Lately, I’ve been doing a ton of things for the first time. And after a 28-year career of successfully doing the same things, a LOT of times, being a stone-cold beginner is a mind-boggling, humbling, ego-shattering experience.
Last night I was summarily schooled in the art of beginning… by my teenage son.
If you’ve been around my blog or my online trainings, then you’ve undoubtedly heard my favorite saying:
A great brand is not about logos, colors and fonts. A great brand is about the way you make people FEEL.
This weekend, I watched a fresh and enlightening TED talk by Joe Gebbia, one of the co-founders of Airbnb, and I wanted to share it with you here. Gebbia, who is a designer, discusses how he and his co-founders “designed for trust” when they created Airbnb.
From a branding standpoint, I love everything about this talk. I love that Gebbia started his business because he had a realization – through a personal experience – that shifted one of his fundamental beliefs:
“Maybe the people my childhood taught me to label as strangers were actually friends, waiting to be discovered.”
Friends… waiting to be discovered.
What a beautiful concept to share with the world.
We all need permission.
Permission to do.
Permission to be.
Permission to try.
Permission to have.
I talk a lot with my clients and associates about their brands providing permission. About them standing for something that’s real, putting forth messages that are meaningful, saying things — out loud — that other brands won’t have the courage to say.
I encourage business owners to make it easier for their clients and customers to own themselves and speak for themselves by aligning themselves with brands that feel the way they do about things that are important to them. To give their clients permission.
Last week, the world lost an amazing soul and an amazing brand: Prince Rogers Nelson.
And this morning, as I danced around the house nearly shouting the lyrics to “Cream” and “Gett Off” and “When Doves Cry,” I shocked myself a little when I cried. I was more than a little surprised at the size of the hole that had opened in my heart just days ago when I learned that an icon I longed for — straight from my soul, for so many years — had died alone, in his elevator.
And I realized something for the first time:
Prince gave me permission.
I woke up this morning and had the strangest sensation: I could see.
I mean I could see everything. The sun was just beginning to rise, and I could see the geometric patterns of shadows on the ceiling. I could see the La Costa valley beginning to take shape outside my bedroom windows, and the traffic light across that valley, turning from red to green. I could see the tops of the palm trees in our back yard, painted with light. I could see Diego, our Golden Retriever, and his kind amber eyes staring back at me from the floor beside my bed.
It’s the first morning that I remember, in my life, that I could see upon waking.
There’s a lot of talk in the branding and business worlds these days about story telling. And every day I read long, involved stories from business owners who lead with their life experiences – who use their own journeys as the basis for presenting their products.
And last week, I had an interesting question from a reader:
“How does finding a unique story translate into actual sales?”
I recently had a call with a client who told me she wasn’t sure why someone would buy her art. She felt that she had a beautiful product – art infused with a healing energy. She felt connected to her brand and motivated by the “juju” she’d identified in her brand story. She felt, from the bottom of her soul, that her product would bring something to the buyer.
And then she said, “But I’m just not sure if other people will feel the same way. I’m just not sure why they would buy it.”
I live and work on the Internet now. After 25 years of making money offline, the web is my office these days. And I keep my eye on the market leaders, the competition, the movers-and-shakers, and the talkers.
And almost every day, I see people make promises about how quickly I can make money on the Internet. Not a single day goes by that a hot-shot doesn’t tell me how I can make $50,000 a month, or a million in my first year, or how I can sign clients up for a $10,000 program with ease.
I can only guess that you’re reading these things, too.
And I want to take a moment to call “Bullsh** on the “Get-Rich-Quick” lie.
Now before you get up in arms and send me examples of people who were $225,000 in credit card debt last year and are currently sipping Mai-Tais in the Bahamas while riding the jet skis they own free-and-clear, I want you to hear me out.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Mihai Herman sat me down for an interview. Mihai is a business coach for creative entrepreneurs – and he lives in Romania. He’s young. He’s ambitious. He’s a firecracker. He’s got a social following of more than 30,000, and he’s a regular contributor for the Huffington Post. And what I like most about Mihai is that he’s looking to learn and improve every chance he gets.
In my last two blog posts, I introduced you to some friends of mine – business owners who were blown away by a brutal online review from a high profile client. And how this review started a downward spiral for my friends that resulted in them losing enthusiasm for their business, then losing actual business, and then sliding into a dangerous sea of inactivity.
In the first post, I addressed the inactivity, and what to do when you feel like doing nothing. (You can find it here.)
In the second post, I addressed the issue of how my friends allowed someone or something outside of them to define them — and their brand. (You can find it here.)
And in today’s post, I want to address something less emotional, and more pragmatic:
How do you deal with critics, angry customers, and haters online?
Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post about some friends of mine – close friends whom I respect and admire – who fell into a hole when they received a damning review of their services on Yelp by a very powerful client. The hole they fell into was one of inactivity and fear.
But it was more than that – they fell into a hole of self-denial. And they created that hole when they allowed their business to be defined –in their own minds – by the opinion of someone else.
A full year later, they’re just beginning to crawl out of that hole. And they’re squinting in the bright light of the gorgeous day that’s before them.
In my first post, I talked about the inactivity. About HOW to get up and begin again when we feel bruised or crushed, when we feel overwhelmed by the size of our to-do lists, or underwhelmed by our own performances.
The answer to inactivity is relatively simple. It’s activity. Of any kind. In order to move forward, we need momentum. And we gain momentum when we’re in motion. You can read about that here.
I received an unusually large number of responses to that blog post. I had lots of readers come forward and say that similar things had happened to them – that they’d felt just the way these two talented gentlemen felt when they were attacked with criticism that was brutal at best, and destructive at worst.
And I think there are other elements of this story – this whole situation – that are ripe for discussion.
Perhaps the biggest issue here is how we allow ourselves, and our businesses, to be defined.
