Last night I re-re-re-watched the movie Social Network and it reminded me of the game Werewolves, ala a personal event many months ago.
At the urging of a friend that I was working with, I joined into a “party” game that the company team was playing. I guess it has many variations, and this one was centered on a village with a Werewolf problem. I did it because I wanted to get to know the other team members – and the core-team leader – that I hadn’t had the chance to interact with previously. I thought this could be a nice way to break the ice and build some team-spirit between us.
Overall, I participated in three of the game scenarios. They had already been playing for a few hours, and seemed happy to indoctrinate a couple of newbs (me and one other) into their world. It was clear from the start that the core-team leader (whom I’ll refer to as “the Boss”) was also the repeatedly self-proclaimed “Werewolf expert,” who set about giving us, and later governing, the rules. As an equally self-proclaimed authority-questioner, I sensed I could be in for a bumpy ride.
Here’s how the game works: Everyone playing is secretly given some unique role within the Village. Two or three are Werewolves, whose job it is to kill the others (in the dark) without being revealed. The rest have some form of power that could help unmask these werewolves, IF they work together. When they don’t, innocent people die, either by werewolf attacks or by accusations of werewolfness and being burned at the stake (requiring some form of loud screaming exaltation). The dead are ejected out of the game. Initially, I presumed this to be a fun, team-unity exercise… I couldn’t have been more wrong. I soon learned that it was really a game of personal power and intimidation, which shouldn’t have been a surprise once I learned the basic premise was Win By Lying.
1st game – An exercise in learning by doing. As luck would have it, I was (randomly) assigned one of the more powerful roles in the game and, apparently misunderstanding advice from the Boss, I screwed it up. Failing in public is a powerful incentive to get better FAST. And, I know that not owning the Fail means a deeper hole NOW. I was determined not to do either and quickly discovered there are a lot of bridges to get thrown under in this game.
At the end of game #1, the Boss asked me, “Why are you so bad at this? It’s a game of lying and aren’t all marketers liars?” Nervous laughs around the room. “Only the stupid ones” I laughed. From the crowd: crickets. (Yeah, after this I should’ve seen the rest of this story coming – I’m an idiot.)
2nd game – Another lesson in humility. In game #2 I became more aggressive. No secret powers this time (I was just a lowly villager) though I paid CLOSE attention and focused on my only job; deducing the werewolves’ identity. At some point, I became convinced the Boss was a werewolf and, without further ado, made a convincing argument to the rest of the group (I’m a pretty good salesperson, after all.) POOF! – the boss is burned at the stake. W00T! Huge personal win for me… or at least it would’ve been if I’d been correct. In fact, the Boss wasn’t the werewolf and, worse yet, kicking the Boss from the game actually helped the real werewolves kill the rest of the village in the next couple moves. Oops. Crickets were now offset by glares. I could sense mental torches being lit – this time for me.
I apologized repeatedly, profusely, sincerely, to the group and suggested I stop playing, for the betterment of the game. This was not to be. The boss insisted I play one more…
3rd game – This game began in earnest even before it began in practice, with the Boss forcefully announcing that its “good practice to not kill advanced, experienced players too early in the game” – reiterating that “no one has more experience than me.” The Boss concluded flatly, “Not a rule, just good advice,“ looking straight at me. Wow. It changed everything.
[Is that kind of intimidation really effective? Sadly, You betcha. It worked like a charm, and the Boss lasted a lot longer, in game #3. Why? Keep reading.]
In game #3, I was once-again assigned a position of power, which I chose to squander by staying passive the entire game. Sadly, it was my most successful game, judging by the crowd’s reaction afterward. They seemed genuinely relieved when I said I was done playing for the night. (Forever, actually)
And, who could blame them? My failed strategy of playing this like a game of entertainment had made it an uncomfortable and tense situation for everyone. I was an interloper who had arrived on the scene and naively challenged the leadership. Even as accidentally as I’d done it, this undermined the basic purpose of the activity in the first place, which was to reinforce the leaders’ dominance, not question it. My departure reset the world for their village, where the werewolf always wins, even when a scenario defeats them, temporarily. The real game is perpetual and has nothing to do with fake lycanthropes.
When the Boss used the Spell of Intimidation at the outset of game #3, he transcended the Werewolf game entirely by identifying himself as a real-life “werewolf” to whom winning was more important than any team-unity or growth. The Boss had ensured he could personally play in the game without any further resistance, even when that came at the price of the team. Go figure.
Zuckerberg’s Facebook (as portrayed in the movie) and many other fast-growing companies also reflect how they, like the game of Werewolf, reward a socially predatory system, revealing as much about the village (i.e. company culture) as about those willing to play and enable it. In Zuckerberg’s case, it was justifying the total betrayal of his oldest friend and Facebook co-founder with a “how could you let me do this to you?” defense. A Win By Lying strategy creates a Never Trust Anyone culture and this not a foundation on which you can build a collaborative team or company culture, regardless of the short term success it sometimes enjoys.
In my 20+ years of small business team leadership, coaching and participation, I have never seen a truly collaborative leader allow, much less encourage, this kind of “team” activity. At best, the results are disruptively divisive; at worst, they are long-term destructive. (Et tu, Brutay?)
Leading from the front of a team (pulling) is a lot harder than from the back (pushing). Why? Because Respect (pull) is an order of magnitude more work to create than Fear (push). As both consumers and creators, we are at our best when we reject these methods and companies. For me, I look forward to the day that I stop needing Facebook for my business and can abandon it (Go GooglePLUS!) because that’s the only way we ultimately get to vote against this kind of behavior in our world – with the currency of our attention.
Normally, I keep my blog topics very separate, but I just posted a very personal and enlightened entry on the Startup-Strategy blog that crosses that line. Find it here
In a recent conversation with a friend whose opinion I hold in high regard, something was said that really threw me for a loop. Essentially, the statement was this:
“I believe work is a curse, and my job is to make it as painless as possible for myself and my team.”
For those of you who know me well, you can image the level of my WTF!? reaction. For those that don’t, allow me to clarify. As a business advisor and coach, I work exclusively with artist-run businesses, like professional photographers.
One of the main reasons I do this is because I enjoy that most (all?) of the peeps who have chosen this line of work do it because they are passionate about doing it, in some way. I’ve yet to meet anyone who chose this industry because it was an better “curse” than others… though, my view is admittedly subjective. (My career has afforded me the ability to choose my work – or not.)
As a result, my entire work energy goes into helping others find a path to success in their business that “fits” them. Simply said, I want my clients to get clarity on who they are, what kind of peeps that would love to spend their professional life being with, and then matching those up in a business plan so they have the freedom to enjoy every day they practice their craft. I believe this is the only way to a sustainable personal services business practice. Again, that’s just me…
My question for you is… Do You Feel Work is a Curse? If so, what are you doing to un-curse yourself?
jeff
P.S. BONUS question: Not disclosing whether my friend is a man or woman was intentional… Do you also think this is a gender-connected thing?
P.P.S. (pimpage ahead) I still have open seats for my 1-day Biz Clarity workshops in Nashville, Jacksonville & Orange County, CA. Click HERE for info. (And, HUGE Thanks to SmugMug for “buying down” the class fees and letting me offer them for you for a lot less than normal.)
When asked, customers will usually tell you that they’d like “more choices” as something that would motivate them to “buy more.” On the surface, that logic sounds right. It ain’t. Did you know that the more choices you have on your website, the more business you are losing?
Its a well-documented behavior that when you give people too many choices, they just stop buying. Its called, “Choice paralysis” (a malady closely related to the business’ disease, Paralysis-by-analysis) and is a well-known behavior in marketing. If you wish to see this phenomenon at work, you can test it by doing these things on your business website (caveat: this will also be at the cost of losing customers, so think twice):
Have a half-dozen (or more) shoot packages and/or products.
Add 5 ways to customize each one (books, prints, canvases, videos, etc.)
Subdivide all of these into multiple levels of subcategories
Pour fuel on the confusion fire with a bunch of complex discounts and specials
By doing these things, you are pretty much guaranteed to have terrible conversion rates from prospects finding your site. Ironically, if you already are doing some or all of these things on your current website, its probably as a result of your belief (and sometimes even suggestions by customers) that they couldn’t “find what they wanted” – so you kept adding options in an attempt to give it to them.
In this particular instance, Customers Lie. In fact, regardless of what they tell you, the science is unambiguous: Reducing options will increase positive results.
In one university experiment a few years back, it was discovered that approximately 1 in 5 (~20%) people can’t choose between TWO equally valuable choices. Amazingly, further testing revealed that 1 in 3 (~33%) couldn’t choose between THREE choices. The more options, the more indecision.
So, how do you stop the madness? Here a four ways to try…
1. Make every choice clearly different. A powerful way to do this is to stick to simple descriptions that have clear, unique differentiators. If you are differentiating by price levels, try to ensure that at least half of the items in each “package” aren’t repeated from one to the next.
2. Stick to 3 or 4 distinct choices. Choice paralysis is not just something suffered by those who arrive undecided. It can actually prevent a committed buyer from placing an order. Although this is a scary, the answer is obvious: reduce your range of choices.
3. Suggest the “best” choice. When faced with a set of choices, you can help your customers by encouraging them to make a decision by suggesting a course of action. This well known technique is used by most of the e-commerce websites in the form of ‘most popular’ or ‘staff favorites’. And, while these suggestions can help alleviate choice paralysis, they don’t connect with users on an emotional level. You can offset some of this loss by personalizing the suggestions, I.e. ‘Jeff’s Choices’ or ‘Designed for the Edgy Bride’.
Although suggestions are a useful way of easing choice paralysis, sometimes it is possible to avoid asking users to make a choice at all. That is where the “choice-less” solution comes in.
4. Remove choice. The best way to avoid choice paralysis is to avoid choice entirely. It is surprising how often we ask our customers to make decisions where we could easily do it for them. We tend to pass the responsibility of choice to them for a couple reasons:
Mostly, we become obsessed with the “missed opportunities.” Even though we know the majority of customers will make one choice, we worry about the minority who might want something different. As I’ve said in a previous video post, Choosing is Hard – mostly because it means NOT choosing everything else. The resulting problem with this is that the user experience of the majority often suffers in order to cater for the whims of the minority.
Also, as I mentioned at the top of this post, we mistakenly believe that customers want choice because that is what they said they want. Unfortunately, research shows there is a gap between what people say they want and what actually makes them happy about their decisions. While giving the customer choices may make them feel temporarily powerful, ultimately they are more likely to suffer from confusion anxiety and buyer’s remorse.
So what is the best solution? Suggest (as personally as you can) the most common choice while offering some level of customization – even if the details must remain undefined until they choose it.
Well thought-out and personalized choice suggestions have the power to reduce customer anxiety while not taking away the choices available to them.
How many choices do you have on your site now? 3? 4? more? Do you subscribe to the “triple cheeseburger effect” or maybe an aspiration model? Are your customers liars, too?
jeff
P.S. I have some PhotoBiz Clarity workshops coming up if you are interested (HI, MD, FLA, CA, TN) and you can usually find them here: http://workshops.startup-strategy.net
P.P.S. Did You Know?… I’ve been writing a book about liars I’ve worked with, and for, over the last 20 years? It’s titled The Truth About Liars and I’ll do a blog post about it in the near future. Juicy stuff! Stay tuned. :)
The Thirst Relief Mentor Auction (in association with ShootQ) has begun! You can actually bid real money to spend an entire MONTH making me your… well, I’ll let your imagination work that one out. It’s for a GREAT cause and may even make you smarter, so check it out here.
In a post a few months back, I spouted off about how Choosing is Hard, as well as posted a video on my Startup-Strategy.com blog (also at the bottom of this post). Since then, I’ve repeated that phrase countless times in workshops, 1to1 consulting meetings, and various business conversations. And, without exception, everyone I say it to nods their head in agreement and says something like, “yeah, I know.” Except that, its only when they actually have to do it, do they really GET IT. Only then do they realize that what I meant when I said “hard” was…
Mind-numbingly Hard!
Once discovered, they often yell and negotiate and plead and argue and ignore and deny and attack and hide and anything else they can to AVOID that tough choice. And, ultimately, they either choose or quit the process (which also making a choice – just a universally bad one and a big FAIL on my part, if I have been hired to help them.) But, no matter how much I care (and I care a lot), I can only empathize with them, at best. After all, its not MY choice they are struggling with. Its theirs.
I consider Choosing the single most important “muscle” you can have as an self-determined person (i.e. entrepreneur) and the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.
And, maybe it helps to know that I eat my own dog food, so to speak – and even feed it to my family.
I started a Xmas tradition in the Jochum household, meant to assist my children in building this part of their character. Every year, my kids must now select a half-dozen “old” toys to donate to Santa (who redistributes them to other kids) before Santa will consider leaving them any new stuff. The “selection” process began on December 1st. With only 6 toys to choose, and considering the volume of gifts our many “loved-ones” have given my youngest (5 year-old) boy over the past year, I assumed this would be a simple and easy process. Just in typing that last sentence, I realize how stoopid I can be sometimes.
In the last 24 days, I’d estimate that no fewer than 100 toys have gone into, and come back out of, the donation box. Even broken toys that he hasn’t SEEN in months take on a whole new life as something he suddenly “needs” once the prospect of never seeing it again comes into being. And, if a more perfect simile exists for the mental anguish that also takes place in small-biz brains when faced with removing something they’ve never done well (or even stopped doing, already) and moving on to something that has an indeterminate result, I can’t imagine what it would be.
Choosing is Hard not because we’re afraid of making a bad choice, as much as we are afraid of losing all the OTHER choices that exists before we do. As stated in the Law of Sacrifice (Ries & Trout) you must “give up something to get something.” But, with the Law of Choosing (Jochum) you must “give up EVERYTHING else” to make a choice. As I said, this can be mind-numbing. Though, if you choose-not-to-choose, the world around you will (i.e. generally led by your competitors) and it’s never the one you want. Yes, its hard and the more you do it, the stronger you get at it.
My 5 year-old’s Santa donation box is now (finally) full and, while he’s not excited to say bubbye to the items within, he’s reconciled that he must make these choices to have any chance at bigger, better stuff. He Gets It. I know this because when I took a picture of him next to that box, he was doing the Hulk muscle pose (yup, that’s him).
And, he’ll get stronger with every choice.
Do you Get It? Are you prepared to do a Hulk muscle pose and make the tough calls about where your business is going or what it should become? You’d better. You won’t like me when I’m angry.
Happy Holidaze to one and all,
jeff
P.S. Need some help? Get a biz- workout buddy (someone who won’t let you slide on choices.) Lemme know if you want me to hook you up.
Did you know that $1 can provide a hungry child with 10 healthy meals?
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Every year around this time, my inbox gets filled with donation asks—I’m sure it’s no different for you. But if you are like me, and you want to know that you are making a real difference for kids in need, I believe Share Our Strength is a perfect choice. And, right now, they need your support more than ever. Every dollar counts:
Your gift of $35 can provide class supplies for a family of four to attend our free six week budgeting and cooking course for low income families so that they can provide healthy meals for their children all year long.
Your gift of $100 can help provide 25 children facing hunger with backpacks full of healthy food over weekends and holidays when school meals are not available.
And with a gift of $250, Share Our Strength can provide equipment that makes it possible for an elementary school to provide free nutritious breakfasts for all students as they enter their classrooms every day, all year long.
P.S. And, save your receipt because every penny you donate I will happily deduct from any 1to1 Consulting we do in 2011! I look forward to working with you in the next year as we achieve new milestones that once seemed insurmountable.
Can someone teach you about business success without having done it themselves? This seems to be a big question, these days, as workshops and 1to1 mentoring become a popular way to monetize experience. (Full disclosure: I do both)
In my mind, the simple answer is No. (Actually NO! I discussed some of this in a recent post titled Knowing Ain’t Doing on the Startup-Strategy.com blog.)
When I started with Pictage in April 2004, the first person who took time to “educate” me about the wedding photography was Gary Fong – who was on the Board of Directors at Pictage, at the time. I will always be indebted to him for explaining in clear, lucid terms, how the wedding industry had changed when digital began to overtake the film workflow. While Gary and I do not always see eye-to-eye on stuff, he recently offered another bit of advice I think is just as insightful and dead-on, and should become a rule in our business.
Basically, and I’m paraphrasing, he said that when evaluating where to spend your money on industry education or leadership… Ask For Proof (of their expertise and how they know the subject matter.)
To this I say “Ab-so-luckin-futely!” In the same way that you must review instructors’ work-product (images) before paying for training or advice on technical matters (e.g. lighting), be equally diligent on asking for that proof when evaluating the “softer” skills, like business workshops or mentoring. If you wouldn’t consider taking an expensive class on capture techniques from someone who doesn’t have any images to show you, why would you take a business class from someone whose has no “proven” successes of their own, either past or present? (I’ve recently heard of someone teaching business success who openly admits their own business is failing. Whassup with that?)
Using me as an example, I am totally comfortable teaching small businesses how to create the fundamentals of business success (Goals, Strategies, Positioning, Unique Differentiators, Execution, Outsourcing, Operations) because I’ve experienced successful creation and deployment of those things in multiple artist-based industries, including this one, both with my own startups and those created by others. Follwing that logic, I would NOT be a good choice for How to Shoot, or anything that dealt with capture techniques. (The closest I get is doing Fusion classes, where I’m really an evangelist and talk about the ways to get PAID for it, rather than create it.)
And, also know that “proof” is kind of slippery. There are really three kinds, Social Proof, Paid Proof and Real Proof.
Social Proof is when other people tell you how great the service or product is, offering their subjective opinions. This is often an evangelist or endorsement from someone who has experienced the class or teaching as a student and wishes to report their positive experience or results.
Paid Proof looks a lot like Social Proof (and sadly, its often pitched that way) but differs in that the endorser has received money and/or free services in exchange for their positive endorsement. While their opinions may be authentic, IMHO this type of one-hand-washes-the-other arrangement makes the endorsement suspect (at best) and must be discounted, accordingly. (When you see peeps giving glowing reviews, ASK whether they were given free stuff to say that – I think you’ll be surprised at how often this occurs.)
Finally, there’s Real Proof. This is objective, indisputable examples of results. Again, using myself as an example, I’ve created 3 technology startups (2 sold for a profit), worked on turning around 3 others (2 successes, 1 failure), and, most frequently and directly, as head of sales & marketing, helped Pictage grow from ~6MM to ~30MM is revenues between 2004-2007. As a demonstration of what I know how to do, I also created the Pictage forums, user groups and PartnerCon. (FWIW, I did NOT invent Pictage’s greatest one-hit moneymaker – the 2for1 idea. That was Debbie Burns, who worked for me at the time. I was just smart enough to test it. )
Using common sense and a some direct questioning will help you Choose Wisely where to spend your hard-earned money and time. Asking for Proof is a great first step.
This has been a tough couple of years for many (most… all?) small businesses, and especially hard for artist-run businesses that were just barely making ends meet before the Great Recession hit. And, as a business strategy consultant to a lot of them, I’m often asked the question of when to “throw in the towel.” How do you know when your entrepreneurial tenacity has turned the corner on just plain stubborn foolishness? What separates a never-give-up winners (like Tony Hsieh of Zappos fame) from the never-should-of-stayed-in-the-game losers?
Perspective. The winners looked exactly like the losers until they… won.
The only time a true entrepreneur really ends their pursuit is when they’re (previously) unstoppable force meets a truly immovable object. How do you know that its really immovable? Because you go resource-broke by trying to move it, get around it, get over it, break it up or convince it to disappear. Its not logical, I know. Ultimately, neither is what we do, as artists or as businesspeeps. We’re driven by a vision we struggle to articulate and define for the rest of the world. Its a noble pursuit – even if not entirely sane.
The losers don’t actually “lose” until they stop… and no entrepreneur worth their salt will ever stop unless something else stops them. Something they simply cannot overcome – even after trying everything they know to get passed it. But, that doesn’t mean you keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results (to many, THAT is the definition of insanity.)
The secret to never stopping (and increasing your chances of success) is being AGILE. Just because you must be an unstoppable force, doesn’t mean you can’t back-up and turn, once in a while. Rethinking your direction and periodically assessing where you are in your own map to a successful outcome will help you avoid those insurmountable objects and uncrossable chasms. That is assuming you actually have created a map to your goal, in the first place. Without that, you’re already lost, regardless of how much energy your putting into the trip.
First, thanks to everyone who responded to my PartnerCon Power Lunch invitation, both here, in email and on FB. There were 30 of you total, and there’s NO WAY I could find a place that would hold us all (my original thought when I started this, was “Let’s invite everyone who responds”). Just. Overwhelmed.
Every one of you deserves a place at the table. Period.
That said, I’m back to the decision at hand… four lunch guests who should make for a REALLY interesting conversation. Here we go:
P.S. I’ll be at Adorama in NEW YORK on Thursday teaching my Selling to the Millennial Bride class, so come say HI if you are in the area.
P.P.S. Next week, I’ll be on the road all week: Monday is the East Bay (SF) SMUG with my buddy Gustavo Fernandez, followed by 2 more Selling workshops the next day. Then, off to help Kristy Dickerson present at the Atlanta SMUG there. Then, home… whew.
Last night I re-re-re-watched the movie Social Network and it reminded me of the game Werewolves, ala a personal event many months ago.
Zuckerberg’s Facebook (as portrayed in the movie) and many other fast-growing companies also reflect how they, like the game of Werewolf, reward a socially predatory system, revealing as much about the village (i.e. company culture) as about those willing to play and enable it. In Zuckerberg’s case, it was justifying the total betrayal of his oldest friend and Facebook co-founder with a “how could you let me do this to you?” defense. A Win By Lying strategy creates a Never Trust Anyone culture and this not a foundation on which you can build a collaborative team or company culture, regardless of the short term success it sometimes enjoys.
My 5 year-old’s Santa donation box is now (finally) full and, while he’s not excited to say bubbye to the items within, he’s reconciled that he must make these choices to have any chance at bigger, better stuff. He Gets It. I know this because when I took a picture of him next to that box, he was doing the Hulk muscle pose (yup, that’s him).
In my mind, the simple answer is No. (Actually NO! I discussed some of this in a recent post titled Knowing Ain’t Doing on the 
