ISSUE FIVE: WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?
As you might recall, my last couple of newsletters were basically calls to action: time to get your biz shit together. #3 was to drop the dissociative product/service diversification and drill down on your expertise. #4 was a clarion call to organize your ops and get your business on a tight track.
(In case you missed it, every edition of Sage Advice is on my website. Click on the links to read or refresh.)
This month’s newsletter is, I suppose, meant to continue to dig deeper into our responsibility within today’s sociocultural state of being for creative entrepreneurs. I have a long-held belief we’re on the hook for more than exclusively making beautiful things and experiences. Our businesses depend on healthful, constantly replenishing discretionary household spend, and things have gotten shaky, in the US and everywhere else I’m in touch with. This has complexified the administrative and operational backbones that hold up our creative output. Even in the salad days, it’s hard to run profitable, fulfilling small businesses because hyper-competitive marketplaces ARE our normal. But normal is becoming far more elusive.
What I really want to talk about this month is that things are complex right now, fragile and volatile, and it doesn't look like it's gonna get better anytime soon. This is the new normal, because our overstimulated, hyperreactive global marketplace driven societ[ies] have outpaced our ability to plan ahead, in my humble opinion. Frightening and confusing? Yes. Impossible to navigate? No.
The work we do is important, in a bunch of ways—one way may feel surprising and daunting at the same time. We’re forecasters. Because of the intuitiveness that’s inherent in doing what we do, we sense shit before other people, and when things are happening we feel it more deeply. We can sense the socioeconomic health of a moment in time. So I see us playing two roles: cultural canaries in the coal mine, and also (distinctly) bellwethers. Canaries were literally (not figuratively) used in coal mining, because when the air got too bad to breathe down there, they’d die, and this would warn the miners. (Which is not to say we’re all gonna die—at least not right away;) So, more optimistically, we’re also bellwethers, which, to keep up with the history lesson, described the animal in the flock that led the way, wearing a bell so others could follow. Bellwethers sense things, make decisions, and start trends, taking the lead on new pathways forward in changing environments.
So what am I feeling, what am I sensing? The air ain’t great. I have seen what seemed like steadfast brands, retailers, practitioners, etc, announcing closures, filing for bankruptcy, or proclaiming big pivots ahead. So I’m asking myself, what’s canary and what’s bellwether? Attempting to understand the businesses I passively observe, and in supporting the businesses I work with, I am pondering what is landing whom where and… why? Who’s about to keel over, and who’s about to lead the way to someplace new?
Ok, so let’s reel it in, a little. My clients and their customers are tightening the purse strings, that’s a signal. There are definitely factors which separate canaries from bellwethers, let’s reflect on both ends of the entrepreneurial spectrum:
Canaries
Focus on core consumers
Relevance is limited, and plateaus (if not declines) over time
Don’t adapt communication strategies and messaging to new platforms
Let products/services stagnate
Tend to be value-driven (eg, dependent on launches or liquidations)
Get over-leveraged—high fixed and/or variable costs
Bellwethers
Focus on new consumer acquisition
Prioritize maintaining relevancy
Focus on adaptivity as a regular practice (eg, What’s changing? Why?)
Strategically prioritize and integrate new communications
Regularly innovate products and services
Tend to be quality-driven (eg, integrate values and standards)
Prioritize healthy cash flows and consistent liquidity
My advice given the above:
Number one: don’t just make more shit. Please. People do not have the money, especially if what you’re asking them to do is support your status quo, instead of being given just cause for supporting (cough, investing in) you and your business.
Number two: stop dissociating and pining for the past. Dig into reality. Focus on what is needed in the moment within your market and then thoughtfully communicate with your established AND potential consumers in a way that is compelling and relevant right NOW.
How do I tackle this in my advising work?
Firstly, I support clients dealing with reality today. I help them be ADAPTIVE ENTREPRENEURS, strategically cutting out what’s not working and recalibrating towards what is. It’s individualized work so there’re principles but not formulas, and it requires an ongoing investment in one-on-one time.
Secondly, I help clients to lean into the knowledge that a successful entrepreneur doesn’t grin and bear it through the day-to-day realities of being in business. I help clients see that it’s not actually about you, but about the landscape you’re living in. It’s a nimble process that requires strategy, self-awareness and tactical as well as emotional accountability.
To wrap up, I’m asking you to consider three questions:
Why am I making things?
How do I make them?
What are they worth—to my customers and to the world?
If you can’t answer these three questions, STOP everything and make time to come up with your own answers. It is a critical time for your business. The mania of these times isn’t going away. Culture, environment, politics, economics…Resiliency requires seeing the business you’re in, and acknowledging it’s not all about you. It’s about how you show up in light of your answers to those three questions, up there. It bears mentioning this isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it, either, because of how fast and volatile change tends to be, now… you have to think critically all the time. Creative entrepreneurs gotta get this, or suffer the consequences.
