Day 17/21 - How to Stand Your Ground (Part 1)

Now…like yesterday’s newsletter this is not what I was going to write about today. Something I read on a?friend's?FB wall triggered todays thoughts… and I guess sometimes the spirit leads.

This is also a follow up to my?boundaries?post, which not surprising, is one of my most popular posts of the series thus far.

A note.?When I started?#21daysofentrepreneurship, I committed to be authentic, otherwise what is the point.

Today’s post, though slightly uncomfortable for me to write, aspires to be exactly this. You may relate or choose to take offense. Regardless, I know it will resonate at some point.

Years ago, when I’d just started out as an entrepreneur, I was still quite clueless and naive (my excuse).

I met this young woman, who joined our organization where I was volunteering (read Day 3/21). We were both young (I was slightly older and her immediate boss) and trying to get ahead. Aka impress my boss.

She was smart, confident, assertive and I guess perfect in many ways. Or at least that was my lens. Knew what she wanted and exactly where she was going. I on the other hand was shy, nervous, possibly scattered, extremely introverted (worse than I am today) and?insecure and?didn’t really have a clue.

It’s also the first time I met my ugly side as a ‘leader’.

The girl looked up to me (oblivious of my insecurities) and was eager to learn from me (despite me not having a clue). I have mentioned she was smart, so to be fair, she quickly did the math and figured impressing our boss, meant impressing me (first).

But as I mentioned above, I was insecure. If anything I was jealous, envious. So though I never openly frustrated her,?I never helped her thrive either.

Years later, when I got to know her better and realized she was as human as I, flawed and with even more insecurities of youth, I was so embarrassed and appalled by my behavior.

That I had been that woman boss, that (b****) in the office, who can’t allow other women to thrive.

Not something I’d ever want to admit, but we said here, authenticity is king, no?

Thankfully, I long changed my ways.

I confess, to get to where I am this has taken many, many years of self-introspection, mental work and?self-therapy?to begin to address my bad manners, insecurities and unrelated traumas.

You know what they say about hurt people, hurting people.

I’ve thought about that season in my life and discovered along my journey, that this is not a Lilian Okado issue, but sadly and often,?a woman leader issue.

Of the multiple hundreds of clients I have serviced in my career, women have been the most challenging, the most demanding and the most difficult to work with. And not just any woman, but the?ALPHA?woman.

I know this first hand because I’m an alpha woman myself. It takes one to know one. Plus, to thrive my career demands it.

I had an experience some time, where a client (an alpha woman) I had developed very good rapport with for a time, suddenly started having issues with me and my work.

I would propose ideas or solutions. They would be rejected, binned without reason and instead adopt their own ‘better’ solutions.

On a number of occasions, I’ve met clients, who I realized needed an employee (one, who is paid ‘not to think’) more than a consultant.

These days I’ve learnt to tell the difference and do well to advise such clients early that we many not be a good fit.

Y’all know I’m a?copywriter, digital marketer, freelancer, creative entrepreneur,?and a whole salad of things.

As a digital marketer, one of my primary objectives when I embark on any project, is to raise my clients brands/ profiles online so as to attract (digital) sales.

The hardest part about this work is not failing to achieve this goal, but failing to achieve this goal?because your clients don’t listen or won’t listen and unconsciously play a hand in sabotaging your work. Very counterintuitive.

They don’t know what to do (hence why they hired you to begin with). But won’t allow you to lead. So you end up ‘failing’ at delivering and looking incompetent, which is terrible brief for any consultants career.

When expected results aren’t forthcoming or sub par, they justify your incompetence and the cycle repeats.

It’s not once or twice that I have had to make the difficult choice to walk away. The say,?a fish that can see its water is getting shallow cannot be stranded.

It takes one bad comment to not only tarnish your profile but your confidence. An entrepreneur that lacks confidence and?self-worth?is like the fish, who can see its water is getting shallow, but doesn’t swim into deeper waters.

People. Say aye if this sounds familiar?

You come in as a trusted ‘adviser’ on a project, but you find you’re getting paid to receive advice on said project. To the point you’re left wondering, “OK, bearer of all wisdom, if you know what to do, then why am I here?”

I get that there are consultants and freelancers out there that give us a bad rep, but seeing that I’ve built my business 99% purely on referral, surely, that should count for something.

Worse is when a client will only listen to ideas that come from the men in the organization.

I’ve been in meetings where, I’ve been pushing ideas for months that are ignored for what appears to be valid reasons, budgets, timing, viability, etc. Then on a random day, a male leader walks into the same meeting a week later, proposes the exact same thing and your idea, which is now their idea, is approved without fuss.

I need to say this. For avoidance of doubt.?This post is not meant to bring women clients down, nor should the takeaway be that.

In fact, I’ve worked most of my career with women. Women are builders. We are great mobilizers. Like manure, we enrich and grow things. We have soft yet deep power. It’s in our nature; to go hard at work and create magic in spaces where there was none.

My second business that failed had a superb female workforce. Some of whom I continue to work with to date, on other projects.

Moreover, in my network marketing career, the top leaders in the multiple organizations I worked in, especially here in Kenya, were always women.

In the same breathe, those same women -?smart alpha women, super charismatic, eloquent, top in their field?- were also the ones always stirring the pot.

If you’ve read up to this point, it’s possible, this resonates and you know you’ve at one point in your career, allowed clients (both male and alpha females) to:

1. Push your buttons and boundaries.
2. Call the shots and lose sight of (again) your boundaries.
3. Convince you to lower your prices to unreasonable rates.
4. Call you on the weekends.
5. Convince you to work all hours of the day.
6. Agree on the most ridiculous?turnaround?times on last minute jobs.

Etc.?Etc.…

Tomorrow (Day 18/21) I’ll talk about how to navigate when dealing with challenging clients. To stand your ground respectfully, and what to do when that doesn’t work.

For now…all I can say is, I empathize.

#21daysofentrepreneurship