Uncompromising on the vision, flexible on the details

I am building a business to break free from my corporate cubicle. Although I have not left my job yet, I’m making good progress, i.e., people are paying me money for things that they want. When I talk to my friends of a similar less-than-enthusiastic-about-working persuasion, they always want to talk about strategies and tactics. Here’s why I think that is a bad idea.

When leaving the safety of you big company job, you are quickly exposed to the rude awakening that is actually convincing someone to buy something from you. Some are naturally good at this. If you’re like me, it is an excruciating process (and it doesn’t get any easier by the way).

The reason for this is simple. Most of us spend our work days executing. Work exists and we are there to do it. We do not have to sell anything to anyone.

Sure, we may sell ideas internally. We may sell team members around our plan for a certain project. We may sell the boss on the need to free up resources for a new hire. These are all great ways to get started with selling, but it is not the same as asking someone to part with their actual money for your product or service.

What makes selling on our own so much harder? One big reason is that we do not truly believe in our product or service when we are just getting started (nor should you, by the way). Let’s face it: one minute we are typing our TPS report and the next we are trying to sell an executive on our SEO for Hotels course. We can listen to the Rocky IV soundtrack and pump ourselves up in the mirror (highly recommend), but we know that we don’t have the experience in this arena. Deep down we are unsure if our approach will work.

Here’s the thing. That is not only a perfectly fine attitude but the correct one. Only the delusional would believe so highly in themselves that they are 100% deep down confident that their product or service is the best when they are just starting out (whether these types turn out to be the .001% of successful business people is irrelevant — we cannot copy their delusion).

Instead we should be rock solid on our vision. To phrase it as a question, what do you believe in? How do you want to live your life? Spend some time with these questions. This is what you must know cold. If someone were to wake you at 3am and ask you these two questions you should be ready to answer.

Obviously in order to do that, your answer would have to be rather general. In my case at least, my answers focus on the constructs of how and where I want to work and live, not specifically what. My answers are defined more by the negative, i.e., this is what I do not want to do rather than this is specifically what I want.

Here’s my response. I believe that businesses leave tremendous amounts of money on the table by not analyzing the data they already have (let alone the data that they can and should be gathering). I can help businesses analyze their data to actually drive business decisions rather than just going by their gut feeling. Right now I do this with a combination of coding, Excel, and PowerPoint decks. But that can and will likely change.

I want to work on hard problems that occupy my mind completely. I do not want to sit in a cubicle 40 hours per week at a constant pace — I want the ability to grind hard on a task and then take some time to recharge. I want to charge clients for the value I bring them not for the time I spend. I want to be able to live anywhere in the world, even if that ends up being a leafy suburb. And I will never, ever, be trapped to a commute.

Once you are rock solid on your vision, everything else can and should be negotiable. Strategies are flexible. Do you offer consulting services, training courses, or one 1 on 1 coaching? Let’s try all of them.

Once you are confident in where you will be, your tactics are negotiable. How I go about selling, sourcing clients, whether I teach in-person courses or webinars (or both) — all tactics are flexible.

For those feeling trapped and anxious about their business strategy and tactics, focus on your vision and let the rest go.