In a recent Tweet I said that Ego is the enemy to small business growth.

And yes we have all fallen prey to this trap…

Thinking we are right and everyone else is wrong. Thinking we are the only person who can do it right. Or that old chestnut ‘It’s quicker to do it myself’.

The Ego doesn’t value anyone else’s input and even less wants to pay for it.

Working through the Ego like this can be brilliant in the start up phase of a business – where intensity and sheer focus/force of energy is needed to get a business off the ground.

The problem happens when the business gets to the point where it becomes constricted by the amount that one person is able to control or do.

I remember hitting this block in the early years of Red Letter Days. I’d got the business to £1million T/O by sheer determination and force of will – assisted by an obedient team of ‘Yes Men’, who knew better than to question me – and I was literally controlling every part of the process. It was only when I took the advice of my advisors/mentors and started to build a team of experienced people around me and really encouraged them to run with their area of the business that everything started to take off. We respected everyone’s value, paid generous salaries and provided ample budgets to facilitate growth. Everyone really loved working there during that phase (1996 to 2001) and it was a great, fun, loyal team.

Of course, giving away control like this does mean that you also have to have a great Finance Director/Chief Operating Officer plus the reporting systems to ensure the business is not going off the rails. And yes it does involve risk!

But I would far prefer to have experienced the excitement of growth from £1million to £18million – with all the money, awards and fame that brought (another lovely ego massage! No, we never quite get rid of it) – to have played it safe and stayed small.

This is also the joy of the latest project I am involved in – ‘The Big Om’ mass sound healing experience at Wembley Arena on 12.12.12.
I know nothing about the music industry! But this is proving to be a huge advantage as we are gathering together a brilliant team of amazingly talented high energy people who we are encouraging like mad to help us make the vision happen. It’s magical and hugely exciting to see a project unfold in this way.

Having experienced both extremes, I’d choose ‘Inspire and Collaborate’ over ‘Command and Control’ any day.

Rachel

In the corner of the room sits a small aquarium where 4 fish merrily swim in circles all day long.

They live a lovely safe and comfortable life, with no threats, conditioned to the monotony of their existence.

They are Masters of their Kingdom, blissfully unaware of the great rivers and giant oceans of the world and the myriad of fish and other species that inhabit them, as well as the adventures that could await them.

Outside the aquarium are 4 observers watching the 4 little fish and thinking ‘What a sad and pitifully limited existence, swimming in the same little circles – until one day you die’.

Are you too existing in the safe comfort zone of your small existence?

Or, scary as the thought may be, has the time come to venture into a much bigger aquarium?

Have a lovely weekend.

Rachel

I was mega impressed to say the least to see that Seth Godin smashed his $40,000 target within just THREE HOURS of launching it on Kickstarter (the world’s biggest crowdfunding site) – and now he’s standing at an incredible $193k with a massive 27 days to go.  Take a look at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/297519465/the-icarus-deception-why-make-art-new-from-seth-go

The old way of writing a book was create it then market it.  Seth has just proved how it is possible to get paid up front – before you even write a single word!

Here he tells you his secret tips on how he did it http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/06/reflections-on-todays-kickstarter.html

It’s well worth considering CrowdFunding for all your forthcoming projects (the best UK site I have found is http://www.sponsume.com/ )

Rachel

I despair when I hear politicians talk about ‘the economic recovery’, as if there is some point in the future when all this ghastliness will be over and we can all go back to the good old days of having lots of money to spend on whatever we liked.

We realise now that those ‘good old days’ were funded by one thing.  Credit (or should that always have been more accurately be described as DEBT?) which we now discover was based on no underlying value.

Which in turn is why no one can answer the question ‘Where is all the money coming from for all these continued banking bailouts?’

The problem with times like these is that fear slows down the flow of money.  After all, the word ‘currency’ means ‘to flow’.  It’s like a giant game of musical chairs where no one quite wants to leave their seat and nervously hovers close to the chairs instead of merrily dancing round the room to the music.  No one wants to be the one left without a seat.

I was at a women’s event some years ago where I witnessed the same £10 note merrily trip around the room.  The first person bought a music CD from a lady at a stand, who then bought her neighbour’s aromatherapy oil, who then passed it on to the event organiser as payment for lunch on the day, who then passed it on to another lady as payment for another event she was hosting.  Same £10 note, but within 5 minutes £40 worth of value was happily exchanged.

And here’s where the problem lies.  There’s a limit to those underlying resources; the world is running out of ‘stuff’ to form the basis of the continued exchange in value.

The oil is running out, the oceans are emptying, there isn’t enough food for the entire population.  Even clean water is becoming scarcer.

The financial meltdown we are currently experiencing is actually a rather neat way of strangulating rampant consumerism and consumption – at least in the West.

And if the West was the alcoholic, the East was the distillery – because it now has fewer and fewer people to supply to.

What all this means is that if your business is based on tangible products you will find it increasingly tougher to survive over the coming years.

But the bigger worry underlying all of the above is people’s increasing anger about the way it has all been so badly mis-managed by the very people we have trusted to manage what goes on.  Our Governments.  It’s this building pressure-cooker of emotion, combined with the power of the internet for people to communicate and assemble that is the biggest concern.  It’s why the Government has just made legal its ability to monitor all electronic communication.

Yet there is a limit to how effective our ‘Command and Control’ culture can be.

And as I sit and watch my 5 young boys consume media like ‘Last Day of the Dinosaurs’ (which describes in detail how the majority of the race was wiped out by an asteroid and the means by which the few survived), films like ‘Terminator’, ‘MadMax’ and ‘iRobot’, and watch them playing war games on their Playstation/XBoxes, I can’t help wondering if they are already in training for some kind of gruesome future.

Rachel

Once again I will be exhibiting at the fabulous Business Show at London’s Excel on 17 & 18 May where I will also be launching my new 28 day video programme + workbook Business Alchemy – specifically designed to give you the tools to transform your financial fortunes – even from a place of total money meltdown! More details on that to follow soon…

I’ll also be talking Business Alchemy in Keynote Hall 2 at 11.45am on Friday 18th if you would like to come and hear me for free – it’s specifically aimed at helping you get out of a money rut and into flow again.

Hope to see you at the Show – you can get free tickets at http://www.greatbritishbusinessshow.co.uk/

Love

Rachel

Just in this past week I have variously been asked to do two separate speaking engagements (each over 200 miles from where I live), undertake an entire re-branding assignment, review a business plan, find finance for a start-up company and give mentoring advice.

All for free.  

With the vague promise of a benefit for me somewhere in the distant future…

My great friend and business coach Katharine Dever puts it beautifully:

‘Why should I shrink myself to meet your low expectations?’

As an ex-Dragon with a world of contacts, I’m someone who has a real capacity to leverage ‘freebies’.  Yet I actually make a point of paying for the goods and services I need.

It’s good old fashioned courtesy which shows real respect for the value that other people offer.

That’s why I chuckled just now when I read one of my favourite marketing gurus Seth Godin’s blogpost this week about Philanthropists and Bandits - it’s well worth a read!

And if you fall into the ‘Bandit’ camp maybe you’ll realise now why you never seem to have the resources to pay anyone.  Because when you don’t value others it’s a sign you don’t value you.

Have a great weekend!

Rachel