I walked up to a crepes vendor at a local market wanting to buy one of his dessert crepes. I noticed him handing a crepe to the person ahead of me and was planning on ordering the same one. As I was ready to place my order, the vendor said “I’m sorry but we’re closed.” I looked at my watch and did indeed see that it was 6 p.m., exactly when the market was closing. I looked around and there were many other food vendors hustling; some booths still had the line of customers waiting to place their orders, others were pouring beer and scooping ice cream but the crepe vendor was closing for the day, refusing to make another crepe and saying no to my $10 bill that would come with the transaction. I didn’t ask or negotiate. I looked at him, asked him if it was his business, and when he confirmed, I said “Good for you.” And this is exactly what I felt.
I was happy to briefly meet a business owner who closes his business doors on time. I look up to someone who lives the life on his own terms. We all hustle to sell one more crepe in our businesses, and this vendor sets his finishing time for 6 p.m. Maybe he had his daughter’s school recital to attend, maybe his crepes were that good that he ran out of batter. I’ll never know, I wasn’t able to buy one.
Ever since I started Lucid New York, my jewelry business, in 2004 I’ve been constantly offered unwanted advice on how I can grow my business. I was told that I needed to move to a larger office, hire more staff, and incorporate. I kept hearing there was potential and was being told inspiring stories of jewelry brands such as Pandora or Alex and Ani.
I was receiving email invites to GrowthCon and Growco—conferences focused on growing businesses. Business coaches and consultants were approaching me with their “let me tell you how to grow your business” pitches.
I didn’t want to hear any of that. I look at growth mindfully. To me, it’s more about growing deeper than broader. This holistic perspective is in alignment with my values and my idea of how I measure my life. Looking at growth multi-dimensionally, I’ve been aspiring to have a meaningful business that is profitable and makes a difference. Instead of focusing on how to make it even more profitable, I recognized the sweet spot of “enough” and refocused my energy on growing in other areas of my life. I focused on connections and friendships. I learned to cook delicious meals and have been offering them during dinner parties I organize. I learned how to sail. I took trips for a cause, participating in conferences and working at orphanages in India and Sri Lanka. I saw orangutans in the wild on the island of Borneo. I became a co-active certified business-building and life coach and started making a difference by sharing my business-building expertise and inspiring transformation. I wrote this book.
Growing deeper instead of broader has been very fulfilling and energizing. My jewelry business has been thriving, as I fuel it with all the energy I get from the projects and ideas I’m involved in. I’ve been alive on so many levels. Getting rid of the obsessive pursuit of business growth has been liberating and rewarding. I’m not trying to convince you that this is the right strategy. This is the strategy I chose and it works for me. There are many ways to run your business creatively, and I’m committing to presenting them objectively so that you can design your lifestyle on your own terms.
I wasn’t able to make this choice at the beginning of my entrepreneurial path. I put in long hours in the first year of running the business to get to a comfortable level and be able to make strategy choices. You may be able to set some rules for your business right away if your products are in demand. For example, if your boutique gets a lot of traffic without any marketing efforts of yours, you may afford to set your own operating hours. You’ll need to be more accommodating if you have to keep spreading the word about your brand and your store.
If you’re a proponent of bootstrapping—growing your business by reinvesting profits and doing most of the tasks yourself or subcontracting them—there may be a time when you may start feeling that your business is starting to outgrow you.
You will need to consider changing the strategy, and you will have a few exciting options ahead of you. If you find yourself not being able to handle the overwhelming demand, consider increasing your prices. This is the strategy you’d want to implement if you want to keep your business where it is at. If you have growth in mind, you’ll need to implement more systems and hire some additional help to be able to continue shipping and handling orders, providing great customer service and making deliveries on time. Your customers will expect to be treated well, regardless of you having issues with growth management. Don’t expect them to be understanding, as they have to run their own businesses and deal with their own problems. If you are not easy to deal with, they may not reorder.
Automating tasks and changing your production or delivery process, making them more efficient, is one of the strategies you may want to consider. What may seem like a minimal change may add up to a substantial amount if you take into consideration the quantity you’ll be making. Saved time and energy will add up and work in your favor. Even if focusing on setting up more efficient strategies may sound like a waste of time at first, as there may be a learning curve requiring extra time, it will benefit you in the future.
Business owners think that they can handle anything. Most entrepreneurs are certain that they can handle any number of accounts and fulfill any size of orders. They may think that if they sacrifice, work long hours, and stay up all night, they’ll be able to manage no matter what comes their way. They don’t realize that it’s not college anymore, where last-minute cramming may make them successfully pass an exam. They now need a thought-out business strategy that will match the demand, or they’ll set up themselves and their potential customers for a disappointment.
There are businesses that failed because they were not able to handle the demand and rapid growth. Their owners were probably waiting until last minute to create the fulfillment system to handle the overwhelming demand. Customers will likely not be understanding regarding the fulfillment issues. They expect to receive their orders as promised and on time, or they’ll lose trust, cancel their orders, and do business elsewhere.
An accomplished photographer was doing well without employees. He was hiring an assistant when needed but was able to accomplish most projects on his own. When he noticed that he had to say no to some jobs because he simply couldn’t be in two places at the same time, he decided to hire help. As a result, he started working more because he had to train and manage the team. His revenue increased, but because of the drastic spike in expenses, his profit decreased compared to the time when he was just a team of one with an occasionally hired assistant. He was either not charging enough for the assignments or not getting enough jobs to make hiring of the new employees worthwhile.
Focusing on expansion with no plan in mind may negatively impact your business. If there’s no system to handle growth efficiently, you may end up with more work and less profit. Growing mindfully on your own terms is the safest strategy for a creative.
When most of us think of business growth, we think of expanding the reach, territory, and customer base. We are conditioned to think of growth in terms of increasing the numbers, and this strategy is being forced upon us regardless of what we want in life. It’s as if there was one mold to run a business—the “growth mold”—and we need to fit in it.
If you approach your business growth mindfully, you’ll plan your expansion according to your resources, aspirations, and time. You may want to consider growing deeper instead of broader. This growth strategy focuses on making your business lean by researching optimum strategies. It’s working smarter and more efficiently instead of blindly focusing on expansion.
Here are deep growth tactics:
Growing deeper is all about perfecting our business strategies so that we can save time and money. It’s not necessarily expanding our business; it’s growing it smarter instead of broader.
What if we took off the stigma from the word “follower” and redefined it according to the current realm. It’s the genius who isn’t preoccupied with the set-up, logistics, and managing of projects so that things are functional. It’s the founders who are in charge of the set-up, making sure that everything is ready for the show to go on. We call these founders “leaders” and call those who make the actual thing happen “followers.” Why do we glamorize the set-up and not the actual execution? Why does everyone want to be a leader? On a film set, the actors—essentially “followers”—get the spotlight. They have everything set-up and directed for them; actors show up and do their job—they act. They get recognized for their talent and their looks. They endorse products. People want to be like them. Usually they don’t dream of leading, they’re satisfied with following. Susan Cain in the New York Times article “Not Leadership Material? Good. The World Needs Followers” defines the followers as “soloists who forge their own path.”1 They’re the doers and thinkers not interested in the set-up.
Examining your creative future, think deeply about what you want. Regardless of society’s pressure to “lean in,” think if this is what you want. Being a leader, entrepreneur, someone in charge of the set-up requires some kind of a myopic obsession. Leadership has become more encompassing over the years. You do have to be well rounded—barking orders and telling people what to do won’t cut it. Sheryl Sandberg says in Lean In that there are no more career ladders but rather career jungle gyms.2 However this expansion from ladder to a jungle gym may still not be enough for some: you’re still growing only on one playground. This unifocus, which is necessary to excel, may not be satisfying for those wanting to thrive in many areas.
Your ambition could surpass the unilevel aspirations of a traditional leader, the one excelling in politics or business. There are so many areas where we lead but where we’re not recognized as leaders. Those who want to lead a household, lead an orchestra, or be a leading artist may not have traditionally recognized leadership positions, but feeling fulfilled in many areas may contribute to living a life by design. When a creator has an exhibit, isn’t he a leader? He does the set-up, has people follow him, and gets the spotlight. Isn’t he important enough? What is leadership all about? Shouldn’t our desire to lead extend beyond our ego satisfaction? Shouldn’t we be driven by the idea we care about instead of by the spotlight of being in charge? When we start accepting our status of non-conformist and start living according to our own values, we’ll get a taste of feeling complete.
The more successful you become, the more reactions you’ll get toward you and your work. These reactions will range from admiration and support to negativity and hate. The ease of sharing our messages and opinions has its advantages and disadvantages. We can be presented with unexpected opportunities, but hidden behind the screen of anonymity are also those who are not brave enough in real life and try to make up for it online and tenfold. They sprinkle their mean comments all over the internet. They get into long, convoluted exchanges with others in order to elicit an emotional response. They too are narcissistic; they want attention anyway they can get it. “The winner takes all” is now “the meanest takes all.”
It’s practically impossible to please everyone and sometimes the mean comments will be sent our way because of things unrelated to what we do. We can’t control someone else’s envy, jealousy, and anger displacement, but we can control how we react to it. The only way to deal with negative comments is to accept them or stay small and minimize the chances of being noticed by internet trolls.
Celebrities, while gaining popularity and fame, lose privacy. Successful entrepreneurs enjoy the perks of more exposure, but they also need to come to terms with its downside. They may face more critiques, deal with more problems, and have more stress. Though certain problems and complicated logistics can be managed by hiring more staff, no one can control negative comments and reviews. Success may also come with the feeling of guilt, known as imposter syndrome. We may think that we don’t deserve our success and that we didn’t work hard enough for it. The territory that the success comes with will be new and unknown. It’s up to us how we will handle it.
There are numerous articles and books on helping us grow our business. Society puts pressure on entrepreneurs to focus on growth defined in financial terms. This pressure is so strong that some of us think that focusing on growth is the only way to run a business. I’m not against growth but it’s necessary to define what growth means to us. Here is what to keep in mind when defining our enough:
No one should tell you what’s enough. It’s for you to decide how you want to live your life and set your goals accordingly. There are those who unrealistically think that accumulation or wealth will come without the hustle. They will want to create and maintain an abundant lifestyle but will look for shortcuts to get there. This may lead to frustration.
Many budding entrepreneurs who make the transition become surprised when they put in a lot of work and energy but it didn’t provide them with an abundant lifestyle. It was different when they were employed. They don’t realize that they may need to step down their expectation ladder and become minimalists who hustle and put in long hours. When you’re an entrepreneur, you invest your often unpaid time and risk not getting the payoff at all. There are many who are too paralyzed by this thought to start a business; there are others who embrace this temporary discomfort hoping to reap the ultimate reward: life designed on their own terms.
Considering minimalism and accumulation, their perks and adjustments. Which direction would you like to pursue?
What would be the ideal size of your business?
What do you find the most challenging in implementing a successful growth strategy?