ISSUE THREE: THE RETURN OF THE EXPERT
My advising work relies on a deep understanding of the current moment. NOW. As “now” changes day by day—that’s where my foresight for guiding businesses today and tomorrow comes from. Chicken bones and tea leaves, you could say, but rather than operating on tradition and intuition like seers of old, I keep up, weaving what I’m learning all day every day together with the nuanced needs of my clients and peers.
If you’re not familiar with what I do as a strategic advisor, this is it. I gather and synthesize relevant information from all over… business operations, economics, trends, DEI, communications, marketing. This is MY context, the set and scene I use to guide my clientele and my creative entrepreneurial community towards strategic decisions that will pay off, emotionally, creatively, and financially. It’s a specialized melange of feels, EQ, and strategy. As you might guess, offering it as a service is pretty intimate and requires a LOT of trust. (Learn more about my work in this vein over here.)
All this leads me to today’s topic. I believe we find ourselves at a rubicon, and what it takes to get across all in one piece is trustworthy expertise. More than ever, mid-life creative entrepreneurs must lean in to being authorities, taking responsibility for their work, not just their potential. This is partly because of our age, sure, but also because the past can’t guide us to where we’re headed now. The last 20 years of low barriers to entry (fueled by macroeconomic policy in the form of low interest rates, especially after 2008, but I digress) are over, and it doesn’t look like they’re coming back.
In one sense, all small entrepreneurs have to be Jacks/Jills of all trades—leaders, operations managers, biz dev rainmakers, HR, marketers, content creators, CRM sages, etc. This is just what it takes to run a contemporary business and live an independent life, today. But I think we’ve maybe taken it too far. It’s time to ask ourselves what we might be losing by trying to be everything to everybody, or indulging every single idea, opportunity, or potentiality.
In one sense, this is about a return to specialization, commitment to one thing. The small businesses set to thrive in the coming decades are best in class, or have a plan to get there. They OOZE trust, because they deliver legitimate value, every single time. That value may be tangible or intangible, but it always makes an impression that doesn’t diminish over time. LONG after the flowers have faded, the onesies been outgrown, or the financial model expired (all examples from active clients of mine) customers and clients don’t forget how amazing it was to work with YOU. Getting there isn’t complicated, but it ain’t easy, either. All it takes is:
Consistency
Integrity
Patience
The order there matters—it’s progressive. First, be consistent, at whatever level you’re at. Then be the best, consistently. Then be patient, and keep doing it.
I believe we’re in a new era. Let’s call it The Return of the Expert. This might sound obvious, but how and why we got here is pretty interesting: Aren’t we all feeling a collective exhaustion with the skills economy? You know, where everyone’s trying their hand at everything and believing all their ideas are great ones that will inevitably work out for themselves and maybe even their customers. #tbh I’m most definitely questioning the value in a lot of what is being thrown into the marketplace (including my own categorical diversification) and sold to me, a lot just feels like ‘stuff’ rather than value additive…
As we navigate this new era, which has us all longing for trusted professional support, we need experts to explain why, specifically, and taking accountability for what they promise to deliver. I sense a collective understanding that we've suffered skill loss during the giggy, oh-I-think-I’ll-just-start-my-own-XXX-biz 2010s.
To take a lil’ historical perspective, you could say this is a return: deep expertise and skills were the only way the world worked for a looong time. Strategic, informed decision- making, guided by those who have honed their craft and possess the foresight to lead businesses into a successful future never goes out of style, but it hasn’t been as necessary for the last few decades, with the artificially-fertilized fruits of late neo capitalism falling every day from every tree.
Now, the going’s getting harder again, so we’re reconnecting with the need for reverence in craft and skill. Yearning to be able to work with established expertise that’s not about double-digit YOY growth projections. The idea of sustainable lifestyle businesses goes hand-in-hand with this return to expertise, IMO: again, that’s what people have always done. Only the last few decades have been an aberration. Running a small business year after year is something to be proud of, and lately it’s become almost shameful… you’re not looking to exit/go public/get acquired/whatever? Fuck that. Maintaining independence and doing what we love is what really matters.
So what do you do if you’ve gotten off track? Maybe it’s starting to sink in that you’re perpetually addicted to possibility and rarely doubling down on the work right in front of you? Maybe, just maybe, you’re realizing you haven’t been as dedicated to honing your craft and developing foundational business practices that will help you achieve the level of career or earnings you want? Don’t panic, help is right here in the next paragraph;)
I’ve put together a quick list of nuanced questions to help you reflect on your expertise. The good news? All of this directly relates to earning potential, profitability, and scalability. I’m not anti- making money, believe me—I just think the way to do it most predictably, most satisfyingly, is changing. So here we go:
ALIGN WITH YOUR IDENTITY
Who are you as a creative, business owner, and a person?
What are your values?
What gets YOU excited about your services/products?
ASSESS THE DATA
What feedback are you getting from customers/clients?
What lights people up, and when?
What are you doing (tangible or intangible) that people want more of?
DISCERN BEFORE DIVERSIFYING
Given ALL the above , is your idea/desire to diversify making sense given your identity and the data?
Are there parts that make sense and others that don’t? (i.e., are you adding value to your work, or diluting it?)
Are you confusing your customers OR making them even more interested in your work and worth?
STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING
Delving into these questions (and this is just the start of it) allows you to make decisions strategically in your businesses AND your best interests, as a creative and a human being.
Your ability to create a sustainable, life-giving, creative, financially viable life is real. It’s built on loyalty and dedication to honing a craft over a working lifetime, without the distractions of BS shiny object syndrome or over-focussing on “overnight” success.
Nobody out there right now needs more sorta half-ass, kinda good at a lot of things in a lot of different areas-type businesses. Customers are looking for innovation (and always will), but also yearning for makers and providers they can trust and feel reassured about investing in. New ideas are well and good, but they’re only great if they work over time, proving value that can stand the test of time. That’s real sustainability.
Finally, bringing it all together, I’ve got this research paper to share - There are 5,000+ companies in the world that are more than 200 years old. More than 3,000 are in Japan. Because these companies have provided a long secure base of jobs for the Japanese economy, the Bank of Korea undertook a study of them. These are the lessons and facts from this study:
They are devoted to earning the trust of their customers, their employees, and their communities.
They are “anthropocentric” – realizing that talented people are the most resilient force in market sustainability. (P.S. they invest in the skills and loyalty of their staff)
They believe that honesty with customers will provide loyal customers, even in a crisis.
They deliberately stay small (hello mom & pop shop!?)
They control growth. They are internally financed.
They believe in craftsmanship; they believe in adoptive craftsmanship.
They are dominant in small markets.
This study illustrates the advantages of being small and nimble businesses w/ focused expertise for survival - To quote the research paper, “their ultimate purpose of the company is not the profit, but its continuation.”
I promise I'm not trying to be a drag… and I know this is a bit of a brutal read. But it's an earnest attempt at getting us to think about what we lose (entrepreneurs and consumers/society at large) when we overly indulge every impulse as business owners and what we might gain by embracing expertise as invaluable.
#getwithit
gJ
