I’m a big proponent of drawing on your personal life to make the things you say and write in business more “real”. I learned that lesson a long time ago, and although it can sometimes scare people away it serves me well when I do business with folks who know they’re getting the real me.
One of my influences, believe it or not, is radio personality Howard Stern (and he was actually on my mind when I wrote this story about Customer Service at Nissan of Manhattan).
Please don’t get me wrong; Mr. Stern was so honest and so open about his home life while on the radio that it contributed to his divorce. And despite that, given how successful Mr. Stern is I’d be hard-pressed to say he’d done things the “wrong way”. But being open and honest works. It helps get deals done. It helps make business change happen. The difficult task is figuring out just how open you can be every day.
I think about this all the time. Part of that is very personal: I’ve been through an ugly divorce myself, had several failed relationships in the years between then and now, and having gone through all that have finally—and for the first time—found myself in a relationship that I believe in, even on my worst days.
In other words, the words “I Just Want Out” never occur to me.
I Just Want Out. Ouch.
In this article at Huffington Post, David Pisarra talks about “I just want out”. And while reading it I thought back to a conversation I had with the gentleman who became my first attorney in that ugly divorce where I told him that he should give my future ex-wife everything; I just wanted out. “I just want out” is a big deal. It means you’re disengaged. You’re done. You need to move on.
In business, as in your personal life, “I Just Want Out” is a killer. Think about where you need to be before “I just want out” pops into your head. Now, think about what it means to a deal, a business relationship, or even your entire business.
Maybe The Decline of Social Media has made you “just want out” of that race. Maybe the huge amount of work it takes to do Long Tail Marketing has you questioning its validity as a business idea. Or maybe you’ve gotten into a deal that as time has passed you realize you need to extricate yourself from. Not easy.
As the person in charge of your business change, you need to know when it’s time to go with “I Just Want Out”. Or to institute new changes, like taking on a Search Engine Optimization campaign. And it isn’t always easy to know when it’s time to make those business changes.
But one clear sign is when you hear those four little words strung together:
I Just Want Out.
Need help getting out? Or in? Contact Me Here. And by the way: don’t ever turn off your long tail marketing or social media.
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