“There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

(Through the Looking Glass)

I traveled eight hundred miles today (well, last night and this morning), by car. Fifteen hours all told, and home in time for lunch.

Why I did it doesn’t matter, really.

But here’s why you should care – because this trip was a solution to a puzzle, a pole vault over a huge obstacle. It came with its very own set of expectations, a carousel of “you should do it this way” baggage, and a chorus of well-meaning people saying “doing it any way other than the normal way is ridiculous and shouldn’t be done!”

These things are not unique to this trip.

These are the things we deal with almost every time we puzzle-solve, every time we make a decision.

We can do it the obvious way, the traditional way, the “should” way, the way our friends/families/loved ones/internet gurus/colleagues tell us to do it…and a good chunk of the time? None of those  things work.

This is a case study about travel, bought to you by rain, and travelers, and scheduling conflicts. But really? This is a process you can use to climb on top of the baggage and outside the shoulds and find the answer that works for you, no matter how unconventional.

Like a good math student, I’ll show my work…

The puzzle: get person A and B to a location 400 miles away, drop off person A, and return person B to original location. Air, bus, and plane travel are so inconvenient as to be nixed from the start.

The complication: due to the schedules of everyone involved, it’s best to do this in a 24-48 hour period *and* it needs to happen within two weeks.

The expected solution: one day of travel, one day of rest/visiting, one day of travel

Well, obviously the expected option doesn’t work – schedules don’t allow for it.

So what can we do? Again, the expectation/the “should”: change schedules to compensate. Well, just because that’s the expectation doesn’t mean it’s right for the situation. In this case, the primary parties would rather make a condensed trip than adjust schedules.

Condensed trip it is!

But wait…there’s more.

Our initial plan was to leave at 4 AM today (my preferred hour for travel), and have me (because this Person A & B thing is getting silly) drive the whole 800-mile trip, getting back some time tonight.

“Gasp!” say the naysayers, “You can’t possibly drive that much in one day! It’s not safe! It’s not healthy! It’s not practical!”

“I’ve done it before,” say I – internally, of course. (Because I have.) And this makes *me* feel better. It’s not ammunition, mind you – it’s *my* reassurance. Once I believe I can do it, I can let go of the naysayers – because they just want to keep me safe.

But then, a wild thought appears!

What if I didn’t have to drive the entire 800 miles? I have to drive home, obviously – my truck only seats two, so I’ll be alone on the trip home…but is it possible for the other person to drive the first leg?

Rearrange the schedule a bit, and yes it is!

Of course, there’s more resistance there – “driving overnight is more dangerous!!!eleventy!”

Same process. Internal reassurance through facts; external release.

And boom. 800 miles before lunch, and other than a slightly excessive caffeine intake I’m no worse for wear. Puzzle solved.

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Yeah, it’s a convoluted example. But you know what? These are principles I use every stinking day – and you can too. Personally, professionally, whatever. This is how you get around, over, and through. You question. You poke. You prod. You make it happen. You consider the impossible, and then you make it happen.

Making it happen for you & your biz – the less-rambly recap

• Gather all the pieces of your puzzle – know what you’re trying to accomplish and why, before you start trying to solve it.
• Look at the obvious solutions. Are they options because they’re right for your situation, or because they’re expected?
• What are your priorities in this situation? Do they rule out any of the obvious solutions?
• What solutions would allow your priorities to be satisfied? What rises to the absolute top?
• What can you use to reassure yourself? How can you release the naysayers?
• What other possible and impossible solutions are there? Pick one. Make it happen.

The entirely ramble-free, single-point recap:

Always ask what the other option is. Always. There’s always something you haven’t seen yet, something you haven’t discovered. Always.

“The failure is not in teaching these things, but the lack of teaching about why we should care about these things.” (nightguardmod)

I went to a large city high school where, by the time I hit my senior year, bomb threats and gun scares were disturbingly common. And, like any other class with a sky-high dropout rate, on the whole we had a hard time giving a shit. (I was one of the “smart kids”, college-bound and all that. I still had a hard time giving a shit.)

But I got really stinking lucky in school. Because we had some AMAZING teachers.

One teacher in particular, Mrs. McGurrin, was a hardass – and had the reputation to go with it. Upperclassmen would tell you to get into any other Algebra class you could, so as not to get stuck with her.

Of course, I did get stuck with her.

Mrs. McGurrin was, in fact, a hardass. She took no shit, from anyone.

She was also one hell of a teacher.

She knew that to a bunch of teenagers, algebra was pointless, useless crap that we had to get through in order to get out of high school. Unlike other teachers, though, she didn’t try to make it fun, or didn’t resign herself to grinding through.

She showed us why it mattered.

For every new module, every new concept, she gave us real-world practical applications. We calculated the dates of Easter 200 years in the future. We figured out how much carpet we’d need to cover the classroom floor. We worked with building materials and pizzas and gravity on other planets.

Mrs. McGurrin took something abstract and dull, and not only showed us why it was important, she showed us why we should give a shit.

Your potential clients probably care a little bit more about what you do than high school students do about algebra. (Well, unless they had Mrs. McGurrin, in which case all bets are off.)

But just because they care doesn’t mean they can see clearly how what you offer can make their world better.

(They don’t necessarily see that algebra can give them the date of Easter Sunday in 2194.)

It’s up to you to be their Mrs. McGurrin.

It’s up to you to show them – through your website copy, through testimonials from existing clients, through your actions, through your interactions with others – all the reasons why what you do matters to them, to their world, to their life, to their business.

People don’t buy “handmade soap” – they buy soap that strikes a chord with them, that matches up to their needs, wants, values, and desires.

People don’t buy “life coaching” – they buy a specific transformation from the place they are to the place they want to be.

People don’t buy “orange and yellow knit hats with fetching ear flaps” – they buy a piece of their heart, a  physical manifestation of their membership in a specific community.

–

Homework for you: Why does what you do matter to your audience? How can you show them why it matters?

Now go forth and spread some fucks, so that your audience has something to give.

You know how every once in a while, the universe knocks you over the head with a clue by four? Yeah. That. I’ve found myself having this conversation multiple times over the past few weeks – with clients, with colleagues, with almost-strangers. And, well, if they need it, there’s a non-zero chance that some of you do too.

So for those of you who are full of varying passions, who are drawn to many creative pursuits, many ways of doing your thing in this world (and making a living at it) – this one’s for you.

The best piece of business advice I ever got, hands down, was from a SCORE adviser  (Don’t know SCORE? You should. They’re fab.) His advice? You’ll never succeed at anything until you focus on just one thing.

He was absolutely right.

The thing is, though, my multi-passionate darlings, focus isn’t the same thing as choice.

At the time, I was in the start-up stage of two businesses: jewelry design and web design/development, and putting everything I had into both…and while they were both making money, neither of them was gaining headway. Making traction. Moving forward. I was stuck in a constant grind of push push push, working my ass off and seeing precious little progress. In fact, that’s what sent me to SCORE in the first place. And I loved – really, truly loved – both businesses…and I wasn’t willing to walk away from either.

So when Dave gave me that advice, I panicked. And immediately pulled back into a cocoon of “I can’t do that” and “How can you make me choose?!”

The lesson I learned the hard way? Focus is not the same thing as choice.

I could – and did – focus on one business without walking away from the other. I could shift the bulk of my energy into one thing and relax a bit with the other without having to walk away from it entirely. (I did, eventually, walk away from the jewelry business, but that had much more to do with the unexpectedly complex sales tax laws of the lovely state of New York than anything else.)

And once I did? Once I made the shift? Yowza. Things got clear. Business picked up, and was supporting two of us full-time within 6 months. And my world stopped being a giant ball of stressy nonsense.

Choosing to focus on a specific business, or area of your business, doesn’t mean abandoning everything else. It doesn’t mean failing at everything else. And it’s not a forever choice. You can shift from one to another and back around again (as long as you’re focusing in one place long enough to have a serious impact).

What focus is, though, is a gift to you and your business. It helps move things forward, make the path more clear. It helps de-stress you, so that you can do better work. It helps you reach the people you’re meant to reach, in a targeted and feel-good way.  Why *wouldn’t* you do that for your business?

Challenge: what area of your business, what passion, can you commit to focusing on wholeheartedly for the next three months?  One quarter of one year can make a huge impact. Try it – you’ll be on the other side before you know it.

“The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness; and knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.” (Kahlil Gibran)

Stop/go. Excitement/crash. Run, run/stumble. Cycles of great strides and hitting walls, over and over and over again.

Sound familiar?

It’s good to get excited, and it’s good to dive in. The trap is in wanting it to happen NOW. That’s where the walls are, the stumbling blocks, the water hazards.

From my heart to yours, from me to you, it doesn’t have to happen today. Come together today. Be perfect today. You don’t need to take all the steps, or do all the things. You just need to do one thing.

You have time, and options, and space. You have everything you need to make it happen, whatever it is.

But it’s so easy to forget, right? ‘Cos even when we’re not rushing ourselves, we’re rushing someone else. How about we stop that, huh?

The part of my brain that wishes I were witty wants to come up with a namaste analog here, something along the lines of “the timelessness (or eternity) in me recognizes the timelenessness in you”…but I don’t think we need to be new-word formal here, eh?

Instead, let’s just take a moment to acknowledge  enjoy, and appreciate that we’re all running on the same cycle of hours into days into months into years. That the process and the going through are just as important as the finish line. And that nobody is getting anything done yesterday.

It’s going to take as long as it takes, and there’s a freedom in that.

So quit stressing out about it. You can’t bend time. But you can breathe through it.

It’s important to know that you always have options. That everything is a choice. Some may be more difficult than others, some scarier, some larger and life-changing, but they are all still choices.

Too often, though, we get stuck in binary choice mode. “I can do this thing here or that thing there”, and that’s it. Those are all the options.

Yanno what? That’s crap.

You have so many options. Sooooo many. Stars-in-the-sky many. 

But you don’t have to recognize all the options in order to see more than two.

When things feel hopeless and awful, when you’re caught between a rock and a hard place, the lesser of two evils, it only takes a little bit of spark to find another option. One more.

Because then you have another choice. And that changes everything.

What’s the other option for you this week?

–

Stuck in the exact opposite place, where there are so many options that you don’t know what to choose?

When you’re not sure what to do, do something – anything - because it’s better than being stuck in your head wondering what to do next. You can’t do everything at once (ever!), and thinking too hard about what to do next gets you nowhere. in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

Pick a thing, and do it. Then pick another thing.

That’s it. That’s the secret – to success, to getting things done, to systems, to strategy, to life, the universe, and everything. Pick a thing. Then pick another thing. If you know what to pick, do that. If you don’t, grab one at random. Just do something.

“There are moments when you don’t have to try, when there is no struggle. You are there in the place where you should be, and everything flows like water, the scene forming under your hand.” (Margaret Leroy, The Soldier’s Wife)

“Where everything flows like water.” That’s what we all want, right? To get to the point in business (whether through experience, time, or some magical unknown factor) where the struggle and the uphill scrambles stop, where things feel easy and good and natural and just right.

This is what we, as feel-good, creative, heart-centered entrepreneurs strive for. (And isn’t that a kicker, eh? Working hard – to make something come easy?) 

And we’ve all had momentary glimpses of it, right? Those precious moments of flow, where everything is aligned and things “just happen” – which makes us want them that much more. Because we know how precious they are (and how few and far between.)

What if you could open the way for a business where everything flows like water? Would you be willing to do the work to let ease into your world? What would it take to allow for more frequent moments – days, even – of alignment and flow?

It doesn’t take vast swaths of experience, and it’s not something you can gain with time or money or a new program or a new mentor. You have everything you need to make it happen.

How?

Believe that flow is not only possible, but allowed.
If you find yourself believing “nothing comes easy”, consider why you’re asking for things to be hard in the first place. Yes, there is surrender in this, and a fair bit of trust that the bottom won’t drop out if you stop pushing…but flow rarely happens uphill. Stop shouldering that boulder and let gravity take over, just for a little while.

Remember your “why”.
Your big “why”: it’s the reason you got into business, the reason you work with the people you do the way you do, the combo lighthouse-and-compass that guides your business decisions. There’s so much clarity to be gained from your “why”, but when it comes to flow? You may think you need to take a certain path to get where you’re going, but if you focus on your “why” instead of the steps you’re taking, you might find an easier, alternative path opening up in front of you.

Release your expectations and detach from the outcome.
Write just to write. Make art just to make art. Reach out just to reach out. Share just to share. Stop, just for a little while, trying to push your business in a singular direction (or many directions, if that’s your thing). Stop trying to advertise/market/biz-build and just connect. Stop trying to sell and just share. Just like above – you’ll find paths opening up for you that you may never have considered (which will in turn get you back to the money-making side of things.)

Stop trying.
If you’re running into the same wall over and over again, find a way around, over, or through – or do something altogether different for a while. Changes in scenery lead to changes in perspective.

Consider letting go.
Sometimes the direction you thought you were headed is no longer the right one for you. Check in with yourself, and let go if it’s time. It’s not a bad thing to head off on a new adventure.

~~

The nifty thing about flow is that you only need to let in a trickle – you don’t need to open the floodgates. Each little trickle will smooth the way for more flow to come.

I have a question for you.

If you had access to a business brain – Richard Branson, a SCORE or SBA advisor, or a panel of people, whatever floats your boat – if you had their attention, their help, for, say, half an hour, or even an hour; if you could ask one single question…what would you ask?

What big question would you want to know the answer to, what one thing would you want help with, so you could get the best bang for your buck?

It doesn’t matter whether or not you are likely to have the attention of a business brain or not – you want to know what your question is.

Why? Because that question is what you want to be working on right now. RIGHT NOW.

That question is your where your brain and energy are focused, whether it’s conscious or not.

That question (not the ANSWER to that question, mind you, but the question itself) tells you everything you need to know to shift your business out of where it’s stuck in this moment.

So…how do you find the question?

Think about all the things on your plate right now. Think about the things you want to do, the things you think you should be doing, the things you want to achieve.

Now think about what’s holding you back from getting there.

What are the reasons you’re not there? Where’s your resistance? What information are you lacking?

Dig through all of that to find the connected threads, the commonalities.

That’s your question.

It might be “how do I connect with this audience?” or “how do I get my shit organized?” or “how do I push through the down times?” or “how can I best accomplish X, Y, or Z?”. There are no wrong questions.

…and once you have the question?

Answer it. Don’t worry about the things that are downline from it – you can’t create tasks to fix something until you know and understand how to fix it. Do the research. Educate yourself. Talk to people. Do whatever it needs to get clarity, tools, and answers.

Because it’s those things – clarity, tools, and answers – that will help you move your business from where it is now to where you want it to be. But you need to find the question first.

In the world of larger small businesses, there’s often a tussle – a bit of friction, if you will – between the marketing team and the IT department. This isn’t “hey, come fix my business card scanner” or “have you tried turning it off and on again?” – it’s the crashing together of two historically disparate divisions.

Who controls the website? The overarching online presence? The social media accounts? And who pays for all of it? In my experience, Marketing typically wants control, but wants IT to make it happen (and take it out of their budget)…but IT either wants total control or nothing to do with it at all.

Thing is, the way we run our businesses is changing. The way we market our businesses is changing. And tech – especially online tech – is a huge part of that.

The answer, of course, is that tech and business development need to get cozy with each other, grab a nice cuppa, and sort out what’s best for their specific business.

“But Dani,” you’re saying, “I don’t have a marketing team! I don’t even have a tech support guy. I’m just me.”

But, dear reader – you do. You don’t have big, gaping, IT- and marketing-shaped holes in the structure of your business. Those positions are filled by you. You are your marketing team. You are your IT Director. And just like a larger company, you need your marketing and tech sides to be aligned, to work together, and to move in a common direction that supports your business.

How?

Don’t confuse the two…

…and get to know where that line is. Marketing and business development are aggregate terms for the actions you take to achieve success – whatever that means for your business. Technology, on the other hand, is what sits in the background, supporting your actions. You don’t need to be a geek to build and grow your business, online or off.

Understand – and be able to communicate – what you really need…

…the “why” behind your actions. Instead of “Build me a website that runs on X platform and looks like it has snow falling in the background and uses seven pop-up boxes placed intermittently around the site”, say “I need a website I can update easily, which allows me to take these five actions, is in line with my established brand, and encourages deep engagement within this specific user group”. Instead of “give me software that can post to all my social media accounts”, try “I want a way to reduce the time I’m spending updating social media, and I want to track conversations around these specific topics so that I can connect with this audience.” And then work from there to find the best solution for you – always work from the why, not the what.

Acknowledge that tech isn’t always the answer…

…and learn to recognize when that is or isn’t the case. Although it’s often touted as such, technology isn’t always the solution to your marketing woes. Just because something is high-tech, or the newest trend, doesn’t mean it’s useful – or a good idea for your business. Do your research and match options and features and benefits against your overall business strategy and core values. (And remember the rule of fast/cheap/easy – you might get one, possibly two, but never, ever all three.)

Fight the “buy in” fight, even if you’re only fighting with yourself.

When you have directors to convince and executive signatures to get, you need to know exactly why something is a good move, good time investment, good expense – you need to show how something will positively impact the bottom line or the business as a whole in order to get other departments and higher-ups to buy in to the idea. But when there’s no one to answer to except yourself, it’s easy to jump head-first into new options without considering how it will change things, or even if it matches up to where you want to go. So break out your Mr. Rogers sweater and play pretend – if you had to convince a Board of Directors that this new thing (whether it’s a monetary expense, a new marketing technique, or a new bit of software) is worthwhile, what would you say? Fight the fight. Prove to yourself that it supports your big why, that it will help you reach your goals.

~~

Are your marketing and tech teams in alignment? What can you do to help them work together, even if it’s all in your head?

Remember: when it comes to your business, it’s ALWAYS your division.

A few years back, I worked with a website development company on their content strategy. They were blogging regularly, had a monthly newsletter, and their fair share of subscribers/followers…but the engagement rates were way low, and they weren’t seeing any conversions – not a single one – from follower/subscriber to client.

They were producing fantastic, valuable content – bug fixes, free plugins and themes, recommendations for development best practices, etc. – but it was content that was valuable to other developers…not the business owners that they hoped would engage them for services. We uncovered a similar trend in their social media streams – they were talking about geeky development stuff to other geeky developers. There was nothing there for their target audience at all.

It’s one thing to create a resource blog, to provide information that gives back to and enriches the community that you’re part of. If that’s your thing, you’re to be commended for it. But be careful that you don’t do it to the exclusion of everything else.

–

The primary difference between a personal and professional blog isn’t tone, or even content – it’s that we’re blogging for ourselves on the former and for others on the latter. Yes, it’s important to write about the things you love and enjoy, that set your soul on fire – but at the end of the day, producing content that is of little to no interest to your target audience, isn’t in the best interests of your business. That’s not to say it’s bad to slap a little “you” into your social stream – it’s important that people get to know you, after all – but at the end of the day, potential clients are coming back for the value you provide in their business or their life, not that amusing Instagram of your cat.

And the thing is…it’s not up to you to determine the value. It’s up to them. Providing valuable content tailored to your target audience requires *knowing* that audience. Talking to that audience. Understanding what they want, what they need, what they crave. You can’t run a business without knowing your market – and you can’t produce content  without that knowledge, either.

–

Put yourself in a potential client or tribe member’s shoes for a moment, and take a look at your last few articles, blog posts, or other content.  What can they learn from it? What value does it hold for them? How can you incorporate more value into your content moving forward?

At the inaugural TEDx Buffalo in 2011, there was a presentation from a guy whose company is turning plastic back into oil. With an easily-built, inexpensive-to-run, small-footprint machine. And the fuel it produces is ultra-clean.

His company’s biggest problem? Disbelief. People aren’t willing to believe it’s possible. They’re the environmental equivalent of Santa Claus or the Tooth
Fairy. But the ones who do believe? Have a clean, local, efficient energy source.

Like magic.

How cool is that?

And man, what a problem to have! An offering so amazing, people think it’s not real.

That company (which I can’t remember the name of, or I’d be linking to it here) is in a really great spot, though – because while they have a definite hurdle to overcome, they know what it is.

If they didn’t? They could spend years and years – and hundreds of thousands of dollars – rebranding, redefining their message, creating new plans of action, maybe tweaking their process…all with little to no effect.

But they don’t have to go through all of that – because they listened. They listened to – and heard – feedback from the folks they talked to. And now they can tweak the way they present themselves to include real-time demonstrations, concrete results, simplified scientific data…things that can prove that their product does what it says on the tin.

It wasn’t enough to know that their potential clients had a problem (too much plastic with nowhere to go). It wasn’t enough to develop a mind-blowingly awesome solution to that problem. It wasn’t enough to put the technology in the hands of a limited audience and talk about its awesomeness and efficacy. Nope. They needed that missing piece, that feedback from their audience, in order to really get their message across.

In their case, it was “I don’t believe it.” In yours, it might be “I don’t understand how you can help me”, “I don’t know if this is a good fit for me”, or even “I don’t understand what you do”.  What do your potential customers wonder, not know, or misunderstand about what you have to offer?

(How do you find out? Ask.)

Once you know, or at least have an idea, take the time to adjust your communications accordingly – and not just the copy on your website! Look at your social media interactions (and bios), the way you talk about what you do, and any collateral (like brochures or business cards) you have. The clearer you are about what it is you do, the easier it will be for your Right People to find their perfect match with you and your business!