning potential is $100 per hour. You’re working from your home office and go to refill your coffee mug. Suddenly, you notice that the lawn is getting a little too high. Or the laundry basket is starting to overflow. Or those dishes need to be done. Maybe it would be good to run the vacuum…

Now for me, those tasks have the added “advantage” of being easy procrastination techniques that make it appear as if I’m being productive, while I’m just avoiding the work I should be doing. But that’s not why I’m bringing them up.

Now, if I spend an hour washing the dishes or vacuuming the house, that’s $100 of earning potential I’ve just thrown to the wind. Or – I can hire a maid to come in for 3 hours, pay them $75 and focus on the things that make me and my company money.

Now, instead of dishes, suppose I’m spending time tweaking the design on my website or posting social media posts. Or maybe minor accounting and spreadsheet work – things I am not very good at, which inevitably take more time to do than writing – which I am damn good at – and could outsource to a capable, qualified professional for a lot less than my hourly rate.

You’d balk at spending $100 an hour for a landscaper to mow your lawn – but you’ll spend 2 hours doing it, essentially wasting $200. That’s kind of the definition of “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

“Investments” Past the Point of no Return

As much as it pains us to delegate, outsource, let anyone else touch our stuff – and maybe screw it up – we have to look at it as an investment. We have to look at a cost-benefit analysis. I’ve discussed it many times before, but it’s relevant to revisit the Pareto Principle here.

The Pareto Principle, simply stated is this – 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort. So which parts of your work are you spending the most time focusing on? Are you earning less because you’re spending too much time on things that don’t yield the greatest income?

Let’s put it this way – if your greatest skill is your ability to close potential clients and bring money into the company coffers, why would you reduce the time you have available to do that? You have an already honed skill – an advantage that cannot, so far, be replicated within your business. But, instead of closing customers, you’re spending an inordinate amount of time trying to learn a different skill. You’re struggling with a learning curve. Maybe you’re frustrated by the lack of progress from your efforts.

You’re putting off meeting with potential clients because you’re trying to get better at attracting new clients.

Of course, you’d never do that – except I see it happen every single day. Business owners put off the things they are super skilled and talented at, to focus on learning whatever the next new thing is that supposed to help their business.

Now, shiny object syndrome is a real thing – but I’m saying even proven techniques like writing and publishing a consistent content blog can be a waste of valuable time if you haven’t got the skill. And many entrepreneurs don’t.

Time is Money is Time

Let me use a simpler example. Suppose you launch your business and a large part of the daily activity is fielding incoming calls. Is it more cost effective for you to spend your $100-an-hour-value answering those calls – including the ones that will never yield customers or income?

Or would it be better to pay a secretary $20 an hour, plus benefits, to take those calls, freeing you up to create and develop the business? The only time you’re on the phone is for valuable tasks that yield $100 or more income per hour you spend on them.

Going back to the beginning of this article – there’s only so much time in the day. I’m an employee of Grow the Dream, so my hours are paid. But because I’m in California, I can work while David sleeps in Florida. And he can quickly prep things for me in the hours before I’m awake, so I can hit the ground running.

By using employees and freelancers in different time zones, Grow the Dream as a company is working 18-20 hours per day. David is talented and probably gets less sleep than he needs (I know I do), but he can’t consistently be working 18-20 hours per day, 5-7 days a week.

Neither can you. I don’t care how motivated and talented you are as an entrepreneur or small business owner, our bodies run out at some point. Are you limiting your success? Are you hurting yourself and your business (not to mention your significant others)?

Successful business owners leverage their time and resources.

If you want to be one, you will too.

Entrepreneurial Fulcrum

For more than 20 years, we’ve taught small business owners how to leverage their digital marketing efforts. Ignoring “conventional wisdom” about search engine optimization, and focusing on a strategic approach has led to faster than normal success. And the rest of the world is catching up to our methods, as Google and Facebook algorithms increasingly hamstring the old approaches. I’m not going to belabor that here.

But one thing we realized as we taught is that there was a need to assist small business owners with some of the more skill-based marketing efforts. A lot of entrepreneurs who went through our courses embraced the principles! But they lacked the ability or time to execute them most effectively.

So we pivoted a bit. We began offering our clients the option to not only learn the techniques – but also help implement them. We started with developing our unique model buyer personas. Other digital marketing services have adapted or ‘borrowed’ our methods, but didn’t focus as clearly on the specifics. Our clients get extremely detailed profiles to use for targeting their ideal customers – the ones that are a win-win for the client and their customer.

Then we went one step further. We offered clients who needed it the writing and graphics services we already utilized in house. Some clients have us write their content blogs. Some have us edit their writing into a clearer, more focused presentation. They leverage our highly-skilled, capable, talented staff for their benefit.

Which is more cost-effective… Spending valuable time learning a new skill, or utilizing a team with nearly 100 years of combined experience writing compelling copy targeted at a unique audience? This isn’t calculus. By taking advantage of what we do best, those small business owners were freed up to focus on what they did best.

“Automate” by Delegating

David is fond of telling our clients that our motto is to “train our clients til we’re out of a job.” And we do try to do that. But it’s irresponsible to not consider additional options when you need skills and talents that are outside your area of expertise.

Your business is your passion. But can you explain that passion or educate people on the necessity of your product and service effectively? Passion and speaking passionately go a long way. But at some point, you need to adapt or adopt captivating, effective communication techniques – especially if you’re doing it on paper.

Your passion is evident in your voice, your body language, your enthusiasm. But is that conveyed on the page? In my experience, often it’s not.

My passion is storytelling – and conveying it on the page. Words are my stock and trade. I know how to evoke visuals, emotions and engage readers. So does Betsy Dane, our other talented senior writer. She’s also top notch when it comes to grant applications and some of the business writing I find more mundane.

I can tell you, ‘you need to write consistent, targeted content posts,’ til I’m blue in the face. But if you don’t know how, or worse, are one of those people who hold off until it’s precisely perfect, but never published… that’s not doing anyone any good.

We may not be working our way out of a job – but we do want you to have the best chance of success. If writing or editing frustrates you, you’re less likely to do it. Hiring us to fill in that gap is not only a good investment, it may be a necessary one.

In this way, you can automate the important – by letting us help your business grow.

Areas of Expertise

The best way to grow your small business is to focus on the areas of your expertise. I know that’s hard when you’re just getting started. Even if you’re not a solopreneur, everyone in your business is likely wearing multiple hats. And that’s great when you’re getting started. For some, it’s that excitement that drives them.

That’s great if you want to be a serial entrepreneur. But what if your business idea isn’t one that Microsoft or Google or Facebook is going to pay millions of dollars for? What if you don’t want to start over and over and over again? What if you do, but recognize the value in having a strong business to sell off to the highest bidder?

Whether you want to create one awesome business that serves the world and eventually offers you more freedom, or if you want to create multiple world-changing entities… You still only have so much time.

Don’t you owe it to yourself and your family to leverage the best means at your disposal? Our services aren’t for everyone. But we are the best at what we do for the people we do it for. We have market proof of growth for our customers’ businesses year over year. Proof not only of the success of our strategic approach – but also success of the content we write for our clients.

We’re so confident that we’ll give you 25 minutes free of charge with our top consultant to see the difference. Just reach out and test the waters. We’ve built our business helping small businesses expand – and we can do the same for you.

Let’s Grow the Dream together!

While this may seem like an odd thing to talk about from the perspective of small business strategic marketing approaches, in reality it’s very much on point. People with ADHD are approximately three times more likely to start small businesses. And the numbers skyrocket when you look closer at serial entrepreneurs. I alluded to this a bit in my article on goal setting for entrepreneurs.

The Yerkes-Dodson study of 1908 found that more stimulation was required to perform difficult tasks. Stress normally escalates to a certain point where optimal functioning occurs, and that’s the best time to do the difficult tasks – unless you have ADHD. While almost all entrepreneurs and small business owners thrive and need more dopamine than “normal people,” persons with ADHD appear to lack even the standard ‘complement’ of dopamine.  Which is why instead of amping them up, amphetamines actually help them level out.

I could go into much more detail about how this all works – in theory. People who have never even heard of the Yerkes-Dodson experiment refer to ideas generated by it as gospel, such as the concept that early morning is the most productive time. People whose circadian rhythms classify them as night owls, for example, have struggled to adopt or rebel against those prejudices for generations.

Past is Prologue

As I sit here typing this, with both knees bouncing, I know some of you are still uncertain as to why or how this analysis might be helpful. So I’ll simplify and get to the point. Dana and David both sometimes joke that persons with ADHD are unemployable. Because of the struggle to focus, or the inattentiveness to detail – ADHD symptoms express in a variety of ways – it is sometimes hard for people with ADHD to hold down a “normal” job. And sometimes, even if they could, it doesn’t provide them the stimulation they need.

So persons with ADHD tend to seek out and launch new businesses in larger numbers than neurotypicals. And while we didn’t identify ADHD as a specific parameter for Grow the Dream’s ideal customer profiles, many of the key aspects highlighted do fit within an ADHD diagnosis. Since we strive to do what we teach and target our ideal clients with our content, there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this article, you fit this profile. Now, I’m not saying you’ve got ADHD – and likewise, don’t jump on Google and try to self-diagnose. Just consider it might be a possibility.

All this to say, today’s article will hopefully be a help to you – regardless of whether you have ADHD or not.  

Bound for Home

David and Dana were launching the podcast right as everything came to a head last year and various health officials asked us to stay home from work and school in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. David and Dana decided to do an early episode highlighting some of the codes Dana had established in her professional life. The idea was that adopting these codes that keep many people with ADHD on track might be useful for all folks working from home.

Looking back, we had no idea how long that staying home period would last. Or that corporations would find value in shifting to a working from home mode and encourage it to continue, in whole or part, as an aspect of the post-pandemic “new normal.”

If you’re struggling with staying focused, making your home office feel like an office, or wondering if you can ever embrace this new model, here are the standards Dana uses every day to be successful in her professional life.

The Environmental Structure Code

You may not have even noticed how your work structure supports your productivity. I often tell aspiring screenwriters who struggle with writer’s block that one of the best cures is to just sit down. Get at your computer, in the “writing position,” and write. It doesn’t have to be good, or great. You can type random things, or stream of consciousness like you’re journaling. One of my writing mentors, when he first started, would sit down at the typewriter and retype a famous screenplay. Our minds and our focus can often be transformed by actions.

So if your environment doesn’t feel like a work situation, transform it – your body will develop muscle memory that then drives your inspiration and action. If you can get started on a task, sometimes that’s enough. The hardest hurdle is behind you. You’ll be working before you know it.

The Office Hour Code

Just because you don’t have a commute doesn’t mean you don’t have a schedule. It is essential that you define what time you start work, what time you take a lunch break, what time you end work. And stick to it.

It is SO easy to start late or just keep working. And like I referenced back at the beginning of this article – you don’t have to make it an early morning. I am most definitely a night owl. So I do my 8-10 hours – starting at 10am. It used to be later, but I’m subject to peer pressure too. Even though the other folks in my house rarely say anything about it, most of them work earlier, and I feel compelled to not waste the day. And it’s easier to socialize when they return home from work.

But whatever your office hours are – define them and stick to them. It will greatly reduce your stress and increase dopamine to know when you begin, and not feel guilty when you end. Or when you take the weekend off – and you can take the weekend off. Or another day during the week. Not to get all spiritual, but the Sabbath that God decreed for the ancient Hebrews isn’t just a religious thing. Doctors tell us it’s actually good for the body and the soul.

If you don’t have an end time and at least one day off, work will consume all of you. And that’s not a good thing. You need to stop, spend time with your loved ones; you need to relax. And yes, it’s okay if you’re putting out the occasional fire – but it cannot be a constant thing. As the meme says, if you don’t take time for routine maintance, the machinery will take it for you.

The Corral and Control Code

In this case, of course, that machinery is your body, in case that wasn’t obvious.

Never getting distracted is NOT the goal. All that will accomplish for any of us is devolving into a shame and blame cycle. It not only doesn’t help – but it’s its own distraction.

A better goal is to try and catch, as fast as you can, when distractions arise. Don’t criticize or “should” all over yourself, but as soon as you notice you’re getting sidetracked, acknowledge it and shift back to what you need to do.

Notice and redirect.

A helpful tip when you’re getting started – set a timer. You’ll generally want to set it for sometime between 10-30 minutes, repeating. When the timer goes off, you ask yourself two questions, and you take an action.

• What am I doing?  
• What did I intend to be doing?
• If the answers aren’t the same – get back on track.

Again, no shame, no guilt – just pivot back to the task you intended to be doing. The more you practice, the easier it will become – just like environment, you’re building muscle memory.

The Chores Code

It’s easy to get diverted with chores while at home. The dishes need to be done. The laundry’s piling up. The floor needs to be vacuumed… and that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I could organize my pencils, water the plants; organize my tools… Oh! I could walk the dog!

But ask yourself, “Would I do this if I were at the office?”

It seems obvious that the response would be ‘of course not,’ but don’t qualify it because, well, I’m at home, and this stuff wouldn’t be at the office. But do you go into the breakroom and wash everyone’s dishes? Go around emptying the trash? Maybe grab and distribute everyone’s mail? Okay, maybe some of us might – but it’s not our job, and it’s far less likely.

If a task or chore is not one that you would routinely do as part of your work day, then save it intil AFTER your work day is complete.

The same is true if friends and family try to “take advantage” of your being home. My working from home doesn’t mean I can run to the store for you or pick you up at the airport. I have specific tasks I’m supposed to be doing for work each day, and those need to be my priority. Just like they’d be at an office job.

The Dress Code

Uh, oh. You might already see where this is going. And it’s something I fall into too. Unless it’s a special event, you’re not wearing your pajamas to the office or sitting at your desk in your underwear. And really, when was the last time corporate America arranged Toga Day for Spirit Week?

How productive you are correlates to how you are dressed. One of the transitions I had to make early on in the pandemic was making my bed. The apartment I was in at that time was smaller than I had in the past. And if I didn’t straighten the blanket on the bed, I was more likely to lay back down in it, or just putter around without getting anything accomplished. And I’ve worked from home for years.

Get up, get dressed, brush your teeth. Do whatever you would normally do to get ready for work, thank God you don’t have the commute to stress you out, and get to work. Dress like you’re going to a meeting. For me, it’s casual Friday every day, because that’s my dress code. Dress as if you’re still going into the office and you’ll feel more like working. Which leads to…

The Embarrassment Code

Would I be embarrassed if the doorbell rang and I had to go answer the door – looking like I do now, wearing what I’m wearing now?

It sounds like a silly thing to be concerned about. Until I tell you about my pregnant friend who opened the door to the UPS driver with her robe open, exposing herself. And she didn’t realize it until she’d signed for the package, stepped back inside and closed the door – catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was mortified and now worries every time the doorbell rings that it’ll be that UPS driver again.

Needless to say, she’ll never repeat that mistake. And you can learn from her humbling experience.

Coding Your Conduct

So hopefully you’ll find these 6 codes invaluable for your continued working from home journey. Here’s a pro-tip – they work for your kids too! So everyone can stay more on track while working from home. And if you’re a business owner or serial entrepreneur, the codes are a great way to stay on track and build your business faster and more successfully. Think of them as strategy for your mind.

If you want to learn more about dealing with ADHD as a business owner or entrepreneurial professional, check out Dana and David’s weekly podcast here. And if you need any help with your marketing strategy or developing content for your strategic business marketing, please reach out! We’ve built our business helping other small businesses expand and thrive.

Let’s Grow the Dream together!

But instead of bemoaning the constant rejection, the best approach is to reframe things. Think of it like shoe shopping. When you go looking for a pair of running shoes, you’re not looking for stiletto heels. Even if you saw the most incredible, perfect pair of stiletto heels, you’re not going to buy them – because you’re shopping for running shoes. It’s not that you don’t love the stilettos, or they’re not exceptional for what they are, you’re just not shopping for stilettos.

In the same way, a pair of stilettos cannot masquerade as sneakers, or whoever buys them will be severely disappointed. They don’t need stiletto pseudo sneakers, they need actual sneakers.

I’ve talked several times in the past about how the riches are in the niches. And you definitely need to focus your business approach to target your ideal customer. Today, I want to talk about a focus of a slightly different stripe. Focusing your offerings.

Pro-Vision of Choice?

When I was growing up and even into early adulthood, the prevailing theory was that more options lead to more choices. 31 Flavors. Thousands of combinations. The more you offer, the more sales you’ll see. This idea persisted even in the face of such anecdotal evidence like the famous story of Dave Thomas. Dave is of course, most famous as the founder of Wendy’s. But first, he was instrumental in the success of a different fast food franchise – Kentucky Fried Chicken.

When Indiana’s Hobby House restaurants partnered with KFC, the house of chicken was offering a multitude of menu items. Dave’s suggestion that they whittle things down to their signature fried chicken in the red and white striped bucket put the growing restaurant on the map. Dave also suggested that the Colonel appear more often in the commercials.

Within about 15 years, Dave was a millionaire and decided to start his own chain – Wendy’s -with square patties, because they “didn’t cut any corners!” And of course, in 1989, he heeded his own advice and relaunched his baby with commercials starring himself.

While this is just one story of many, marketers and business owners continued to insist that the way to increase sales was to offer more. Normally, I’d put in a plug here about how Coke and companies of that size are the exception that proves the rule. But they’re not. Diet Coke was spun off as its own brand, after it failed to gain the market share that Tab dominated in the 70’s and 80’s. Not to mention, Coke has attempted a coffee-variation on their carbonated beverage at least three times, all with limited success.

Crippling Cacophony of Choices

It wasn’t until a pair of graduate students from Columbia and Stanford released a study on “selection demotivation” in 2000 that marketers took real notice.

Sheena S. Iyengar & Mark R. Lepper published a paper titled, “When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?” Essentially, they did a series of controlled experiments that revealed a startling conclusion. While multiple options initially drew attention and interest, inevitably, the quantity of choices led to fewer sales. In fact, by limiting options in their experiment from 24 to 6 increased sales by nearly 10%.

Too many options resulted in a harder decision-making process, which ultimately led to much fewer sales. In their second trial, sales were removed from the equations. Students were given options to write essays for extra credit. Not only did more students who were offered limited options complete the assignment, but the essays turned in by students with limited options were markedly better than their counterparts.

Their third experiment found that people randomly assigned with fewer choices opted for a positive result nearly 50% more often than those given an extensive selection to select from. Their conclusion was the opposite of what they and leading marketers had expected. Too many options actually significantly decreased the chance of ANY choice being made.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz goes one step further – between analysis paralysis and buyer’s remorse, he posits that Americans are more depressed as a nation because we have more freedom to choose. There’s even a theory that a significant influence on Steve Jobs maintaining his status as a genius innovator was his decision to wear the same thing every day. Removing the decision of what to wear each day left him more decision making resources to devote to Apple innovations.

Packaging the Dream

So how exactly does this relate to your small business? In addition to your efforts to streamline your marketing, anything you can do to minimize the effort it takes for your customer to make a decision will increase sales.

A la carte pricing and multiple options may seem like the key to getting more sales from more people. But in truth, it’s easier to get larger sales by packaging your efforts. Yes, you get fewer sales, but they’re more significant purchases. It also builds loyalty and connection to your product or service.

As an example, years ago I worked for a financial services company. They underwrote life insurance, refinanced mortgages and brokered retirement accounts. But they didn’t sell ANY of those things. They sold a total financial makeover. Their core business was life insurance. But they packaged everything together to serve multiple financial needs of the typical family. By refinancing customer’s mortgages, they eliminated debt and freed up cash to put towards life insurance and the ability to start investing in retirement.

Now instead of three companies, all with separate billing and infrastructure and hassles, customers had a single point of contact. One that was helping them fulfil their financial goals. A single company that assisted with all of those transactions. As the mortgage dwindles, they divert more money towards retirement and life insurance needs diminish. So instead of three individual transactions, the business had developed a happy, loyal customer, committed for life.

They also established themselves as a credible experts. By offering potential clients ONE product that analyzed their current financial state AND gave them a plan to reach the financial goals the client identified, they subtly led the customer to an easy decision. A decision that was truly in their best interest.

Getting Down to Brass Tactics

Simplify, simplify, simplify. I can’t write this enough. Decision paralysis doesn’t just affect our customers. It can also cripple small businesses who are trying to do too much and serve too many potential clients at once. Dr. Schwartz also observed many instances where companies cut down on options offered to customers, purely to streamline their costs. In almost every instance, their sales increased and their employees were more efficient and even happier.

Presenting your services in easier to understand packages saves you time and money. These packages can be easier to show visually and simpler for the client to commit to. They know what to expect and what to not. Customers overwhelmed by options get both confused and scared. As a result, they will usually pinpoint the cheapest option as the easiest and less risky – even if it’s neither.

By presenting a few, fully-packaged options, you display credibility and leadership. And the client is more likely to choose a higher cost option because they inherently trust that you know what your customers need. Especially if you’ve demonstrated that by targeting your marketing efforts at an ideal client. And that’s true even if they fall outside of that proverbial customer bullseye.

Just like the financial services company, you can create a better, curated experience for your ideal clients. Suddenly you’re not a salesperson, but a quality steward, helping customers find the best solutions for them. A travel guide, providing them access to the best there is to offer.  

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

While this turn of phrase was initially intended to be a compliment, we’ve strayed far from its origins. We live in a world where the classic Renaissance man is no longer valued because there are so few who actually embody it. As a result, a company offering many options is perceived much like the man who can’t keep a job. We don’t value knowing everything, because we don’t believe people actually do.

Too many options to choose from and customizations to decide about may cause the average person to believe that you aren’t an expert in ANYthing. Even though Wendy’s offers salads, chicken, and even fish (there’s still Lent), they made their mark by focusing on the square burger. The same is true of KFC, who shortened their name in part because they offered more than chicken. Now they lead Popeye’s and Church’s by only a very small margin in markets that have both.

The Illusion of Control

One final word on choices – typically, you do need more than one. Just like having two to three ideal customer profiles, you want to have three to five options for people to choose from. Especially in the United States, we have a need to feel like we DO have a choice, and we are taking control of a situation. Emphasis on the word “feel.” The perception of control is more important than actually having control.

Just ask anyone who’s seen a magic show. You want to feel like you selected the card, even when the illusionist is carefully manipulating your choice. Even if you perceive it’s happening, if you believe you have the choice, the control, you don’t mind.

In a similar fashion, have your packages laid out in pairs, or at the most, three on the same page. Just like the magician, based on your initial conversation with the potential client you select which of your pairs of options would likely appeal to them. Again, there’s value in not trying to appeal to too wide of an audience. With two to three possibilities at hand, the client feels like they are in control of the decision. And it’s a win-win situation.

Stratergizing

Yes, I invented a new word. You may have noticed I didn’t use the word strategy yet in this article. Yet everything I just presented to you assumed intentional tactics. If you want to be successful in business, you must adopt a strategic approach. It’s even more important now, as our world becomes increasingly overwhelmed by options, decisions, choices and just general background noise. Strategy makes you stand out.

Going back to that financial services company… Their main strategy was on educating their clients. They freely taught them the financial essentials that so few of us learned from school. That approach may sound familiar. Of course, every week here at Grow the Dream, we strive to educate our readers on strategic marketing approaches. And no surprise, it’s the bedrock of what we tell our clients to do as well, whether they are creating the content or contracting us to do it for them.

It’s not just to make sales or draw in customers who need our help. It’s also our way of giving back, enriching the small business community by making them smarter and more prepared for success. If you need help, I hope you’ll reach out. We offer free 25-minute initial consultations in addition to the education we attempt to provide with this blog.

We’ve built our business helping small businesses succeed. Let’s Grow the Dream together!

Why do you want buyer personas? And why focus on a small group of potential customers? Isn’t the goal to reach as many people as possible? Of course, we want to maximize the possibilities – but we all have limited resources. And here at Grow the Dream, we agree with Zig Ziglar, John Maxwell and several other business leaders – the riches are in the niches.

But First, Let’s Review

Finding your ideal customers and targeting them will bring you the most bang for your buck – and will also attract those on the outskirts. As you expand, and your resources grow along with your client base, you can start targeting larger and larger groups. Remember, even Coca Cola started out with one drink, and stayed in that position for a while before they expanded into a million variations. And even they only control about 50% of the soft drink market, and maybe 10% of the overall drink market.

You’ll also want to take into account how serving a smaller group of customers can benefit you and your approach. When you’re focused on one smaller group, you can service them easier. You know specifically what their pain points, challenges and fears are. Therefore, you can assist them with the things you absolutely KNOW they need help with.

It’s easier to speak their language. There is jargon and particular industry speak for just about every profession out there. It can even vary amongst jobs and industries that are closely aligned. By knowing your customers, you know how to speak to them without any confusion. And you can stand out by knowing and properly speaking on their terms.

You also build a unique rapport with these customers. That leads to not only trust, but establishing yourself as the expert in your field. Anyone can sell digital marketing, but by focusing on small businesses, we know we lead the way in that field for those people. And our clients and regular readers know that already. I don’t even need to mention that we’ve been preaching what the bigger SEO and digital marketing firms are now pivoting to for nearly 20 years. It’s inherent in our company’s DNA.

1. Who Are Your Target Customers?

This is often classified as demographics. When I started in television and Nielsen ratings mattered, advertisers would usually want to target the 25-34 age range. Those people have the most consistent spending, as well as the income to do so. Younger people often have more disposable income, but different things they spend it on – movies and temporary items, for example. Older tend to have a larger family, often more cutting corners on cost – going for the bargain instead of the premium. And older than that has income, but more focused on luxury items. At least, this is how the thinking went.

But those are general terms. You want to know the specifics for your ideal customers. And, again, you want to be as specific as possible. We’re aiming for the bullseye. So sex, age range, income, decision making power, family status, you get the picture.

2. What Is Their Lifestyle?

This is the first step for customer psychographics. Psychographics will come up again. It’s an aspect many businesses have only vague notions about. If they pay attention to it at all. But it’s key to really targeting things.

How do your ideal customers spend their free time? What are their hobbies? How do their weekends look?

What media do they consume? Which magazines do they read and subscribe to? Online or print editions? What books do they read or listen to?

What TV do they watch? Do they have cable or satellite? Are they a cord-cutter? Do they pay for Netflix, HBO MAX, HULU? Are they sharing someone else’s passwords?

What kind of music do they listen to? Radio stations? Sirius or Spotify? Do they devour podcasts – which ones and how often?

Do they still own mostly physical DVD’s, books and CD’s or have they gone primarily digital? And how do they feel about that decision and/or shift?

Are they on social media? If so, what platform are they on the most? Many people have Facebook, but check it rarely. They might have signed up for Twitter, Snapchat or Tik Tok when they first came out, and have never really gone back.

What websites are always open on their computer? On their phone? What apps do they use? What is bookmarked? Do they check Rotten Tomatoes and Yelp or Google reviews before heading out?

What kinds of foods do they like? Fast food, or sit down? Home cooked – because they like it or just can’t afford to dine out? Do they bring home leftovers? Mexican, Italian or French cuisine?

Are they Amazon Prime members? Do they prefer to support local businesses? Has their behavior significantly changed since the pandemic?

Be Specific. Specifics are important.

3. What Are Their Purchasing Habits?

What do your ideal customers buy on a regular basis? Are they willing to pay extra? If so, what for and why? How much research do they do before buying – and where? Are they influenced by TV ads? Billboards? Social Media posts? Podcast sponsorships?

Do they typically go for the bargain, are willing to pay for higher quality, or only look at the very best? Do they shop at the dollar store? Walmart? Targét? Are they focused on champagne dreams and caviar or beer and chips?

Is your product or service something they use at home, in the car, on vacation? Are they willing to splurge a little bit more when on holiday or maybe once a month when they feel like being pampered? Do you provide something they see as a necessity, a necessary evil or a satisfying reward? Is there a particular place they associate with your product or service? Can there be?

Do they always buy brand new, or do refurbished and/or gently loved items also have a place? Are they impulse buyers? And if so, how impulsive do they get?

Here’s one most small businesses neglect to consider – what is your product or service usually bought with or as an add-on? If they couldn’t buy from you, where would they go? And would they come back later?

Where do they learn or prefer to learn about changes and updates? Email? Text messages? Facebook Messenger? Twitter? Monthly newsletter? Direct mail? Are they okay with you contacting them when there aren’t new things to discuss? Do they want a relationship or just a one night stand with your company?

4. How Do They Want to FEEL About Buying?

I’ve talked at length about how buying is tied to emotions. Decisions are always emotionally made and then mentally justified. Fear, love, FOMO, desire for status and more all play into why we buy things. But why do your customers buy your thing? And how do you generate that emotion in your potential buyer?

Does buying your product or service make your customers proud? Do they feel good about buying from you and why? Does it make them feel more a part of their community or social group? Does it elevate them to a new one? Or at least appear to?

What values or causes do your customers want to support? Will they pay more to know that your company is morally oriented or that your products are ethically sourced? Are you different from your competition because you care about the environment, or give a portion of your profits to charities?

Here’s a hint from our research – try to avoid fear and hate as emotional triggers. They work too well for politics and the news, as we’ve seen amplified in recent years. But eliciting negative emotions in your buyers can reflect negatively on you. And negativity tends to be the one area where specificity will absolutely cut you off from buyers on the outskirts of your bullseye.

5. Why Do They Buy?

This is an area that you might have already thought you took into account, but I placed it in the hierarchy here, because the “Why” is to closely tied to the emotion. A lot of business plans and marketing approaches look at the who and the why, but ignore the connective tissue. We want to create a fully formed, three dimensional profile of your ideal customer. And you’re probably tired of reading this, but the greater the specificity, the better and more cost-effective your approach will be.

So what are their pain points? What problem are you solving for your customer? If you’re thinking, wait, that’s also where content blog post ideas come from, you are correct! Hence the beauty of our integrated strategic approach. What “need state” are your customers at right before they buy? Are their brakes screeching, damaging the wheel, or are they coming in as soon as they hear the slightest squeak? And is there a way you can anticipate that need state?

Consider – how comfortable do they need to be before they buy? Is there a certain level of trust that must be established? How much credibility do they require? Remember, the emotions are causing the decision, but they still want and need to justify it. So knowing what helps them rationalize works to your advantage, if you can provide it.

Are they typically loyal and consistent, or do they shop around every time? Will they provide referrals? Will they sing your praises regardless, or just remember to recommend you if someone expresses a similar need? Both are valuable.

Strategy + Specificity = Small Business Success

The more you know about your ideal customer, the better you can reach and serve them. The two go hand in hand for true business success on any level – and especially for the entrepreneur small business owner.

I highly recommend going through this process and identifying, as best you can, your ideal customer. You can ask existing customers, do surveys, even a casual, ‘how did you find us’ to walk in clients, can help calculate and hone a profile of your perfect purchaser. And the deeper you dig, the better you can target that very center bullseye, and hit enough of the surrounding area to build a profitable business.

One final note – we’ve found that all of our clients start with 2-3 buyer persona profiles, prioritized. That way it’s not overwhelming, but you can expand focus if you have the resources.

I hope this information is valuable – but it’s only useful if you do just this – USE IT. It is essential for your ongoing success. Of course, with as many hats as most small business owners wear, you may struggle to find time to execute this. Which is where we come in. If you don’t have the time or resources to do this on your own, please reach out. This is what we’ve been doing and teaching small businesses to do for nearly 20 years now.

We can teach you or we can do it all for you. Or some hybrid in between. Those are the three personas we’ve developed, knowing our ideal clients’ needs. And as we see ourselves as a “teaching hospital,” yes, we do focus on one more than the others. We’re here to serve small businesses. Let’s Grow the Dream together!

Granted, I have some mild symptoms of Adult ADHD, but I’m far from alone. In my case, since I know I have this tendency, I usually try to have something in my hand – a slinky or my Fidget Cube. Something I can do. It distracts my physical body from the fact I’m not accomplishing anything without taking my brain and eyes away from what I’m supposed to be focused on.

It was hard before COVID. Because of the nature of my remote job, I spent at least an hour a week, usually closer to 3-4, in a virtual meeting. And, in all fairness, one of them was at my request. Once the pandemic hit and everything shifted – I was still doing those meetings. But I was also trying to take advantage of “free time” and free classes, etc., that were offered. And so, things built up.

Most folks weren’t meant to stare at screens all day. But when work is there, school is there, what little social interaction is there… Yeah, we spend a LOT more time on them than even the most socially addicted teenagers do on their phones.

And eventually, it’s too much. Both sides of the equation get tired. The teachers, the students. The managers, the employees. The influencers and assisters, the people looking for something to do. We’re ALL tired. Distractions derail us easier. We find ourselves yawning all the time. No matter our best intentions, our focus drifts.

When Everything Equals Nothing

People have limited attention spans. This has always been true, but it seems to have definitely accelerated in recent years, definitely since the introduction of the smart phone. But we can’t blame everything on Apple and Android. Even before we had the constant pervasiveness of digital screens, we were bombarding ourselves with input.

Marketing studies show that we get bombarded with some 4-10,000 advertisements every day. Those numbers haven’t decreased since the turn of the millennium. Studies now show the average human can only focus on something for 8-10 seconds. And our microwave culture has affected our recall as well. Scientists say 40% of Americans forget essential information or lose one everyday item every week. They’re not talking about socks disappearing from dryers – but keys, cell phones or wallets.

Our brains are so used to it, we even confuse ourselves sometimes. Who hasn’t lost their glasses on the heads or complained to a friend on the phone that you can’t find your phone! We can barely focus on a few things – let alone ALL the things. What’s worse, trying to focus on everything directly leads to distraction – which makes us less happy and healthy.

How does this relate to virtual work and those ever-ongoing Zoom meetings?

Our brains are created to process a METRIC TON of visual information – more than most realize. In an experiment, researchers discovered that we process millions of bits of visual data in less than a blink of an eye. And faces are the things neurotypicals remember easiest and most of all.

When we’re face to face, most of us tune out the other people in the room, focused on our conversation. But in a virtual meeting – everyone is there all the time – up to 49 faces at once! The filtering process is literally shattered.

When Not Enough is Too Much

In April 2020 alone, Zoom saw 300 million daily meeting participants. 

According to Dr. Sabine Kastner, a neuroscientist at Princeton, “We are now basically confronted constantly with this sea of salient stimuli, completely overloaded, and that filter function is just not very effective.”

That overstimulation drains our energy. Not only do you have all those faces looking back at you – including your own – but there are added distractions, like pets, kids, or the stress that they might interrupt the meeting.

On top of that, if you’re a responsible person, you’re trying to stay “on” all the time. You’re scanning for visual clues and often non-visible body language. And worried that at any moment, the “teacher” might call on you.

Even on screen, distractions multiply. It’s not just your kids and your pets and your neighbor’s landscape company running the leaf blower. It’s dozens, sometimes hundreds of other people having the same issues. While everyone watches. You suddenly have a window into all your coworkers houses, and can find yourself trying to read the title off the spine on that book behind them.

Why did they paint that room green? Are they wearing pants below the camera’s sight? Or you can find yourself unusually bothered by the weird way part of their heads or hands disappear cause they’re using a virtual backdrop.

There’s even some evidence that interacting with people in tiny on-screen windows as opposed to interacting with their life-size person can cause added stress.

Days Are Longer, Even When They’re Shorter

I talked about my friend who works at Netflix in the last article. Chatting with her, she is more tired and feels overworked even though she’s not spending an hour to 90 minutes in traffic, or running up and down stairs to her office. In her old normal work days, if she had a question or issue, she could just pop into someone’s office – even two or three floors above or below her. Now to accomplish the same thing, she has to schedule a Zoom or Google Hangout Meeting – just for a few things. She literally spends 10 hours a day staring at screens, with little respite.

While face-to-face meetings are important, for many reasons, video meetings, for whatever reason, are more associated with stress and fatigue. Our brain chemistry is affected by constantly staring at screens. Microsoft Teams did a study last July and learned that remote work – even for introverts – can be more challenging than working in person. And for some reason, video calls are more stressful for remote workers than interacting through Slack, Basecamp or email.

On top of that, now that you’re home – where do you rest? The old adage about a home being a man’s castle goes out the window when you’re always stuck in that castle. Work goes longer, chores don’t get done. It’s hard to unwind when the place your brain associates with peace and relaxation is now also the greatest source of stress. And you can’t even pop over to Starbucks, or go shopping without being constantly reminded of exactly how this new world works.

Manufacturing Me Time

Thankfully, I live in a house now. For the first six months of the pandemic, I was trapped in a studio apartment. My big trip for each day was walking the 100 steps to the mailboxes and back. Now I try to find time to sit on the back patio and read at least a chapter of a book. We all need to be creative to find ways to release the tension of being at home 24/7.

Moving around is also a good idea. Even if you only have 5 minutes between virtual meeting calls, get up, walk around. Don’t just refill your coffee and sit back down. If you have 10-15 minutes, do a brisk walk around the block to get your blood pumping. You’ll be amazed how much better you’ll feel.

If you were at the office, you’d have breaks every couple of hours. Where I am in California, they’re mandatory. But sitting at home, we’re less likely to stick to that, just hopping up to grab a snack or hit the bathroom. As much as you can, schedule in breaks between your meetings. Again, even that 5 minute stroll around the house can lessen your daily fatigue of staring at screens.

What NOT to do in a Virtual Meeting

We’ve all heard the stories of the folks who thought they were muted or their cameras were off, standing up in pajamas – or less – or loudly complaining about other people on the call. The first rule of virtual meetings is not to be “that guy.” Don’t forget that while you’re home, you’re still technically in a professional setting of some sort.

At the same time, be aware of your technology. If you don’t need to be heard, mute yourself. Invariably on large group calls, there’s that one person or three people who are banging around, driving in traffic, or yelling at their kids, unmuted. It ruins the meeting and possibly other people’s days. It’s also ridiculously rude and disrespectful to the person speaking and/or running the meeting. Again, professional setting. Comport yourself appropriately.

Try to avoid eating, drinking and smoking. A quick bite or sip is fine. But if you need to eat your whole lunch, maybe turn off your camera or skip the meeting. When everyone is staring at you all the time, it gets distracting easily.

Be aware of the camera – what it’s pointed at, what it sees, and try to be mindful of actions that might look weird on your co-workers screens. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen people laying in bed, sprawled out on camera. Or stretching so their joints seem to pop right into the camera. The same goes for getting up during the meeting. If you can, hold up a finger to indicate 1 minute, and/or turn your camera off, rather than rising right up. Think about it – even if you’re wearing pants or a skirt, you’re essentially putting your crotch right into people’s eyelines. Not cool.

That’s NOT Multitasking

I gave this its own separate section, cause it’s really that important. And trust me, I am just as guilty as everyone else out there of this virtual meeting “sin.”

Put your phone and/or tablet down. And by down, I mean, FACE DOWN. Mute the alerts, put it on airplane mode if you want, and turn it over so you aren’t even tempted to glance down and see what just came in.

The other people in your meeting are not stupid. They can see the phone in your hand, or your eyes casting down to it on the side of your laptop. Even if you’re answering an important business text, it just looks like you’re scrolling through Facebook or Twitter.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve actually listened to one call or audio chat on my phone, while I’m on the laptop for another presentation. Neither one got the attention it deserved.

Oh, and, especially if it’s a business meeting you’re being held accountable for attending, make it full screen. Don’t be clicking around to other tabs, checking email, or God forbid, playing a game.

Don’t be like the 8-year old who figured out how to force Zoom to lock her out of class. And I even hesitate to mention this, but some adults connived a way to loop their video to appear on when they were not paying attention. That’s NOT how you take a break.

Test your picture, sound, etc., before you get into the meeting. Don’t try to change your name or your backdrop or reposition your laptop on the call. If you get booted out for whatever reason, just log back in. Knowing you’re prepared from a technical standpoint relieves your stress as well as others on the call.

Keeping the Mental Trains Running on Time

So what can you do to keep more mentally alert while facing an onslaught of video calls daily?

Start by grounding yourself. I’m personally not a huge proponent of meditation and such, but it can be effective, even in small doses. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and just take a minute or two before the meeting to center yourself. You’ll be more in the moment and find it easier to focus during the call.

As I mentioned before, if you have the time, work it out physically. Get up and walk, even if it’s just a couple laps around the room you’re in. It will help.

If you’re the leader or moderator for a meeting, you can use a modified form of the mindful meeting approach known as a “Minute to Arrive” at the start of your call. It was developed for in-person meetings, but can be invaluable for virtual meetings as well. Invite everyone to take a deep breath and let go of all the day’s activities, stresses and irritations, and give themselves permission to be fully present in the call. It’s a quick shortcut to being focused in the moment of the current call, and not drag baggage from a past call or experience in with you.

Go ahead and get dressed. I do my calls from my bedroom, so I always get up, get dressed and make my bed, so things are uncluttered behind me. But the repeated ritual also gives me a certain peace and puts me in the right mindset to work. I can’t separate work from my room, so I make my room as professional as possible when I need to be professional.

Environmentally Sound

I’ve already talked about silencing and setting aside your phone, as well as putting the Zoom call in full screen. But it’s still easy to Alt-Tab to another window when you get bored. And if you’re like me (or my boss), you have WAY too many open tabs in your browser. And/or too many open documents. As I type this, I have 24 other Word documents open, in various stages of writing, reading and note-taking. Use OneTab to make your browser succinct without losing your place or spending too much time bookmarking open tabs (let’s be honest, you forget to go back to many of those bookmarks anyway).

Grab a pen and some paper. This eliminates the need to have so many computer windows open. You take analog notes the old fashioned way and it grounds you in the meeting moment. It also lets your eyes rest from staring at a screen. Plus, if/when you transcribe those notes later, it helps reinforce what was discussed, agreed upon and tasks that need to be finished.

Declutter your desk/workspace. The more physical distractions you have, the easier it is to ignore what’s on screen or get sidetracked. Heck, cleaning is one of the great procrastination devices – so declutter your area, so that’s not “in your way” anymore, and you’ll have more time and attention for work things. Ideally, you want a dedicated space for virtual meetings and work.

I know some folks who literally put their desk in a closet, so they can shut the door and just be there. Doing multiple jobs, I can’t isolate or compartmentalize as much as I’d like, but I have a section that is for work and I can even drop a blue screen behind it to “wall” myself off.

Eye of the Beholder

Here’s something you might not have considered. Did you know seeing yourself is stressful? Yes, we all know those folks who love to stare into the mirror and preen. I live and work with actors who are often self-conscious, if not narcissistic. They LOVE being “on.” But even those people are stressed in a virtual meeting.

It’s one thing to perform, present, shining as the center of attention. It’s another to be tracking everyone’s faces, and suddenly distracted by your own. You may realize you have RBF (Google it), or that you look weird when you smile. Things you spot that no one else cares about or notices.

Studies also show that viewing your own negative facial reactions can lead to more intense emotions. It’s not just that you’ve been cooped up at home too long. Your brain chemistry reacts to seeing your face screwed up and heightens your natural emotions. You can get angrier or sadder. Hopefully, it works for smiles too, but I didn’t see any research on that.

So shut off the self-view of your camera on screen, once you’ve checked it and made sure your surroundings look good. Just don’t forget that others can still see you!

In most of the popular virtual meeting spaces like Zoom and Discord, you can use “Speaker View.” This way, you’re not scrolling through faces – or pages in really big meetings – for who’s talking. They’re right there, dominating the screen. You can also use the three dots at top to “Pin” one or more people to the upper right of your gallery view, so you can easily find the people who need to be your focus.

Curiosity Saved the Engagement

Development coach Armada Markarova suggests an more active listening approach. She remains curious and attentive by committing to asking two relevant questions during every meeting. It helps focus on what others say and ask. And it can turn a boring meeting into an interactive conversation. Not only is the meeting more engaging for you – everyone gets more involved.

Asking questions can also help combat the Ringelmann Effect. The Ringelmann Effect posits that the more people you have working on something, the less each one has to pull his or her weight. Of course, we know inherently that isn’t true. Even going back to middle school group projects, there are always one or two classmates who did the lion’s share.

On a Zoom call, people who aren’t engaged or actively participating can zone out even without meaning to do so. Which is a good reason to limit the number of people in your meeting, and I’ll talk about that in a moment. Knowing your purpose in a meeting is also key. Even if your boss hasn’t assigned you anything, know for yourself why you’re there.

Cross- and overtalk can quickly become issues. Pause before jumping in. Beginning to speak, acknowledge the previous statement – right before yours and if you’re building off someone else’s statement. On the audio-based Clubhouse app, moderators often ask speakers to verbally acknowledge, “I’m done speaking,” both to avoid confusion and facilitate those using assistive devices.

Some meetings will let you record, or the host will record the session. Some companies use an add-on that displays and even records captions of what people are saying. And the technology has gotten really good. While some accents and phrasing might throw the system a curve ball, most of the time, the on screen text matches the dialogue.

But I’m the Leader!

If you’re running or facilitating the virtual meeting, it’s easier to pay attention (I hope!), but it also allows you to set the tone and the level of engagement. You can utilize the “Minute to Arrive” approach I outlined earlier. Or you can let people interact naturally for a few minutes before the “real meeting” starts, just like you’d do in real life. I personally struggle with this, because small talk isn’t my forte and I’m usually eager to get down to business. But most folks need a moment or two to connect with fellow participants, especially if this is the only “place” they’re encountering them.

Allowing a healthy gap warms up the room, builds camaraderie and trust, and allows everyone to take a mental break, even if they have back to back meetings. It also causes less stress and interruption if someone pops in late. See, they’re still on time!

Dress the part. Yes, we’re all stuck at home. Again, you set the tone. Be a good example. When you present as professional and presentable, everyone else feels the urge to get to work and get work done.

Don’t be a dictator. Remember, engagement increases when meetings are interactive. Let others take ownership. Encourage other opinions, brainstorming, and questions. The more you open things up to ideas and people feeling confident that they have a purpose and role to play, the better the work will ultimately be.

Not everyone needs to be in every meeting. You value your time. Let your people know you value theirs by not asking or expecting them to appear at a meeting they don’t need to be involved with.  Successful, productive calls require engagement, and too many people on a video call can make this challenging.

Speaking of Value Assurance

In August of 2020, Seth Godin published a simple post that proposed an agreement for virtual workspaces. I’m linking to it here, but also posting in its entirety here, because it’s just so good:

Another point to add to this – you’re in charge. You’ve got no excuse for not being engaged. Focus, pay attention when others are speaking. Don’t ramble on and on, needlessly extending a meeting. Make sure you understand and address any concerns or questions. And be passionate. Your passion tells your people it’s important to you – it’ll be important to them too.

Not Seeing is Believing

A quick side note – not every meeting needs to be on video. Face to face is nice and helpful, but again, so many of us are doing these meetings back to back to back that sometimes a phone call is fine. Of course, if you have a visual presentation or need to show things, video is essential. But if it’s just a couple of questions, or an update on progress, use the phone.

As the boss, you can also institute a weekly Zoom free day. We forget now that we can so easily connect, that meetings, in many situations, are an interruption of the actual work that needs to be done. Some meetings are important and necessary, but many are non-essential. And like my friend at Netflix, now even the briefest conversations need to be scheduled.

Think of it as a casual Friday of sorts. Allow your people’s eyes and minds to take a full 24-hour break from virtually connecting without feeling guilty. Like many imposed limitations, you’ll probably find that everyone is more strategic about the meetings they do schedule.

Advanced User Tips

In a normal situation, you lose 90% of your audience within the first 5 minutes of a presentation. Hook them early with something that engages their emotions. Emotion adds clarity and in client minds, triggers the brain to activate buyer decisions. Help the people you’re with see what you see – not necessarily with visual aids, but by painting a picture in their minds.

Story is a powerful tool to do just that.

You see it in movies all the time. Characters are having a disagreement or argument (or sometimes just a discussion), and one of them will pause, thinking about what the other has said. Then they launch into a story about something in the past.

It seems like a non sequitur, but by the end of the story, you realize why they told that story. It’s a screenwriting trick we actually stole from Jesus, of all people. Parables, stories that help people see our point of view or the reason for our actions, beliefs, etc., are powerful communication devices.

Don’t shy away from using story to connect with your audience or team. In fact, good storytelling covers a multitude of other sins and quite often cuts right through miscommunication and into the heart of your listener.

Finally, remember to light as well as you can – preferably with the light source BEHIND the camera. And look up into the camera, not down at it. This way, people are looking at your eyes, not up your nose. It also gives a more pleasant feel, as opposed to an inadvertently judgmental look.

Last Looks

Being a part of a small business can be challenging as well as very rewarding. Just because your team or clients are no longer coming into a physical room with you doesn’t mean that changes. There are just more challenges to address.

Hopefully, this article offers some significant, actionable tips to making the situation more pleasant and productive for everyone involved. Being remote doesn’t have to be a struggle – we’ve done it here at Grow the Dream for nearly 10 years and we’re still going strong. Your business can too.

If there’s anything we can do for you, or any service we can offer, please reach out. We hope to resume our #StrategyStreams soon, but in the meantime, we’re here to help you and your business.

Let’s Grow The Dream together!