Seth Godin's Blog, page 114

Reviewing a contract

A deal, whether in writing or orally, is not to be considered lightly, because you fully expect to keep your end of the bargain. Three things to consider before saying, "yes":

What happens now: Who owes who what? What, precisely, does each side promise to do, and what does each side get? It can't hurt to write this out in English and add it to the agreement, just to be sure you both agree.

What happens if things don't work out: If you don't do what you say you'll do, what happens? If the other person can't pay or can't deliver, or wants to walk away, then what? When you leave yourself (and the other person) an out, you're almost certainly investing in a better future, because you know in advance what the options are.

What happens if things do work out: If everyone's wildest dreams come true, then what? Does that person who gave you three days of advice end up owning half your gourmet foods business that you've worked on for twenty years? Describe the hypotheticals, and plan them out together, because today's hypothetical is tomorrow's unfair reality.

The fine print is there for a reason, and if you don't like it or can't live with it, cross it out or walk away. There's no better time than this very moment to be clear, to be honest and to have a difficult conversation.

            

The struggle to raise money

When your small business is struggling, the thought of raising money feels like a life preserver.

That possible infusion of cash is a beacon of hope, the thing you can work on tirelessly. It's the one thing that appears as though it will make everything better.

Careful. It's often a detour, a distraction that won't pan out at the very same time it takes your eye off the real issues.

The problem starts with this: Few people will tell you to stop trying to raise money. They'll encourage you to polish your business plan, make more pitches, add more rigor, dream bigger. 

Add to this that it's essentially impossible to build a 1000x company, but those are the ones that get all the hype and the ones that investors crave. So you're comparing yourself to something that's quite elusive.

And finally, as you get deeper and deeper into the quest, there are individuals and institutions that will happily take advantage of you, requiring you to personally guarantee debt, to give up control, to turn your dream project into something you never envisioned.

The reason for this money trap is that so many small-business owners confuse raising money for expenses with raising money to build an asset. This is worth understanding.

If you can say, "I will spend this money on X, and X will make Y happen, and Y will pay off handsomely," then a professional investor ought to be open to hearing that story.

But the things to spend money on are a significant real estate presence, machines, patents, a permanent, expensive brand. The entrepreneur who spends this money does it with enthusiasm, because she's buying things that are going to grow in value, fast. 

This is the painting contractor who realizes that a high-powered industrial paint booth will make him the only guy in town who can do a certain kind of job. Or the fast food impresario who asserts that opening ten restaurants in one town in one year will give her the footprint to be more efficient and profitable.

But that's not the way most small business folks are wired.

We're wired to delight our customers, charge for what we do, and then spend some of that money to do it again.

If that sounds like you, pretend that it's not even possible to raise money from investors. Take the option off the table (where it isn't, really).

Instead, spend that energy and that passion and that focus to raise money from your customers. To delight more customers often enough that they happily pay you for what you can do for them. And then repeat. And again.

It's not a life preserver. Not at all. It's a stepwise path, a ramp from here to there, a process with no guru, no miracle, no signing bonus. It's merely the work.

The thing you signed up for in the first place.

            

Narratives keep the feeling going

Our feelings (anger, shame, delight) appear almost instantly, and, left alone, they don’t last very long.

But if we invent a narrative around an event or a person, we can keep the feeling going for a very long time.

Pavlov (ring a bell?) helped us see that a dog could learn to associate one thing with another. Humans are way better than this than dogs.

If you’re not happy with the feeling, try dropping the narrative. After all, it’s your narrative, the story you have to keep telling yourself again and again, that’s causing the feeling to return.

            

Empathy is difficult

If you believed what he believes, you'd do precisely what he's doing.

Think about that for a second. People act based on the way they see the world. Every single time.

Understanding someone else's story is hard, a job that's never complete, but it's worth the effort.

            

Just because you're right...

You may be right, but that doesn't mean that people will care. Or pay attention. Or take action.

Just because you're right, doesn't mean they're going to listen.

It takes more than being right to earn attention and action.

            

Your best shot

Should you put all your best material up front?

Later seems really far away. Now is far more urgent.

But what if it's a marathon, not a sprint?

A fast start is often overestimated. If you're truly capable of delivering world-class work later (as opposed to merely stalling), you might discover that in a world of quick hits, your ability to keep showing up with work that gets better and better is precisely what the market wants from you.

The people who are swayed by the fast start and the shiny new thing aren't going to stick with you for very long, are they?

Promises, kept.

            

Profit and loss

One of the easiest ways to build a positive personal P&L is to re-establish your monthly expenses at a dramatically lower level.

If you cut your burn rate to the bone, you suddenly will find the freedom to say 'no' to work that drains you and doesn't build your reputation. And perhaps you can say goodbye to the stress that might be paralyzing you.

Create like an optimist. Spend like a pessimist.

            

In search of palliatives

A palliative is a treatment that soothes even if it can't cure the illness.

By all means, whenever you can, fix the problem, go to the root cause, come up with a better design...

But when you can't (and that's most of the time, because the straightforward problems have already been solved), the effort you put into providing a palliative will not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

            

What have we become? (And what are we becoming?)

Every day, we change. We move (slowly) toward the person we'll end up being.

Not just us, but our organizations. Our political systems. Our culture.

Are you more generous than the you of five or ten years ago? More confident? More willing to explore?

Have you become more brittle? Selfish? Afraid?

Grumpy and bitter isn't a place we begin. It's a place we end up.

Do we intentionally choose the optimistic path? Are we eagerly more open to change and possibility?

Every day we make the hard decisions that build a culture, an organization, a life.

Since yesterday, since last week, since you were twelve, have you been making deposits or withdrawals from the circles of supporters around you?

People don't become selfish, hateful and afraid all at once. They do it gradually.

When we see the dystopian worlds depicted in movies and books, are we closer to those outcomes than a generation ago? Do we find ourselves taking actions that make our conversations more considered, our arguments more informed, our engagements more civil? Or precisely the opposite, because it's easier?

Your brand, your company, your community: it has so much, is it still playing the short game? 

When your great-grandfather arrives by time machine, what will you show him? What have you built, what are you building? When your great-grandchildren remember the choices we made, at a moment when we actually had a choice, what will they remember?

We are always becoming, and we can always make the choice to start becoming something else, if we care.

            

"So simple it doesn't need instructions"

Eager (and less-talented) designers often get confused about this instruction, turning it into: "It doesn't have instructions, therefore it's simple.

Consider a hotel shower. It has 11 things that might be dials, and five that actually are. The alert person, standing under cold water, at 5 in the morning, in a dark hotel room, will probably (???) realize that the bottom dial, all the way near the floor, is actually the one that controls the temperature.

The lack of instructions doesn't make something simple.

I used to write the manuals for the educational software we shipped in the mid 1980s. The goal was clear: write exactly enough that no one would call us on the phone. 

Today, of course, instructions are really cheap to provide. On a shower, all you need is a simple label. But just about anything else you produce ought to come with digital instructions, written or on video.

Don't make us read your mind. 

[Yes, it's true, almost no one reads the instructions... people are so self-absorbed and hurried that they plunge first. One more reason to build something simple. But at least you can post instructions so that after they fail the first time, they have a shot at getting it right the second time.]

PS if you truly care, list your phone number/email address on the instructions. Not an unattended mailbox. You.*

(*the single best way to improve just about any communication...)

Your designs (and your instructions) will get better faster.

[I limit myself to just one post per year about how bad hotel showers are, fwiw. Mostly, they're a symptom of a significant lack of care in the face of the rush to make more stuff faster.]