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.
Use visuals to simplify and clarify.
August 26, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
RedShift: Natural influence expansion in the connected world
Most of the popular small business advice is tailored to product companies. That’s because service firms are always more challenging to define and differentiate without creating complexity which then leads to confusion. And that confusion will increase as new small and solo professional service firms are founded by generalists, multiple careerists and encore careerists.
The nimble solo psf’s are uniquely able to create services for evolving markets that emerge from disruption, convergence and shifting demographics. Their challenge is to simply and effectively communicate who they are, where they’re going and how they help their clients.
If I can’t easily explain my content, I step back, formulate a question that I think needs to be answered and then convey that answer in some visual format. I give my right brain the right of way so to speak. I know its a highly effective method for gaining “creative clarity” and I use it extensively and successfully in client work.
Here’s a recent example of mine. To improve my ability to more clearly communicate RedShfit’s benefits to my clients and community, the question I asked myself is: How do RedShift programs create natural influence and why is that good?
By creating the graphic, I let my right brain (mostly) give me the answer.
You don’t need high-end graphics skills to do this; a whiteboard sketch is great. I used CmapTools for the natural influence concept map.
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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.
RedShift News
August 20, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · 1 Comment
RedShift Web 2.0
I’ve recently made significant changes (yup - again!) to my web site and blog and it may be of interest to those of you who are starting a new business needing online content or who are thinking of bringing your existing site(s) to another level. I’ll try to explain in the simplest, non-technical language as possible.
I decided 2 weeks ago to migrate to WordPress and to self host my blog. I’d previously used TypePad, a blog service. I was so impressed with its capabilities, that I decided to integrate my web site and my blog, bringing them both together in one WordPress site. Not only is it more professional looking and integrated, but it also provides a greatly enhanced architecture for Web 2.0 trends and search engine optimization. On top of that, its easier to maintain, manage and update, and its cool and fun which I like to be. Its no longer a big deal to add additional functionality (calendars, forums, social networking….you name it) and the capabilities are extensive.
Custom web design and programming is expensive for solo’s and small business and often does not really serve the purpose of building community and relationships. On the other hand, standardized applications, developed specifically for Web 2.0, provide a pre-built structure for doing just that. When business owners don’t have to deal with the mechanics, they can focus on education, collaboration and relationship building - the things that keep people coming back for more. Another huge advantage is that WordPress sites are developed to maximize search engine placement.
Although I’ve resisted doing Web site work for clients in the past, I believe that these great new web tools, combined with my strategy, writing and coaching skills, allow me to offer “my kind” of creative program that provides clients real value for a very reasonable investment. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
I still have a few things on my new site to fix or complete. But I’m trying to adhere to a mantra that someone I respect recently posted: “better done than perfect”.
RedShift on Twitter
I’m now on Twitter and send out very short posts - information, ideas, inspiration. If you’d like to check it out, or if you’re interested in following me on Twitter, you can get my little snippets by email or on your cellphone. You may want to experiment with Twitter yourself. Like most Web 2.0, its very simple concept providing a lot of community development potential.
As always, thanks so much for your time, interest and feedback!
Chain reaction of overwhelment
August 18, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
You know how some days you leap out of bed before dawn because you have so much energy and so many ideas? And then, by 10 a.m. you feel lethargic and let-down. You probably overwhelmed yourself. I get it. I’m a generalist which makes me very prone to the condition.
I was so excited at 5 a.m. about what I wanted to produce, that I took a rest day from rowing. Its now 11 a.m. and I have a headache, I feel like I’ve been working hard but have nothing to show for it, and I have to leave in 45 minutes for a meeting. All I can think about is “wake me when its over”. But what is “its”? Well, its just my thinking over which I have total control. In fact, at the end of the day, its really the only “it” that I have control over. But I choose to ignore that today.
So what triggers caused me to unwittingly flip my excitement over to anxiety, its shadow form? I’ll re-trace my morning:
- I read dozens of tweets by people I’ve been following and started to mentally compare myself to them, even though I have little in common with them and care less. I started to think that I’m not doing enough.
- I went on a support forum to review a thread about about a software problem I’d been dealing with but that I’d decided last night I could put aside for now because its fairly trivial. I started looking hard again for the “answer”. I started to think that my new site is not perfect enough.
- I browsed through some feeds and noticed a trend that annoys me: popular coach/consultants marketing their very expensive and exclusive secrets of “how to triple your business” to struggling solo professionals. I got angry, thinking about how I hate pyramid schemes. I started to think that these people are not ethical enough.
Urgency. Perfectionism. Judgment. And the chain reaction was set into motion.
I could feel it happening but chose to not hit the “kill switch”. Sound familiar? This comes up in my work with so many clients, in so many contexts and situations. I often hear people self-describe it as their ADD.
Why is it so hard to stop it in ourselves or to help others caught up in the chain reaction? Well that’s a huge learning that I want to share: its because we protect our hidden beliefs that counter-direct us away from what we want. And there’s hidden payoffs in protecting those beliefs…or, there once was.
That’s it. When the spinning starts, and the anxious feelings kick in, just remind yourself that you’re choosing the thoughts that are creating your reality in that moment. Stress is an indicator. A different thought is yours to choose.
Belief shift
August 3, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
“To shift” is becoming a popular phrase with marketers, advertisers and coaches who use it with respect to attitudes, preferences and perceptions. Friday, while watching the terns from my beach chair on Briggs Beach in Little Compton, RI, I thought about the difference between those usages and what I mean by “to shift”.
The flock of terns shifted direction in perfect unison either towards what they wanted, like food in the water or in the wet sand, or away from what threatened or interfered with them, like people, dogs or larger birds. They moved like a single instinctually guided entity in response to their environment.
photo “Shorebird Synchronicity” credit: stevevoght on flicker
I saw the terns as a metaphor for how the 50 trillion cells of our bodies respond in unison to the environment we create with our beliefs. Our beliefs direct and we shift accordingly.
Like each tern in the flock, each of our individual cells is aware, receptive and collaborative, moving towards growth or towards protection. When we’re consciously directing this movement, there’s a shift. But we don’t see it, we feel it. We’ve changed.
The challenge for everyone now is to resist the temptation to direct ourselves too far towards protection because we feel threatened, unsafe and insecure because of everything that’s going on around us. That’s when we miss the proverbial school of minnows in the shallow waters and wet sand and we become undernourished in spirit, devoid of joy and blocks to the fulfillment and results that we’ve been desiring and working towards.
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intuition, metaphor q, metaphysics, natural influence, personal coaching, self-awareness, solo professional service firm
Knowledge and change
July 28, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
We hear a lot about the importance of asking the right questions when 
solving problems and making decisions related to change. Unfortunately, the right questions are rarely asked although there’s a lot of lip service paid.
The greater the challenges, the greater the likelihood of default, reactive, political and ego-driven change response, often couched in buzzword expressions like “out of the box”.
Asking the right questions requires consciousness raising about your knowledge zone. The costs of not being aware include: weak competitive strategies, resistance and low morale, being at the mercy of fate or luck or external conditions and forces.
Whether you’re leading your personal, team, divisional or organizational change, you’ll turbo-charge the question-asking process with the courage to examine your individual and collective knowledge beliefs.
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alignment, business coaching, empathy, executive coaching, leadership, personal coaching, self-knowledge, meeting facilitation
The value of You!
July 24, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
If everything you read or hear about money and finance contradicts your present experience, what you want and where you’re going, why look or listen? Think about it: do you want the so-called “experts” to determine your worth?
You may protest, saying you have $100 in the bank and owe $20,000, so you know you’re toast. Really? By what criteria? Most of the financial valuation criteria was designed for a world economy that bears little resemblance to the present, and maybe none to the near future.
So perhaps:
You’ve heavily invested in your physical well-being that will likely prolong your life for 20 years. Is that not a high-yield investment?
(click image to enlarge)
You’ve created a global micro-branded business that is not generating much revenue. What about the many intangible assets that can be amortized? How much? How long?
You’re beginning your encore career and are concerned with making yourself and the world better. How do you value your present and future impact? On how many lives? For how many generations even after you’re gone?
You’re sticking out, for 8 more years, a job you despise to meet your financial goals. How do you value what you really owe for that 8 years, or beyond?
The probable scenarios are countless. What does yours look like?
Remove your attention from the 100% negative financial reporting and boldly claim and create the value of you. Its not a fantasy. Its creative authority. Perhaps your -$19,900 negative worth is actually +$4 million. Which will you intend?.
The elevator riff
July 23, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
In Neil Young’s video conversation with Charlie Rose he talked about his song writing process and how sometimes he gets little melodies, or hooks, rolling around in his head, like “little reminders”. Curiously, I often use “getting hooked” as a metaphor for repeatedly getting caught up in unwanted experiences.
Conversely, the music hook is a sound, or phrase that grabs a listener and sticks with them as a positive experience. That’s a result all marketers desire. And we’re all marketers. 
So I see the hook as a creative metaphor for the traditional pitch, or “elevator pitch“, a term that’s always turned me off because most sound to me as artificial and uninspiring as a resume’ or powerpoint presentation. On the other hand, I understand the importance of getting a point across quickly, like in 30 seconds. I’ve just never figured out how to effectively do that for myself or for my clients to naturally influence the audience.
The next time I develop personal and business micro-stories (can’t bear to call them pitches) I’ll do so from the perspective of my inner songwriter.
DA DOO RON RON….
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career transition, creative process, marketing , metaphor q, natural influence, Neil Young, personal brand, RedShift Professional Services, solo professional service firm
Disturbance
July 21, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
Coaches often get asked if they cross the line into psychotherapy. My answer is no, except when it comes to the shadow, which can really trip up, or disturb, an otherwise very self-aware coaching client’s progress. A tip-off is an experience or interaction that the participant can’t let go of, that spins in the head and feels emotionally intractable. To the coach, or observer, the participant’s reaction seems way out of proportion to the event and has become an energy drain and distraction.
These disturbances show up in many forms: A brief confrontation with an angry driver upsets you and you’re still fuming and thinking about revenge a week later. A co-worker or manager throws a hissy fit and now your work life feels like a living hell. A family member pushes your buttons and it eats at you night and day. A team member shoots down your idea and now you want out of the project and permanently away from this idiot. Everything about the person you sit next to in the conference rubs you the wrong way and you can’t think of anything else.
Countless story lines and forms, always projection.
A psychotherapeutic approach may be to examine, trace back and re-experience the parts of the self that have been repressed and projected “out there” because they bring up shameful and anxious feelings or traumatic memories. A coaching or facilitative approach is more of a turnaround, or holding up a mirror, in the present, and within the context of a specific annoyance that’s got you hooked. I find 3-2-1 journaling an effective tool and I usually do the exercise along with my client. Its quick and works best with minimal thinking and effort.
The first step is to describe the experience in the third person: this is what happened, he said, she did, I got p.o.’d etc.
The second step is to second person dialog with him, or her - being open, listening, learning and getting his or her perspective.
The third step is to first person exchange so that you imagine you “are” him or her - saying this, doing that, ticking off others and the reasons why. You might realize: “I’m” the trouble-maker, or the control-freak or the cold fish.
Reading these back to each other feels surprisingly refreshing and light-hearted. There’s often a great sense of relief that comes with integrating important aspects of yourself that were lost to you for a long time. You’ll find that making friends with them results in a lot less suffering and misery from getting fixated, and a great deal more energy, time and attention for where you’re going and what you want.
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alignment, empathy, personal coaching, self-awareness, solo professional service firm, shadow work