“Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?” ― Ian Wallace
Those who follow the status quo, rarely achieve an esteemed status.
It’s been a rather productive morning for me. I finally beat my bad habit of going to bed late. I was out cold by 9:30PM. As a result I woke up at 5:00AM refreshed and felt great about the day ahead. I didn’t get up immediately. I spent a few moments laying still to settle my mind. I then hopped up, checked my emails and did my normal lion roar yawn. I’m writing this at 7:12AM and while I haven’t yet said my morning affirmations, I dare say the day is off to an excellent start. After returning an email to a local female entrepreneur who is my senior in the media space about letting a few of my team members go, a thought jumped into my head: ‘Be an anomaly’. I quickly dropped it on Facebook as I normally do, to send a little morning inspiration the way of my friends and followers. But I realized it may be a bit vague and leaving it at that wouldn’t necessarily convey my thoughts properly.
Enter this Blog Post
The concept of good help being hard to find is undeniable something we all grapple with as entrepreneurs. Sometimes even when we are clear about what we expect, and give detailed instruction and a job description and equip our teams with everything they need to win, they still fail.
And more often than not, it’s not because of an inability to do their tasks well, it stems from their overall attitude towards work, and often towards themselves.
Self respect is the beginning of respect for others – KB
Work is my best friend it makethe a man respectable – RMIB
Too many members of society have adopted a ‘do it’ attitude instead of a ‘do it to the best of your ability’ mindset. Deadlines mean very little to them, and they simply put, do not give it their all. They are short term players in this long term game called life. I have one message foe anyone out there who wants to achieve above average results in their life.
Be an anomaly. Be the exception.
Google defines an anomaly as “something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected.”
I remember with great detail sitting at a restaurant saying I had to leave soon as I had a few things to complete (at the time I had 3 jobs and worked everyday of the week) where an associate of friend of mine asked “why can’t you be normal?” Without delay, I responded, “because i’m meant to be extraordinary, why would I want to be normal”. This is how I really feel.
If you do what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else gets.
As employers and people, we treasure the unexpected. It is this understanding that has grown my small Social Media Creative Agency from 0 to 5 large profile clients in under 6 months. We went from 1 employee, me, to 8 at our heights, all in 6 months.
Many of my clients do not do business with firms unless they are 2 years or older, yet, here we are. Why is this? One thing. Kaizen, the philosophy that forms our core. We believe in excellence, we try our best not to submit anything below that. And while challenges and issues will occur due to lacking communication or a lack of understanding on our part or that of our clients, I firmly believe it’s not what caused them, but how we seek to rectify them that defines our characters and that of our company.
We aim to be an anomaly in the digital media space and see our competition as VaynerMedia and Apple. To date, we have missed only one deadline for a project, and it still haunts me, one of our early web development jobs. However, many lessons were learned, which will limit a duplication. We submit all reports on time, all social media campaigns are launched on time and we aim to execute seamlessly for our clients. And of course invoices are also issued on time :). Albeit I must say, I wish some of our clients were as committed to kaizen as we were when it comes to payment (not calling any names) ;).
Keep your word. Keep your commitments. I mean it when I say I rather die than break my word. No, i’m not being over zealous, it’s my standard. I live and die by it. Therefore, I am very careful about giving my word out. I don’t throw it about callously. I turn down projects if I see it will threaten existing commitments. If you cannot be trusted with little, you will never be trusted with much. If at any point you find yourself stagnant in life, look at yourself and analyze your behaviour. Have you done right by your clients and yourself. I can’t always say I was perfect in the latter, but I aim to give us my best daily.
We get in life now what we want, but who we are – Earl Nightingale.
In short, the point of this blog post is urge you to be different. In a space where persons are more often disappointed, than they are pleased, in a world where a lack of consideration and a lack of fear of repercussions is the norm, those who rise above, will naturally be above. As Jack Ma revolutionary Chinese entrepreneur and founder of Alibaba likes to say, “we aren’t that smart.” The only thing that will set you apart is how you treat the customer and your internal customers (team members), do they get a headache when they think of you or brief a sigh of relief knowing you have it covered.
No matter your industry, we all dream of that person that you don’t have to instruct, they get it, they get you and they execute. Be that person for someone today.