Alligators

As creative professionals, it’s easy to forget why people really buy.

It’s especially easy when our ego tricks us into wanting to sound smart.

We think people buy because:

• We look or sound smart / fresh / innovative

• We have a good keynote with fancy slides

• We said the right things in the right order

But that’s not why people buy your services.

Imagine your best potential customer standing on the edge of a cliff, looking over the edge and wondering how they’ll ever get across the canyon in front of them.

As they stand there, they peer over the edge and see a bunch of problems that really freak them out.

How will they ever get across this big ol’ canyon?

Your customer looks over the edge and they might see a waterfall, some sharp rocks, or even an alligator. Look out - Danger below!

The key to getting better at sales is to slow down and really listen to what they see at the bottom of the canyon.

Not by giving them a pitch. Because most pitches focus on the wrong problems. We are so creative, that we draw our favorite problems into our customer’s picture.

Pitches stink because they focus on the flashy stuff we care about. (Hint: customers don’t care). We waste 20 mins and 30 slides trying to warn our customers about the perilous dangers of 1/5 people being eaten by alligators. (Who the heck cares?!)

When you listen and show your customers that you really understand their point of view, it builds trust in your solutions. And suddenly the bridge doesn’t seem so scary.

Empathy first

My first first job in a marketing agency was sales. Which is hilarious, because I was clueless about sales.

I was a burnt out youth pastor looking to move from non-profit communications to the agency world. It was a good thing the agency owner was a sucker for an underdog story.

Coming out of ministry, I didn’t know the first thing about selling websites. Or even anything about building or designing them.

It took me 4 months to make my first sale. After dozens of awkward phone calls, someone must have liked me well enough to hand over cash and buy a shiny new website.

It should have taken longer, because I didn’t understand why people really buy.

My saving grace was that I’d learned to be decent listener.

I got some little red book about sales and learned to listen to a customer, then repeat back what they said.

My ability to reframe what they said in simple terms meant that more people started to trust me because I understood their challenges. I started to sell websites, ideas, even copy ideas to our clients.

Our designers and developers didn’t get how I could “talk clients into things so easily.”

It wasn’t some jedi mind trick. I just listened and related to people and they liked it. In return, they’d lean in and listen to my ideas or solutions.

Sometimes it was as simple as reframing their idea, with a bit of creativity and a big scoop of empathy.

By listening you show people that you see them, and understand them. Empathy helps people move forward.

As a service provider, creative, or expert, your job is to meet your curious customer at the edge of their knowledge and listen carefully. Because people buy into ideas that matter to them.

Boring is required

If your business doesn’t have a boring back office, you might have a risky hobby - not a business.

Hear me out.

In my coaching with creative entrepreneurs, it’s a common thread that many feel they are on a journey to “discover their one thing”. This deep internal desire to make stuff gets all twisted up in the process of getting paid by clients each day.

I get it.

It’s common to buy into the creative rags-to-riches story.

But for creatives, there’s a common plot twist that weaves in the idea that if you find YOUR passion, your business will be easy to scale so you can pays the bills on autopilot.

That’s BS.

I’ve heard it many ways:

• “Working from the beach while my team handles the details…”

• “I just need to focus on being creative and delegate the rest…”

• “Working with the same types of clients/projects over and over again. It’s soooooo boring. It kills my creativity…”

I say this with love - You can’t get there on passion alone. You need some routine to keep things healthy.

Nothing in your creative business will scale unless you can make it boring and repeatable.

You simply can’t get that much blood out of a stone for YEARS if you rely on being creative every single day.

Sometimes you need a break. Some weeks you need to stare at nature and stop creating. You need a good dose of boring to sustain your creativity for the road ahead.

Why?

• You can’t delegate effectively unless you build some boring into the process.

• Boring and routine are the air that let your creativity spark and catch flame.

• You need a routine at the backbone of your business, so creativity can strike.

The back office may not be the sexiest aspect of your business, but it plays a vital role in keeping things moving even when you run out of creative juices.

Your back office is the tent that keeps your wood and kindling dry so you can fire up the creative flames when needed.

If being creative 100% of the time will make or break your business, think twice about what kind of business you are really building.

Creativity is chemistry

Creativity is chemistry.

Just like chemistry - Reactions happen predictably when you combine the right elements and ratios.

You experiment with the different elements. You combine and subtract. Add more here at the right time.

You do it again and again until you find what works.

Sometimes it takes years to find the magic ratios that deliver results. (That’s how experience is built.)

Voilà!

You have created something worthwhile.

The challenge is that combining the right elements feels like magic, until one day it feels routine.

And we get bored.

The second challenge is a tragedy - when a creative gives up a valuable creation on the never ending search for more magic.

We get bored and go looking for our next creative “fix”.

Here’s the thing:

A creative service business must have boring elements inside, so it can predictable delight customers and deliver value.

Boring on the inside. Magic on the outside.

Your process still feels like magic to new customers. It’s just boring for you.

Customers feel the wonder and magic even after you’ve spent years looking at the same combination of elements.

But that doesn’t make the solution less magic. It makes it valuable long term.

Whether you deal in words, visuals, accounting data, or fine dining experiences - make sure to keep delivering the magic long after you get bored.

Stop obsessing over strategy

My personal motto is “Progress over perfection.”

As a recovering perfectionist, it took me a long time to realize that success is all about steady progress.

It’s not as much about strategy as you’d think.

This is why most businesses fail at “strategic” work. They pick the biggest, hardest goal they have never been able to accomplish and set it as their target. Then they pick a challenging or novel approach and call it strategy.

That’s BS.

I’m learning I make way more progress when I stop obsessing over strategy.

Strategy can let us procrastinate and overthink everything.

So throw your darn strategy out the window.

Strategy can be simple. It’s your plan to get from A to B.

Instead of defining long-winded, new approaches to reach our goals… What if we were honest with ourselves? The best strategy is the one you stick with. Simple.

I don’t care about your strategy. I want to know your approach.

Your method.

The simple steps you’ll take (and keep taking every single day).

How will you pick a method that lets you keep putting one foot in front of the other?

As James Clear, bestseller author of Atomic Habits, puts it “If you get one percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done.”

That’s how you make real progress; By taking steps in the same direction.

You don’t need a fancy strategy.

You need a method to inch closer to your goals every day.

Glue

We are in the business of building bridges for our customers.

Like a bridge needs strong pillars, your business needs strong ideas to stand on. That’s where creativity comes in.

Creativity is the unseen magnetic force that holds everything together before it becomes real.

Creativity shines a light on what’s possible.

Creativity brings the connection between people and ideas, products and consumers, vision and reality.

Imagine this: You're leading a team working on a new product. Excitement fills the room as everyone shares ideas. You're connecting, creating, building.

But then something happens. Maybe you hit a roadblock or the ideas slow down. The connection weakens, and you find yourself stuck.

Building bridges is not a solo task. You need teamwork, collaboration, and shared vision with your customers.

Along the way, you'll need to rebuild ideas, strategies, even relationships. Things will fall apart. They always do while you’re building.

But building a bridge takes time and patience. Maybe you're feeling discouraged. Worried that the bridge is never going to be completed.

But don't give up. Keep building.

Your business is a bridge that moves your customers from their current state to where they long to go.

It should make reaching your goals smoother, connecting you with the right opportunities.

So keep building those bridges.

Make something lasting and beautiful. Solve problems that matter.

Because in the end, the connections you make are worth it.

You’ are moving customers forward.

Keep building. Keep connecting.

Creativity is your glue.

Tripping on bricks

"Congratulations! You've published 7 weeks in a row. That's longer than 73% of writers. "

Wow.

Question: Why is it so hard to commit and do the things we start?

I’ve noticed people have a tendency to start things with great enthusiasm only to lose steam a few days or weeks later. It doesn’t matter if it’s starting a new workout or learning a language (Thanks Duolingo!).

Following through on our commitments can be incredibly challenging.

Picture this:
You're feeling motivated and inspired to make a change in your life. Maybe you want to start a business, learn a new skill, or take on a new project at work.

So you set a goal and start taking steps towards achieving it.

You're feeling good, confident, and excited about the possibilities.

But then something happens. Maybe you hit a roadblock or encounter some resistance.

Likely you don't see results as quickly as you expected.

Maybe you get distracted or lose focus. Whatever the reason, you start to lose momentum.

You skip a workout, miss a deadline, or skip a day of Duolingo (grab that streak freeze!)

That’s okay. It’s not a big deal.

But then one day turns into two, two days turn into a week, and a week turns into a month. Suddenly, you find yourself right back where you started, feeling discouraged, disappointed, and stuck.

Sound familiar?

If so, you're not alone. I’ve been there 100s of times in my business.

Why is it so difficult for us to stick with the things we start? And what can we do about it?

I think the answer is to stop looking down.

For me, the road between where you start and your goal is paved with impostor syndrome stamped bricks 🧱.

Every step forward feels hard. It makes you question everything and make excuses that tomorrow will be better. Is this the right strategy? Am I doing it right? What will people think? There’s got to be an easier way (aka: google a quick fix).

I didn’t start making real progress on my goals until I stopped looking down and accepting my excuses.

Believe me; I’m insanely creative at dreaming up excuses that sound completely logical to side-step a bruised ego.

Stop looking down. Don’t believe the bricks.

We have to look more at our goals and less at our results and how we feel.

In order to make long-term progress, you have to put excuses aside and just keep stepping.

Momentum is the key.

Excuses crush momentum.

PS: My friend Margo inspired this with a story she shared here. Thanks for the inspo, Margo!

Listen

When you have a conversation, people want to feel like they’re the only person in the world you’re talking to.

They want you to know and understand the problems in their life and business. They want you to listen.

One of my robots told me that last week I attended 10 Zoom conversations. That’s 552 minutes of discussion and over 87,000 words.

That’s a lot of listening…

For creative businesses, we have to build in time to show our customers that we care.

We have to put down our tools, shut of the distractions and really lean in and listen to what they say.

Listening creates connection.

Making that connection is crucial to building trust (and keeping it).

Plus, when you really focus and listen to your customers, they naturally see you care about them.

It’s not some marketing tactic. It’s just the right way to treat people.

And once the spark of connection is lit, people become open to getting help. Because they know you understand them and know how to help them.

But it starts with listening. We have to…

• Put down the phone.

• Turn off the slide deck.

• Stop multitasking.

• Ask more questions.

• Take good notes.

• And really lean in and listen to where people need you most.
  

  Plus - The deeper you listen and understand, the less time you need to spend on the call.

Marketing like the wind

The wind is weird. You can hear it. Feel it on your skin.

But you can’t grab it. Can’t see it.

You only see the effects of the wind, but not the wind itself.

You can’t create wind (easily). But you can harness its power to do some amazing things.

If we’re honest, marketing is a lot like the wind.

You see when new customers buy.

At some point the wind blows and a customer picks you.

But it feels random. It feels invisible. We try to understand how to make it happen more often.

But most Solopreneurs don’t really know what marketing tactic tipped that one person in our direction.

So we make tell ourselves stories about where the customers came from. Or, we make complex guesses. We create plans to draw a box around the unknowns.

We hire weather gurus (agencies or consultants).

We try and build expensive wind tunnels (funnels).

If we’re honest, we pick tactics like placing bets in Vegas. We rarely know why things really happen.

And that’s ok. We should relax more and let the wind blow.

We should focus on harnessing the wind, not creating it out of thin air.