Solo Professional Service Providers: What Business Are You In?
October 14, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
We’re in a financial crisis and possibly an economic downturn which means there’s even more advice being given, targeting independent professionals, than in more stable times. Most of it’s marketing related: being seen and heard, getting blog traffic and comments, building links, viral methods, etc. Its easy to get swept up in the speed, urgency and sheer volume of what you “should” do to succeed .
I suggest checking in with yourself and going the other way: slow down, be still and narrow your focus.
Early in 2008 I was deeply moved reading Suzanne Pleshette’s obituary and her philosophy about the entertainment industry and I blogged about it back then. I believe her philosophy is even more significant now:
“I’m an actress, and that’s why I’m still here,” she said in a 1999 interview. “Anybody who has the illusion that you can have a career as long as I have and be a star is kidding themselves.”
I believe that much of the great advice out there is for those who aim for stardom and not for actors. Solo psf’s are actors (although some are both). Know the business you’re in. You see, clients don’t care about stars. Clients are the most selfish species on the planet and they only care about themselves and what you’ll do for them. And rightfully so - its what they pay for and trust in! If you identify with the business of being a star, clients will quickly pick up on the vibe that its about you first, not them.
I’m not saying to ignore or discount great advice and information but rather that you filter it through a solo professional firm’s lens and follow and adopt it from a “client first” perspective. Remind yourself daily about the business that you’re in and commit to it for the long term.
VRM and latent buyer intention
September 15, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I gave my Intro. to Social Networks for Small Business presentation over the weekend and like to open the workshop describing how the shift in power from seller to buyer has been the driving force. So I’m happy that I’m now following VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management, an emerging buyer centric platform. The ProjectVRM Blog: Developing tools for customer independence and engagement with vendors, provides a good overview. VRM is particularly interesting to me because its tied to the Intention Economy.
The Intention Economy is about buyers finding sellers, not sellers finding (or “capturing”) buyers. (Doc Searls)
Most of the VRM work that I’ve scanned is about how relationship, data, identity and transactional tools will support the paradigm shift to truly open markets, where sellers compete to fulfill the buyer’s stated intention. I’m most interested in VRM development with respect to how it will address not just the obvious, but also the latent, buyer intentions:
- Are intentions beliefs that direct thought and action?
- Can intentions direct action that is at cross-purposes to what is wanted?
- When do thought and action become habitual?
- Can negative habitual actions be changed as awareness of intentions increases?
This may be an area where conversations matter most to buyers and where sellers have the ideal opportunity to earn respect and trust. I’ll be closely following this work, thinking about latent intention scenarios, and how some of my existing program frameworks may be useful to the VRM Project.
Naturally influence the sales call
August 25, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
If you’re in professional services you’re hearing some version of this when you make a sales call: “All this blogging and social networking and having conversations is too much work, too expensive, giving my expertise away for free and just another passing fad. I need to get good leads because I know I can close the business if I have the leads. So I want you to help me with a business development plan so that I meet my business and life goals and objectives.”
In the past, I’d be immediately mentally rehearsing my exit thinking “they’re clueless, don’t waste your time, there’s nothing here.” I’m now practicing a better response by being be present with, open to and curious about these potential clients. My approach is to meet them where they are and drop any attachment to getting their business. I don’t try to persuade them about anything, its futile. And I avoid getting drawn into long, detailed story and history, its meaningless.
What I commit to is understanding how a business owner responds to change out of old habit and then continually reinforces the counter-directing assumptions by endlessly, willfully and forcefully repeating them. “Push” is the modus operandi. But “push back” is no longer mine. That alone can shift the dynamic of the meeting and create an opening for inquiry, deep listening, re-framing and shared understanding. Whether new business results or not, positive fulfillment, often indirectly, unfailingly corresponds with my choice to be naturally influential, even when the sales call seems hopeless.
I may not get a new client, but I’ll definitely gain a new friend.
When things backfire.
June 30, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
I want to illustrate with a more specific example, particularly for solo professional creative practitioners, of when the old default response can kick in. Its one thing to theoretically talk about raising emotional intelligence and empathy. Its quite another when you’re getting attacked and you never saw it coming. It happens; you turn in something good, maybe even your best work, but your boss, or client or professor or whoever unexpectedly reacts very negatively and lashes out at you.
When that happens, in a real-world professional situation, can you prevent yourself from getting “hooked” and responding by running away, judging and criticizing, lashing back, getting your allies involved, going for the win, and re-living (and embellishing) the memory over and over in your thoughts?
Yes, you can respond differently, with practice. And to practice means staying present with your feelings and using whatever techniques you’ve learned that will prevent you from getting hooked. And if you totally, or partially fail, you resolve to keep practicing and being alert and vigilant to your default and automatic egoic responses to people and situations that backfire on you. Because without them, there’s no test, no real-world practice, no awakening to your own blind spots and consequently less self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
Don’t confuse your resolve with thinking you’re becoming a pushover because great strength, power and natural influence accumulate and suffering diminishes when you practice self-awareness and self-management in unpleasant situations and with unpleasant people. Like failure, they’re your best teachers, so be grateful for them even though you dislike them. Its good practice.
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creative process, empathy, natural influence, self-awareness, solo professional service firm
Default response
May 22, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
I recently posted about how changing beliefs is an easier response than trying to change external conditions over which we have little or no control. There’s a lot of mass-marketed self-help, new-age type advice and even coaching schools of thought that make light of unwanted beliefs that drive our experience in the wrong way, and that tell us to simply will and affirm these pesky “gremlins” away.
But anyone wanting a greater life experience through awareness has been challenged to change what I call the default response to change triggers. You can be in the midst of performing a mundane activity and suddenly realize that you’ve been mentally dress-rehearsing an unwanted scenario for the past 10 minutes and you wonder “where did that come from?”. Or you immediately regret something you said or did and can’t even imagine what possessed you, although it has a kernel of familiarity.
But just like we can re-boot, re-program and de-bug our computer operating systems, we can do the same with our infinitely complex neurology and neurochemistry by identifying the old instructions and replacing them. And we have the advantage of having feelings that will point us to these operating system beliefs, or “code” because they’re well hidden and were chosen by us, either consciously or unconsciously, as fail-safes.
There’s no one-size fits all formula for how feelings, default responses and beliefs track together and keep us stuck in a cycle. But I do often get asked to provide examples; so I’ve charted some that I’ve seen come up in myself and in others and that I know, once identified, can be cleared and followed by transformation and surprising positive results for both individuals and organizations. Its not a matter of will, but of choice.
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creative process, self-awareness, solo professional service firm
Strategy
May 14, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
I’ve always been quite proud of and grateful for my skill, talent and experience in strategy. The ability to figure out all the angles, possibilities, scenarios and methods for problem solving and decision making served me very well in both my professional and personal life. Or so I thought.
Because over the past year I’ve shifted as I’ve realized that my being strategic about certain aspects of my personal reality was a (lifelong!) habitual, albeit sophisticated, attempt to control when non-resistance, or willingness to let go, accept and receive, was the better response. And these old habits, particularly when they’re connected to safety and survival needs (my specialties), tend to sneak back in and get the ego involved when I least expect it, during meditation for example.
But gradually, and sometimes in leaps and bounds, there’s a great sense of ease and relief in letting go of attempting to control through strategic means that which we don’t have control over and in fact never did have control over.
So for the past days I’ve been going through a lot of my material, and books, and notes to try to synthesize, re-frame and present this material visually and creatively to maximize its value to my readers and clients. I wanted to come up with a compelling diagram or clever map that would provide a starting point to answering the question: when is strategy the correct response and when does it counter-direct? The harder I tried, the less I accomplished and the worse I felt until I finally realized that I was being strategic…again.
So I allowed myself a few minutes of stillness to see what came up and this came up:
Relief.
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self-awareness, solo professional service firm, source