What compels someone to jump over to the dark side of entrepreneurship? By dark side, I refer to the great uncertainty that entrepreneurs need to often embrace to move forward successfully. You need to be prepared to bump your shin against some furniture, as you stumble in the dark for a while, looking for that light switch.

For most, and especially entrepreneurs who already feel a leaning towards creativity and social impact, the light is not about finding the road to riches. It’s about finding the path to liberation. The liberation being from a sense of living according to someone else’s values and principles, or at least freedom from compromising their own.

Building a Business Without Developing a Brand

So, the would-be entrepreneur decides to free themselves, to share themselves with the world on their own terms. “Share themselves? What does that even mean?” And that’s usually where the sketchpad, full of incredible ideas to solve a problem and make money, is packed up, and the hunt for a new job begins.

The problem is that entrepreneurs are socially conditioned to find what they need to sell to be successful, and they look outwards for ideas or ways to identify the ideas they might have with the greatest promise. By the time all this market research starts resembling some coherence, the essence of why they became entrepreneurs in the first place is lost. They start trying to build a business, without developing a brand.

So, three things you can do right now to make sure you are developing a brand, and strengthen what you already have.

Find Your Message

Every entrepreneur, whether starting out or well-established, has a unique and personal message to share. This message forms the foundation of an entrepreneur’s brand and identity, and stands as the basic and constant reminder of why living by someone else’s principles and values is usually pretty suffocating.

It’s also through this clearly realised and articulated message that an authentic, sincere and meaningful relationship with customers, audiences and communities can begin. Your message gives your audience the compelling motivation to invest themselves in relating to you, which forms the basis of trust and influence.

If you’re already an entrepreneur, or in business, have you found your message? Is it clear to you in a way that transcends the products and services you provide? Is it crystal clear to your customers and stakeholders?

If you’re not an entrepreneur, and don’t intend to become one, do you have a message? Is there a personal story that encapsulates who you are as a person, what you stand for, and what you’re passionate to make of your life?

Find Your Audience

Everyone, entrepreneur or not, at some point struggles with figuring out who their message is for. Before this struggle, very often, comes a sense that what you have to say should be heard by the whole wide world. The fact is, what you have to offer might help the whole world (although probably not) but how loud can you really shout? How far and wide can you really market?

Chances are, there’s a limit to who your message can reach effectively and it’s imperative to your success – and to giving your message the respect it deserves – that you figure out who needs to hear your message that is going to get the greatest benefit and value from it. The more specific you can be, the better. If you can work out who your audience is, you’ll be able to manage your relationships with them better, get to know them, and understand their motivations and needs. From here, working out how you can serve them becomes infinitely easier.

If you’re already an entrepreneur, or in business, have you found your true audience to share your message with? Are you absolutely sure about who it’s vital to get your message across to? Have you defined your audience specifically enough to build upon your relationship with them?

If you’re not an entrepreneur, and don’t intend to become one, it’s still essential to find the right audience for your message. This applies in both professional and personal realms, where who you choose to associate with will greatly impact upon your value as an individual, your perception of your self-worth, and therefore the success and contentment you achieve.

Learn The Language

So, you’re clear on what your message is. You know exactly who it needs to go out to. How do you do it? Should you start with a direct mail campaign, or get your website up first? Should you consider getting some sponsors to help you spread your message? Many entrepreneurs get excited at having figured out their message and audience that they dive into trying to “market” or “sell” their message without first acknowledging that different groups of people (and audiences) communicate and understand different things differently.

In a manner of speaking, every audience has their own language, and it’s imperative to learn that language if you’re to communicate your message effectively enough to inspire and empower your audience to take action on it. If you’re not an entrepreneur or even in a position of authority, learning the particular communication styles of your audience will give you much greater strength, compassion and influence in your relationships.

The first and most important thing in ‘learning the language’ is listening. As obvious as it sounds, consciously listening for linguistic, non-verbal cues, and behaviour cues about how your audience communicates is something we could all be doing more of. With the help of social media and networking, learning the language of particular demographic and psychographic groups has become a lot more accessible, if not easier.

These really are three things you can start doing immediately, preferably in the above order, to strengthen your brand as an organisation, entrepreneur and individual. Most importantly, strengthening your own brand with the drive to understand your customers better is the best way you can improve your service to them. And they will undoubtedly reward you for it many times over in return.

A couple of weeks ago a friend and I took up a Groupon style offer for a 3 course meal at a restaurant in Sydney. It seemed like great value, but as we walked up to the restaurant, we couldn’t have guessed that we were in for a shocking disappointment.

The food wasn’t great, but it was nice enough. The décor, although cheapened by the plastic flowers on the tables, was still welcoming. The tables and chairs, although a little small, were cosy. The problem was actually one little confrontation we had with the owner, and more specifically how he handled it.

For those who don’t know how online deal websites work: a deal opens for a limited period of time, allowing you to buy something at a really good discount right from the website. You’re then emailed a voucher, which you can then redeem for the product or service you paid for with the particular business itself.

In my case that was a 3 course meal for 2, and when I received my voucher in PDF format, it instructed to either print the voucher or take it in to show it on a mobile phone. Cool. That made things easy! I gave the restaurant a call and made my booking. They reminded me to bring my voucher in, and I said no problem.

We stepped inside the restaurant.

Me: Hi, we have a booking for 2 with a voucher deal.

Waitress: Great, do you have your voucher with you?

Me: Yep.

I took out my phone and showed it to her.

Waitress: Do you have your voucher with you?

Me: Yeah, this is it. Here’s the voucher.

Waitress: Yeah, we need a printed version.

Me: Oh. It says here that we can bring the voucher in on a mobile device and show you.

Waitress: Yeah, that’s wrong. Someone told you on the phone to print it.

Me: No, they didn’t. They asked me to bring the voucher in, and here it is.

Waitress: Err… there’s a print shop around the corner. You can print it from there?

At this point I was starting to get annoyed. The waitress, without offering so much as a sincere apology for what was clearly a mistake on their part, was asking me to get out of the restaurant, go around the corner and pay to print a voucher I already had, so I could come back and eat at their restaurant.

Eventually, I accepted that she wasn’t going to budge.

Me: Okay look, we’re happy to go and print the voucher, but can we at least order in the meantime?

Waitress: Sure.

She took our order, went away, and came back after a minute to let us know that she couldn’t actually serve us until we gave the printed voucher over. Wow!

Me: Is your manager here? Can I speak to the manager, please?

Waitress: Yeah sure.

She went to call the manager (who was also the owner). After waiting a while, a friendly-enough looking gentleman came over to our table and stood there, somewhat blankly waiting for us to say something. I explained the situation, and his response almost dumbfounded me.

Owner: Yes that voucher is wrong. You need to bring a print.

Me: What do you mean the voucher is wrong? Isn’t this the voucher you accept? It says right here we can bring it in and show you on a mobile.

Owner: They made a mistake. Now, I can’t pay for that mistake!

Me: So, you want us to pay for that mistake? You’re willing to let your customers pay for the mistake instead so you don’t have to?

Owner: I need the print voucher so I can give to the company and recover our costs.

He went into a long-winded explanation of how the deal actually worked, and how he needed to give the vouchers over to the deal company to recover his money. It was clearly a trust issue, but also seemed like he had signed up for a marketing tactic without actually realising what the point of it was.

Me: Look, we can appreciate your position, but we just don’t appreciate being told on the spot to go and print the voucher ourselves from a nearby store. And we especially don’t like the fact that we can’t be served any food until we bring that voucher back. It really doesn’t seem like very good customer service.

Owner: Yes, but to serve you and get our money back we still need a paper voucher. We aren’t making any money out of this deal at all. It’s just for advertising and promotion! We have to make sure we don’t lose any money.

At this point, my friend and I chuckled at the man’s innocence, and my friend threw in a comment too.

Friend: Yes, we understand that this is for promotion purposes and to advertise your restaurant, but with the way you’re treating your customers, you’re achieving the exact opposite!

Now this next part was what really shocked me!

Owner: Yes, but you people are only here for the vouchers. I can tell already that you aren’t going to come back anyway.

Whoa! My friend and I were both stunned at what the man had just so obviously implied. It was a wonder at how this business was surviving, considering what he had said, and suddenly the emptiness around us seemed to make more sense.

Me: Do you realise that you’ve basically just told us that you don’t value our business, and we don’t mean anything to you as customers? I find that highly disrespectful.

Owner: No, no! You are wrong! You are wrong!

Instead of offering an apology, he tried to convince me how I had completely misunderstood him. He acknowledged that I was upset, but added that it was my fault for not understanding his intentions. He went on for a while, justifying himself. My friend and I began to laugh at this stage, and resigned to the situation.

As a closing gesture, I took out a business card and handed it to him. He excitedly responded, “Oh great! I’ve been looking for a marketing person! I need help with my marketing!” My friend and I laughed some more, as we went to print the voucher.

So, what was the lesson learnt?

There are actually two simple but not so obvious lessons.

Sometimes second impressions trump the first.

Every time a customer walks into a business, they bring with them certain preconceptions and expectations of the service they’ll receive. These expectations might have been determined by what they’ve heard or experienced of the business in the past, or they might be formulated gradually as they walk in and see the décor, hear the sounds, smell the aromas, and feel the textures. Every single thing about the customer’s experience, from the moment they walk in the door to the second they leave, forms a judgement in their mind about the service.

When something goes wrong in the first few seconds, there is always opportunity to balance it out along the way as long as they’re still experiencing the business in some way. The restaurant owner thought he had blown his chances with us since we had one bad experience. He not only had a chance to make up for the initial slip, but he could have impressed us by handling the confrontation with extra compassion.

I was reminded of the time I ordered some business cards from Saltprint. I was so excited when I got my box of cards; it was like Christmas morning under the tree! When I opened the box to look through them, my heart sank. At least three quarters of the cards were faulty, and I was even more sad than angry at my selection of the print company. I promptly sent them an email explaining what had happened, and tried to be as polite as I could.

Not only did they profoundly apologise, they took the effort to explain how they understood the seriousness of the matter. Almost as soon as they received proof of the fault, they sent me another batch of cards very quickly. I was so impressed with how professionally and compassionately they dealt with the problem, that the problem itself ultimately seemed insignificant compared to the pleasure of the customer service that followed.

No single customer is just a single customer.

The other, perhaps even greater, mistake the restaurant owner made was to treat my friend and I as a completely isolated opportunity for business. By thinking that our impression of his service didn’t matter because we wouldn’t be back anyway, he demonstrated his ignorance to the changing nature of consumer democratisation. The world is not only becoming a smaller and closer place thanks to social media, it’s also making people a lot more ready and vocal with their opinions as consumers.

The restaurant owner neglected the fact that we may have a number of friends looking for a similar restaurant in the area, who we could refer to this place, even if we didn’t come back ourselves. He also ignored the reality of how easy and convenient it is for disgruntled customers to share their negative reviews with the world online these days, through websites such as Eatability (specific for food outlets), as well as social media avenues like Foursquare and Google Maps. You just never know which seemingly ordinary customer is going to send your best customer your way.

I decided not to name and shame the particular restaurant and owner in this article, because I also acknowledged that part of the communication breakdown and the customer service was related to cultural attitudes the restaurant owner hadn’t integrated with his new context. However, this only suggests a third bonus lesson – the responsibility to understand the values and communication styles of your customers lies with you.

So, when a customer walks into your store or office, or stumbles upon your website or an ad campaign, when do you think their experience and impression of you begins and when does it end? And are you really treating each of your customers with the respect and service that you would give your very best?

Some of the best creative and social entrepreneurs start off with a sketchpad, and that’s about it. Alone, trapped in their own mind with a brilliant idea, struggling to get it out on a page and make it happen.

Many of them do make it happen! Somehow. But still usually alone, and the struggle becomes harder and harder as the reality of the overwhelming complexity and responsibility of their brilliant idea dawns upon them.

They eventually recruit a friend here, an acquaintance there, to ‘help out’. The struggle now continues with 2 or 3 people, still with little to no funding to hire anyone to do the simple and dirty work that needs to be done when the project is big enough.

Then it hits them…

Let’s find some volunteers!

I’ve found, in my experience of working with volunteers, and being one myself, that it’s extremely difficult to engage them based on enthusiasm and passion alone. Unfortunately it’s the one thing that’s taken for granted the most and rewarded the least. It’s also commonly assumed that a passionate volunteer means they’ll be passionate about taking initiative, which is very far from the truth, in my experience.

What motivates volunteers to jump on board in the first place with a particular project or organisation (as opposed to once-a-week soup kitchen type of volunteering), besides their passion for the cause, is the lure of getting personal and professional development, within an organised system, directed with strong leadership. Having a vague organisation strategy and broad role descriptions puts more pressure on the volunteer to take initiative and lead themselves, which is actually taxing on their enthusiasm rather than fuelling it further.

Therefore, the most effective strategy to recruit, retain and reward great volunteers doesn’t involve just acknowledging them for their contribution, but rather supporting, nurturing and mentoring their personal and professional development, through organised, systematic leadership. The best way to do this, that doesn’t involve counter-productive micro-managing, is by making that leadership and direction an inherent part of their volunteering experience.

Here are a few suggestions on how to make sure leadership comes as a standard feature of the volunteer’s experience:

1. Prepare strong and clear role descriptions, with precise details on what’s required of the volunteer. You can balance this rigidity by emphasising their autonomy in the process. In other words, be dead clear about what you need; allow them to do it their way. This will also help in recruiting volunteers that aren’t likely to vanish after a few weeks, because they didn’t understand what they were really getting themselves into.

2. Make sure the volunteer has a clear and precise understanding of how what they’re doing is specifically contributing to the project or organisation. The most powerful currency in volunteering is emotions, and the better understanding a volunteer has of why and how they’re important, the more emotion they’ll be investing in their role.

3. Evaluate and reward volunteers strategically, just as you would a paid employee. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen organisations make is to treat volunteers significantly more delicate or significantly less important than paid employees. This is about as useless as trying to work out whether the engine or the wheels of a car are more important. They’re both critical to making the car work. So, make sure the performance of volunteers is evaluated strategically and regularly, and they are rewarded accordingly, not just with a collective round-of-applause at an annual ceremony.

4. Maintain an open dialogue with volunteers about their roles, objectives, resources and strategies. I’ve seen so many organisations limit themselves to asking if their volunteers are comfortable, or “getting along alright”. This is sometimes followed with very open-ended questions like, “Is there anything you need?” or “Is there anything I can help you with?”. I’m not sure if this attitude comes from a sense of volunteers doing a favour, or an assumption that volunteers are simpletons.

I do suspect it has a great deal to do with the people asking these questions not being very clear themselves about what the volunteer is supposed to be doing. Allowing volunteers to offer intelligent and critical feedback, on a regular basis, about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, will not only empower them to take more ownership, but also motivate them with the understanding that they’re being taken seriously.

Are you working with the best volunteers you could be working with, in the most effective way possible?

Are you taking your volunteers as seriously as you should?

Working with creative and social entrepreneurs, I get to meet some really interesting and great people, with unique insights, perspectives and ambitions. Having said that, most businesses I work with are not extremely innovative in the general product or service they provide, and all to many make the critical mistake of trying to compete on price. Here are 4 reasons why being cheaper is so often a terrible idea, and why you should probably be charging more for your products and services.

1. Lose bad prospects before you lose your time.

Tyre-kickers exist in every industry, and you’re bound to come across that prospective customer or client who leads you on without ever actually committing to anything. Most customers make up their mind about a purchase well before they actually leave you. They’ll hang around to test the limits of their own insecurities and uncertainties, and as a result end up wasting your valuable time. In some cases, when they do commit to parting ways with their money, it won’t be worth it thanks to an arduous and tedious journey to the transaction.

Most of these bad prospects are going to be keeping one eye on you and another looking for a cheaper alternative. When you refuse to compete on price, and decide to openly charge more for a premium service, you’ll be disqualifying bad prospects before they even approach you. Instead you may well be getting fewer prospects. And not only will more of those prospects turn into paying customers, you’ll enjoy the journey much more.

2. Value yourself for an abundance mentality.

Many entrepreneurs determine a price for their products and services based on their own perceptions of what their time is worth, and then estimate how much time a sale item is worth. As those numbers add up, a brick wall often rises. A wall with big, black writing on it that says, “Whoa, that actually ends up being a fair bit! I can’t charge that much; no one will buy it!” The foundation of that wall is usually built upon the “no one will buy it” insecurity, which is deeply seated in an assumption that you desperately need a large number of customers to define your success. This is so often a paralysing fear for entrepreneurs and small businesses (especially start-ups), that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and really a matter of self-esteem. Adopting an abundance mentality will instil confidence and optimism in you that will give you the courage to live and enjoy your passion fully and successfully.

3. Compete with the fewer best, and forget the rest.

When you decide to establish low price as your first and main point of differentiation, you’re competing with a lot more alternatives than may be necessary. Price as a differentiator means you’re selling to those who are, at least generally, looking for the lowest priced solution to whatever problem you’re trying to help them with. In some cases, this solution can actually be no solution at all, whereas in most cases there will be a cheaper alternative to you somewhere out there in the big, wide, and increasingly accessible world. When you decide to differentiate based on variables other than price, such as quality, service and support, not only will you justify charging more, you’ll also be competing with premium alternatives. Hanging out with the ‘cool’ kids, and leveraging off the halo effect, can help your own business grow.

4. Position for business growth, not for sales growth.

It almost seems too obvious to be worth mentioning, but it’s incredible how many entrepreneurs start with a determined and singular focus to grow their sales. I’ve been guilty of this too. There’s obviously nothing wrong about wanting to increase sales. The problem is a narrow focus that neglects the growth of the business as an entity with a number of fixed and variable components that need to be kept in check.  When you position yourself for sales growth, you may well succeed in the short and medium term, until you realise that your business infrastructure, and management and marketing systems have been left behind and can’t keep up. If you position yourself for business growth, focusing on the holistic well-being of your brand, which is determined by more than just sales figures, success will follow. It’ll also bring with it sustainability and scalability.

And here’s a bonus one!

5. Be weary of exceptions and limits.

This isn’t so much a reason to charge more, but a reminder that there are no silver bullets or magic pills in business and marketing. Whilst fundamental principles can be adapted and implemented in every business, specific strategies can’t always be picked up from one enterprise and put into another for the same results. There are obvious exceptions to charging more, such as with consumable and disposable retail products. There is also going to be a limit to how much you can charge for anything before tipping over to being unreachable to your market.

Having said that, if you’re a creative or social entrepreneur, it’s a very safe bet that with some careful and strategic consideration of your branding, you could and should be charging more than you currently are. Just remember, regardless of what you charge, always strive to deliver above and beyond the expectations of your customers. In the long run, service always trumps price.

We live in a world where it’s so easy to be consumed by the hi-tech consumer products we get access to. Tablets, eBook readers, and smart phones are just 3 examples of many such devices. Most of these devices are feature-packed, and are designed to be as-much-of-everything-in-one-as-possible tools.

I feel very blessed to have some really cool toys and tools of the sort too, which I’ve bought and collected over the years, often after dealing with some fear of buyer’s remorse and assuring myself that what I’m buying is going to make me more productive or creative, and not just “cooler”.

This line of questioning before I buy a new gadget has made me realise that almost every device, tool, utility, and product we use can be used for consuming and for creating. Paradoxically, as accessibility to such gizmos becomes easier, the temptation to be a passive consumer becomes stronger.

With these devices, also comes the convenient illusion of productivity. It becomes remarkably easy to read news and blogs, watch TED videos, and sign-up for countless newsletters to learn more about the world and various areas of interest. The momentum builds up at a feverish pace, and our lives can pass us by as we prepare to use and apply all that we learn, but never actually do.

It’s up to us to decide how we want to balance our use of these awesome resources. Ultimately our tools and resources are not going to make us better entrepreneurs, students or people. Our will, determination, and resourcefulness is going to determine whether we cruise through life as passive consumers, or make the most of what we have to be creators and producers, and leave a meaningful mark on the world.

What percentage of your time do you spend consuming on your toys and tools?

I’m a big believer in numbers and measures, and that includes profits. I think entrepreneurs who deny that profit is a motivating factor in their work are shooting themselves in the foot at the onset. The reason is simple – profits allow us the resources to keep growing. As long as we keep growing, we can keep being, doing and giving.

However, even with a healthy respect for performance measures and money, the philosophy of a brand still comes first, and for 3 distinct reasons in particular.

Brand Philosophy Determines Brand Behaviour

Philosophy is the contemplation and study of general and fundamental problems regarding matters of existence, reason, values and mind. It’s also the collective set of ideas, motivations, values and ethics that represent an entity – an individual or an organisation.

A brand exists, most fundamentally, to represent a solution to a problem or a fulfilment of a need. A brand’s philosophy then, and its success for that matter, is going to largely depend on how well it asks high quality questions about its existence and purpose. And the answers to those questions will in turn determine how the brand behaves, both proactively and in response to the changing wants and needs of those the brand is serving.

Brand Philosophy Fosters Consistency

Once a regular habit is made of asking enough questions about a brand’s existence, purpose, values and motivations, a consistent set of answers will begin to emerge, coming together to form an articulation of the brand’s philosophy. Having a clear, specific, relevant and well articulated philosophy attributed to your brand not only ensures a consistency in how your brand is perceived by your clients, customers and communities, but also how you and your inside circle perceive and interact with the brand.

This consistency in perception will translate to consistency in understanding and action, which is going to again guide a consistent perception of your brand for those on the outside. This breeds familiarity, reliability and loyalty for your customers, and ensures a trusted fan following for your brand.

Brand Philosophy Guides Consumer Philosophy

With the proliferation of social media and social consumerism, communities and markets are becoming more discerning in their decision making when it comes to buying products and engaging with brands. There was a time when brands could compete on price, position, and quality of product alone. Terms like integrity, honesty and fun, were words relegated to PR and sales copy, with not much measurable impact outside of advertising campaigns.

Now brands are scrutinized by their honest commitment to their use of such terms and how they live up to them. In other words, how true a brand is to its philosophy. The most successful brands around the world are realising the value, and necessity, of creativity and social consciousness – not just in their products and services, but innovation in the brand itself. They’re not just creating products, but striving to create campaigns, movements, trends and philosophy.

We’re gradually shifting from a world of producers and consumers, to a world of creators and communities. As a brand, you and your organisation no longer can rest after creating a product or service. You have the responsibility, whether you like it or not, to nurture your brand and ensure that the philosophy it shares with your communities is a positive one.

Working with creative and social entrepreneurs, and community service organisations, is extremely interesting because of the significant differences between each and every organisation I interact with. There are also a lot of similarities obviously, and unfortunately many of them are common insecurities and fear. One of the most prominent fears I keep hearing is, “We can’t and don’t want to become like a corporate organisation.” The reasoning is usually the perception of corporations being greedy, capitalist machines, removed from the human compassion required to do artistic and social work. Corporatism is often perceived as synonymous with fascism.

Personally I think this is a huge generalisation; and that opinion aside, it also reflects a painful problem getting in the way of growth. The problem being that the fear of corporatism often results in a resistance to structure, systematisation, and the development and enforcement of boundaries within an organisation. Whilst it’s understandable that almost every entrepreneur values freedom and flexibility highly, the fact is that an organisation’s culture is built upon the foundations of consistent, reliable, and predictable behaviours and responses to certain problems and situations.

If you’re an entrepreneur, the chances are you’re already providing this predictability to some extent to your customers, even without realising it. That culture, however, is based upon the predictability of your own personality. Whilst initially this can infuse great personality and charisma into an organisation, it can very quickly become a solid barrier to growth. You can’t teach your own personality to someone, until it’s articulated in a system and structure that can be replicated and reproduced, so that someone else can offer that same predictability. That’s one thing corporations often do very well, and it’s what leads to brands like McDonalds, Hilton Hotels, and Nike becoming cultural icons.

So what does this have to do with Bruce Lee? Well, I think he said it best.

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.” – Bruce Lee

I love comic-book superheroes. I love the vivid entertainment, and the stimulation they offer to my imagination. I also love the depth and dimension in the characters, that appeals to and resonates with adults as young as 7, and children as old as 70 (or maybe even older!). Most of all I love the inspiration that superheroes, and even super-villains, give us to fight battles that mean more than our individual lives and egos.

They inspire us to stand for something greater than our selves; they inspire us to create a legacy.

Unfortunately, as we grow older most of us somehow become more and more distant from the magic and wonder of the aspirations we indulge in when we’re younger. We don’t crave super strength or x-ray vision anymore; we just want a bigger house and a fancier car. Forget about saving the world, we’re content with being selfish and measuring our success by our material possessions.

It’s cool though, because I acknowledge that that truly works alright for some people. Maybe even for most people, and I’ve learnt not to judge. Unfortunately, if that’s good enough for you, and it’s truly all you want in your life, then this website probably isn’t for you. For the rest of us, we still crave that super strength, x-ray vision, super speed, agility, spidey-sense, or just being kick ass when it comes to saving the world.

Maybe not quite in those ways exactly, but we want to stretch beyond our ordinary potential, to do extraordinary things, and make an impact on the world that not only expands our identity, but supersedes it. In a capitalist economy, many such aspiring superheroes gather whatever powers they can and become entrepreneurs. Sometimes they become entrepreneurs with the same enthusiasm and determination as a young kid jumping off a roof-top, convinced that he can fly like Superman.

Then the villains start attacking.

Rejection, criticism, failure, and self-doubt. All powerful forces of evil that defeat many would-be heroes, and test many more to the brink of destruction.

I think our perspectives of real life heroes, including ourselves, aren’t all that different to our relationship with superheroes. When we’re younger, we love our superheroes because of their invincibility, awesome powers, and vigilante die-hard attitudes in the fight against evil. As we grow older, for those of us who still appreciate superheroes, we begin to appreciate them for their courage and strength despite very human fallacies and vulnerabilities.

We begin to realise that it takes those vulnerabilities and weaknesses to make the superhero so great.

And it’s not like those flaws were just invented for more adult version movies of those characters. They were always there, even in the original portrayals, but it’s not what we identified with as kids. It’s probably not quite what we needed.

As we mature, we realise that every hero needs to go through a low-point, a rejection, a failure, and a confrontation with their dark side, before they can be resurrected with new lessons learnt, new wisdom found, and new skills gained to defeat the bad guys, save the world, and ultimately conquer themselves.

Are you still in touch with the hero within yourself? Have you learnt to control your powers? Have you confronted your dark side after some failure, and been resurrected to defeat a villain in your business or life?

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Having helped several individuals and organisations with their businesses, in various capacities, I’ve learnt a lot about the psychological attitude of different people towards their business or careers. I’ve also learnt a lot about people’s attitudes towards the concept of a business, and the idea of a career or job. What I’ve found is that most people can’t really tell the difference between the two.

It’s all the more scary with creative and social entrepreneurs, who are usually inspired to go into a business based on a fantastic idea to apply their professional skills in an independent manner. Some people call this “freelancing”.  Whilst it’s not necessarily a bad intention to start with, the problem arises when freelancers start thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs, but fail to think like entrepreneurs.

This difference in mindset can make or break the sustainability of a business or organisation, for various reasons that many business experts have written a lot about over the years. Here’s my simple and succinct version of the big idea:

An entrepreneur is someone who starts and runs a venture or enterprise, which provides an effective and valuable solution to a particular problem. The entrepreneur will either offer that solution for a price, or distribute it by some other means for whatever motivation. The freelancer, on the other, hand endeavours to provide a valuable solution to a particular problem using their own skills, expertise and experience.

The distinction is that the entrepreneur creates an enterprise that offers solutions, whereas the freelancer simply creates a job for themselves, in an effort to be their own boss. The entrepreneur goes to work on their business, whereas the freelancer simply goes to work in a business they happen to have started themselves. The entrepreneur works on their venture so that the success is dependent on the effectiveness of the process and independent of any individual’s time input. The freelancer works in their own business, whilst their return is almost always a function of their time.

I’ve met plenty of people who have argued, and will continue to argue, this distinction. This isn’t a matter of judgement about what’s better. I’m obviously not against selling individual skills and expertise – I do it myself!

However, the indisputable fact remains that if you’re looking for perpetual business success and freedom, you need to make sure you’re building a business, and not just creating a job for yourself. You can own a business, but a job will always ultimately end up owning you.

This is also a fair warning to many who start off with true entrepreneurial spirits and intentions, but get swept away in the operational technicalities of their work, and ultimately end up in the job of managing director, and hating it! This is something I constantly keep a check on myself. I hope that over the next few months and years Sketchpad Ideas proves to be bigger and more important than me or any one individual or group.

For more information about this, and to learn so much more about going to work on your business not in it, I highly recommend you check out Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth Revisited. It’s an extremely entertaining read about the 3 distinct personalities every individual going into business needs to learn to deal with and balance. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read about business, but also about life in general.

If you want some personal assistance to make sure you’re working on your business in a strategic way, and not involuntarily creating a job you hate out of something you love, get in touch.

Whilst I don’t label myself as religious, I value spiritual health in individuals, communities and societies immensely. I also value the spiritual health of brands, and believe that much like human beings, every brand has a spirit that needs to be nurtured and developed in a healthy way. My understanding of spirituality is fairly personal, but I think it’s pretty elegant:

Spirituality is the integrity and unification of all our values, ethics and beliefs that represent our being, regardless of what it is we’re doing. Therefore, the measure of our spiritual health is how integrated we feel and are in our actions and behaviours with those values, ethics and beliefs, regardless of the specific nature of what it is that we’re doing.

So with that said, I propose that all brands have a spirituality and a spiritual health. That includes yours, whether you planned it that way or not. To verify this, all you need to do is ask yourself the following questions.

1. Does your brand have an individual identity?
2. Does your brand stand for something?
3. Does your brand have a values and ethics system?

I admit that many entrepreneurs may instinctively jump to answering no, at least to question 2 and 3. If you consider how your brand is perceived by those it’s speaking to, you’ll realise that it’s incredibly unlikely that your brand doesn’t stand for something and doesn’t represent a system of values and ethics. The question is not really about whether your brand has spirituality or not, but how much influence you’re exercising over your brand’s spiritual health. Some people will also argue that brands like Lehman Brothers, for example, don’t have any spirituality, because they have very poor ethics. Poor ethics doesn’t mean an absence of spirituality; it means poor spiritual health.

When we have poor spiritual health, we feel conflict and confusion within ourselves. Making decisions about important life choices becomes increasingly difficult, and we’re prone to falling into habits that hurt us, and often hurt those we care about. A brand with poor spiritual health experiences the same problems. The more you allow others to dictate how your brand is perceived, the more questionable your brand’s spiritual health becomes, as the spirituality of your brand ends up being determined by individual behaviours and reactions, rather than a strategic set of values, ethics and beliefs that transcend day to day operations and actions – i.e. who your brand is, rather than what your brand does.

So how can you make sure your brand is in good spiritual health?

1. Acknowledge that your brand is an organic entity, and is going to have spirituality, which will impact its overall health. It may sound obvious, or completely obnoxious, but unless you acknowledge the reality and practicality of this, your influence over your brand’s spiritual health will remain superficial and fleeting at best.
2. Define the values, ethics and beliefs that represent your brand, but transcend your products, services and operations. Consider what kind of values, ethics and beliefs would your brand still stand for if your organisation completely changed its products and/or services. Make sure those values, ethics and beliefs aren’t just a bunch of buzz words you can use for PR and marketing, because that’s completely not the point. Be clear, specific, and relevant.
3. Share what you come up with, not only to your staff and collaborators, but also to your customers and clients. Ask your best customers and clients what they think about your brand, and see if their perception matches yours.
4. Practice what you preach, basically. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ll need to make sure that all your strategic decisions and responses are aligned with your clearly defined set of values, ethics and beliefs, and that you’re brand is accountable for maintaining its spiritual health, just as it would be to maintain its financial health.
5. Measure your spiritual health. This is obviously going to be a fairly subjective process from brand to brand, but the point is to implement simple systems to measure how integrated your brand’s actions and behaviours are with its spirituality. You could even make this social! Check out www.brandkarma.com for some inspiration.

The Ultimate Benefit of Keeping your Brand in Good Spiritual Health

There is really one, very simple, ultimate benefit of acknowledging the spirituality of your brand, and keeping your brand’s spiritual health in top shape: Your brand is empowered to grow and develop as an independent, organic entity, which isn’t dependent on any one individual or group for its moral and ethical accountabilities. As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably started a business for a sense of freedom, amongst many other individual motivations. The most important thing you can do to ensure that freedom is sustainable is to make sure you own the business, and your business doesn’t own you.

So how is your brand’s spiritual health doing? Time for a check-up?