Why you should be careful of advice (including mine) - AKA how to grow up really quickly as a human and entrepreneur.
York Zucchi
The Chief Coffee Drinker. 33 years of starting & growing projects around the world, trying to make the planet a better place for everyone. Sustainability│Innovation│Entrepreneurship
In this truly remarkable book (Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness) by Richard H.?Thaler, one sentence caught my attention:
"In many areas, ordinary consumers are novices, interacting in a world inhabited by experienced professionals trying to sell them things".
Let's be frank...
Most first time entrepreneurs and startups are novices in the world of business. That's not a reflection of their intelligence or expertise, but just that - as a general rule - entrepreneurship is very much learned by doing and not by reading (though certainly researching does help soften the inevitable blows along the journey).
As "novices" you will be a natural target for advisors, consultants, investors, partners, resellers of solutions and services, etc. You will be swamped with suggestions of how this productivity tool will save your life, this SaaS service will magically transform your business, how this entrepreneurship methodology is the one with the best chances of success, etc. You will be a natural magned for startup and SME consultants (to be clear: there are some truly amazing ones out there!) and experts giving you advice, including me with this newsletter :-)
Totally biased advice (over a cup of coffee)...
As I reach my 50th year since being manufactured I thought of sharing my perspectives on how to protect yourself from being distracted by commercial interests along your entrepreneurial path. As always take my advice with a pinch of salt (or a spoon of nutella if you prefer). There is no magic tool out there to help you:
1. Learn how to spot a scam (useful in life in general)
2. Understand your relationship with your business.
Like when falling in love, in the first 18 months or so you will be blinded and in some ways almost prepared to over invest in your beautiful object of your desires. This is an amazing (if long) podcasts on relationships but will teach you a thing or two about you and your business :-)
3. Learn how persuasion really works so you can spot it (and also use it for your own business)
4. How to use your business size as a competitive edge (technically it is an add-on to the other points, but a reminder that the smallness of your existing business is very useful!
5. Learn the art of packaging messages... So you can spot them a mile away
领英推荐
6. How to learn what you don't know. An awesome episode to help you become a better entrepreneur without too much interference.
7. Learn how to outsmart your reptile brain :-)
Great podcast. A bit slow so maybe listen at 1.2 speed but what an eye opener!
8. Learn how to monitor your natural overconfidence.
This episode starts fluffy but then really hits gold!
9. Understand yourself better, especially the fact that you do not yet know what you want (which makes you meander all over the place and listen to lots of advice)
10. Beware of productivity and organisational porn!
I can't tell you the amount of times I personally tried trello, asana, clickup etc thinking that they are the tool that will help me. This episode will open your eyes really wide and help you realise how little you actually need.
11. Be careful of processes and systems!
95% of our business processes are a total waste of time (and money setting them up). Know this when the next advisor wants to introduce a fancy new tech in your business.
That's all folks!
I have another 20 or so headings I can give you... but I think the above is MORE than enough to help you grow as entrepreneur so you're better able to protect yourself in this big beautiful crazy world we live in!
Happy coffee everyone!
Yours
York
Passionate about improving efficiency, customer success and customer relations for businesses that are run by people with great hearts and minds
1 年Great advice! Great podcasts and resources
York! You cut me deep, sir! ?? I am one of those advisors who believes that being clear about what people should be doing, and how they work together to achieve good results, and how to show them that they are doing good work, is SUPER important (aka processes, metrics and systems). I do however relate heavily to the addiction to productivity porn, but I now have a process in my workflow management system to limit the time I spend there (metric), and direct it towards learning things that I do not know. So my reptile brain is ambivalent about whether I need to fight you on this, or run away to go improve my messaging on the consulting business that I deeply love and are absolutely sure is the right thing for my clients. Help me understand this conundrum - it is as if I do not know my own mind. ?
INTEGRATION INTO YOUR SETUP ALL YOUR DATA FROM REAL TIME SENSORS, IMAGERY FROM OUR SIMPLE INTERFACE
1 年AS ALWAYS GREAT
OWN YOUR INDUSTRY! Tools & Strategies to help Business Owners & Entrepreneurs stand out!! ?? International Marketing Consultant, Speaker, Author and Content Marketing Coach ??
1 年This is a good read. And yes, advisors, consultants, etc fill the gaps between your knowledge, capacity and abilities but should must aim to assist the client or organizations and not milk it based on their ignorance. A tangible service produces measurable results.
Partner at Recombinate Health | Empowering Clinical Teams | Transforming Patient Care | Good Jobs Strategy Tiger 21 │ San Francisco │ Community │ Family office │ PEF
1 年These are great! #11 can catch me sometimes: building systems when I should just be doing the work!