Why I am insulted by the offer of a cup of coffee to 'pick my brains'.

I loved this blog from Lauren Aston who has basically written a passionate rant, but a fair one. In my search for mentors for ViewVo, I approach people who are excellent at what they do. With strong reputations, they are frequently approached for 'cups of coffee' to have their 'brains picked'. Often this is code for 'tell me how to succeed!'

In my experience, people do want to help. Most of the time when I speak to mentors, the reason they join is because they can see how useful it would have been for them to shadow an industry expert when they were starting out. However, the reality is, when your opportunity cost is (in some cases ￡5K per day) the offer of a cup of coffee is simply not enough for a complete stranger to offer. I think we need a more honest approach where the value of what an expert can offer is understood and discussed. Many of the mentors on my site feel uncomfortable asking for payment - but it is the only way they can commercially justify the time. Some use the payment as a way of donating to charity, but either way, they feel more comfortable knowing someone is demonstrating they appreciate and value the time and opportunity being offered.

Many career changes take at least two years. University degrees start at ￡21K and 1 year programmes are around ￡7K. If starting a business, the average cost (according to business zone UK) is just over ￡120K. On this basis, what value would you give to a day or half day with an expert who opens your eyes to that industry? That gives you insight into next steps, how to market and develop your business? What tools to use, what products to buy, what suppliers to consider, what questions to ask in lease agreements, which lawyers to use... The list is as long as the questions you may have - what is the value? Is it nothing? I'd love your thoughts on how you feel when people ask you for your time?

Enjoy this rant!

WHAT’S THE (IG) STORY MORNING GLORY?

Credit to Lauren Aston who runs Lauren Aston designs.

The subject of the Story was another email I’d received (really, I’m not complaining – my inbox is blogging gold lately!  ) The email came from a lady who wants to set up a business doing chunky knitting and so asked me:

“how to create the best product, and how to advertise and create a business from it? …Also, where do you get a sewing up needle big enough?”

PARDON?

Yet again, people of the internet leave me gobsmacked and baffled. It’s not the first time I’ve received an email like this and I know it won’t be the last. It’s also not uncommon, I heard from numerous small business owners saying they too receive emails like this on an upsettingly regular basis.

The more I thought about it the more it occurred to me that, if so many people are sending emails effectively saying “I want to copy your business, please tell me how so I can set up in competition” then there seems to be a link missing here (because to me, that clearly isn’t OK).

SO HERE’S WHAT I THINK…

I believe in people, I know that there are so many wonderful humans out there and although we’ve all come across some rude folk in our lives, I refuse to believe that this many people are this rude. So instead, I’m assuming – no, I’m declaring – that the people who send these emails are in fact (mainly) nice people, who – through no fault of their own – don’t fully understand the implications of what they’re doing. And that’s OK – we aren’t all experts at everything, we all have something to learn and maybe some people just don’t quite GET this. So today, my aim is to help enlighten on this topic.

As always, I’m not looking to single anyone out or to publicly shame some poor email-ee. I’m the first to admit my failings in many, many areas and would hate for one of my blunders to be smeared on someones blog, named and shamed. I just want to help explain why it’s rude …In my opinion.

HEART AND SOUL

*Excuse me a moment while I climb up onto my Small Business Soapbox*

Your own business is your baby. Be it big or small, it’s your creation, your ideas, your blood, sweat and tears. No matter how much you try to take the ‘personal’ out of it for the professional, it’s your brain and hard work that created it and ultimately that makes it personal. You’ve put your heart and soul into it, how could it not be? It’s your baby and you want to nurture, sustain and protect it.

When you had the idea, you worked tirelessly to consider every detail, you found suppliers, you designed artwork, you came up with a marketing strategy, your created a website and you collated all of the information you’d learnt into one place and put it out there for the world to see, judge and hopefully enjoy!

WHY I WON’T HELP YOU TO COPY MY BUSINESS

The idea of then dishing this information out to a stranger so that they can replicate it – crucially, without doing any of the hard work – to me, seems laughable. I for one didn’t go through the agony of those learning curves to benefit someone else. I earned those through dedication, public embarrassment and humiliating muck up’s; they’re all mine.

AND…Even if we were the nicest people on earth and wanted to help as many folks as possible, most of us need to earn a living from our businesses, which makes it completely counter productive to share this information with someone who wants to compete. We’d practically be shooting ourselves in the foot by doing that. Giving them a leg up to take away from us.

THE GOOD KIND OF COMPETITION

I completely know that not all competition is bad, I think it can be a really powerful dynamic to have someone on the other side doing well, it can push you to be better and get better. To come up with original ideas that compete – sometime you’ll come out with a knock out and other times they will, but it’s all part of pushing you and having a benchmark (as long as you don’t take it too seriously – let’s remember that we only ever see a social media version, which is often a fraction and rose tinted version of reality.)

On the other side of that I must admit that I’m careful not to look at competition, I’m a firm believer in the importance of original and creative ideas and if you look at someone who’s work is similar to yours, you’re in danger of getting it stuck in your mind, which can really sniffle your own creativity.

Lauren’s Conclusion: Competition can be a good thing yes, but giving your competition a leg up is just silly.

“TAKE IT AS A COMPLIMENT”

The one thing that always gets said in these situations (and there will be a booby prize for anyone who comments saying this!) is some form of “take it as a compliment” or “imitation is the best form of flattery”

Nope.

Sorry. I’m just not into that one. It seems to be one of those old school saying like “the customer’s always right” that we now know isn’t always true, yet people often say it to fill and gap and assume it’ll shut you up… it’s basically a “calm down dear” and you can imagine how I feel about that one!

If I wear a top and someone ask’s where I bought it, I’ll happily share that information so that they can go to that shop, purchase it and hopefully enjoy wearing it. On those occasions I am honoured, I totally get (and love!) that compliment. But if someone said “Where did you get that top? I’d like to visit the shop, learn how they did it and make it myself to sell to people, I might target their customers while I’m at it”… That’s different.

If someone wants to forgo all the hardwork that you put in just to replicate something you’ve worked tirelessly to build I don’t accept that that’s flattering. Thats stealing. It may not be obvious to everyone and I do understand that (hence the blog) but I can’t stress enough that it’s not a compliment. In this case, a complement is an admirer or a customer, not a copier.

JUST TO BE CLEAR

(A point I also made on my IG stories the other week when discussing this)

My biggest fear in this regard is to come across as unsupportive, so I really want to stress that my issue is specifically with people trying to imitate. If someone has an original and creative idea then that really is wonderful and when asked, I’m always happy to offer any advice I can that might be of use.

To really stress the point – I’m also friendly with other ‘Giant knitters’ who started at a similar time as me because there’s an understanding and respect that none of us copied the other, we just happened upon something at the same time and took it in our own directions, some of those happen to overlap yes but we understand that that’s just circumstance. However, I find it too hard to be friendly with people who’ve said to me “I enjoyed your knit kit so I’m going to use it to create my own business” or “I want to do what you do, tell me how” I just can’t get on board but I do hope I’ve made the distinction clear.

THE PROBLEM WITH FAUX CREATIVITY

The problem with imitating a creative business is that the perpetrator, surely without realising it, is simply removing the essence of what makes it great in the first place…They’re taking all the creativity out of it. And without that, all they’ll have is a shell of an unoriginal business and a very upset creative who’s hard work has been carelessly reproduced. They’ll also be playing catch up for ever which is never a winning formula.

WHEN THEY WANT A PIECE

I stand by what I wrote earlier – I don’t think people always realise what they’re doing. They’ve seen a good idea and they want a piece of it – that’s why I created Knit Kits, for personal use, so people can have a bash and knit a blanket for themselves or their mates and yes I make a small profit from that but that is also the cost of my time and expertise in coming up with these products… As a side, I didn’t create the Knit Kit’s so other people could learn it all and set up a competing business (despite lots of people sadly doing just that, but I hear ya – I’ve created that Demon myself and have to live with it)

But back to my point, they want a piece – It’s just a shame that the ‘piece’ they want is Everything you’ve got (with a capital E), rather than just one of your products or to enjoy seeing you progress and following along with the goings on. They want to be immersed in it, which despite everything, I do kind of understand and somewhere in there, i’m sure, is a compliment however acting on it in that way can be extremely hurtful to the ‘complimentee’.

IF YOU LIKE IT;

APPRECIATE IT, DON’T COPY IT

To the people asking these questions;

My advice could only ever be to wait for your own spark of genius, go out and get inspired, when you create something wonderful that’s unique to you – whether it be a specific product or a signature style that’s all you – that’s when you’ve found it and that’s when you’ll have the ‘product’, the passion, the love and therefore the enthusiasm to make it work. Those things can only ever come from developing your own ‘business baby’ and not from taking someone else’s.

Please don’t put someone in the position where they’re expected to give away all of their business learnings and secrets. It’s not fair and it’s not creative and I know you’re better than that.

FINAL POINT FOR ANY COPY CATS:

And if you’re ignoring all of that, and still going to ask, please at least attempt to use full sentences and be polite. I can’t take another “Where do you buy your wool?” – a “Hello” would be nice.

PHEW

That was a biggun! Well done if you hung in there, I applaud you!

I’ll leave you to enjoy your evening (if there’s any left)

Thank you SO MUCH for joining me again 

L x