My obsession with apostrophes

If you work for me you find out pretty quickly that I am passionate about the correct use of apostrophes. It’s not that hard. But people seem to struggle.

Successful businesses often question the status quo and challenge commonly held beliefs; this is part of progress. But you mustn’t let this become an excuse for challenging all culturally held norms, like grammar.

If a manager presents a status quo questioning proposal to me but it’s full of grammatical mistakes, then the mistakes distract me from the main idea and I’m less likely to think it’s a good one.

If you want to challenge cultural norms and you want people to take notice, then get very clear about what you’re challenging, and what doesn’t need to be challenged and should be conformed with.

If someone’s stepped in dog shit and they are oblivious to it then it’s hard to hear what they’re saying.

(I should know, I lost my sense of smell in a head injury so am at high risk of being oblivious to poo on my shoe.)

Find your own voice

As an avid student of life and business I love to learn; I think it’s critical to getting ahead in life and in business. But there’s a difference between learning and blind acceptance.

A really important lesson that I recently got was the need to both be open to learning and new ideas, and to simultaneously retain a point of view and the objectivity to decide what I think is right.

Essentially, learning is great, and finding your own voice is powerful.

You’re not paid well for the easy part

I often hear people complaining about the difficult aspects of their jobs or businesses, and that amuses me. What do you think you are being paid for?

A business isn’t paid to solve the problems that customers can solve for themselves.

An employee isn’t paid well to do the things a monkey could do.

Your reward is proportionate to both the degree of the challenge and the need for it to be solved; the harder the problem is to solve and the more people want it solved, the less people who are prepared to solve it, and the more valuable a solution is.

So stop complaining that it’s hard and be grateful that everyone can’t do it.

Even better than online

Recently I was speaking with a group of bookstore owners who were lamenting their inability to compete with Amazon because Amazon was cheaper and more convenient than they were. And they were right.

When you compare yourself to a website in your ability to tick boxes, to be accessible 24 hours a day, to transfer data, you’ll lose every time.

Because you aren’t a webpage.

But that’s exactly it; you aren’t a webpage!

Focus on what you do have that’s different, that’s unique, that people desperately want.

What humanness can you bring to your interactions with people that can create an incredible experience?

How can you make the experience you provide eclipse the convenience a website provides?

Burning your boats

Whenever you have a backup plan that becomes your plan. Burn your boats.