A few nights ago I was reading the latest issue of Fast Company magazine, and came across something that spoke quite loudly to me. I’m one of those types who will read an entire book or magazine and will only take away one sentence from them. As I read through Fast Company, I really try to find inspiration from the stories that are written – which are primarily about young people who’ve built successful companies around the world.
In fact, my addiction started when I read this article about Gina Bianchini and Ning’s viral expansion loops. For some reason things made so much sense after reading it, although the difficulty is always in application of knowledge.
Anyway, there’s an article in the March 2009 issue called The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, and #9 on that list is Amazon. CEO Jeff Bezos was asked, “Is it harder to take risks now that Amazon is so big?”
Here’s how he responded:
It’s actually easier. You’re not betting the whole company. You’re doing new things, and if they don’t work, you can change direction. What’s difficult is not to evolve.
Doesn’t that make you quickly take a look into your own business? I know for a fact that many times I resisted the idea of evolving, even dating back two years ago when I didn’t want to spend the time to make my themes widget-ready.
Yes, it sometimes requires us to slow down for a period of time, but I believe that one of the major causes for evolving is the demand we receive from our clients or customers. The reality is that our competitors might be doing something better, or more efficient, and our customers want us to basically step up to the plate and provide.
This will happen in all businesses and areas in our life, so I wanted to open up some conversation about our experiences with this concept, and how we responded.
well, speaking as someone who stumbled into photography which weirdly enough segued into what I’m doing now…I agree. If we aren’t changing we aren’t growing.
I wish my business could succeed like the business in the magazines
Oh yes… Change? I love change in some areas and resist it all together in others. But as far as work is concerned, NOT changing/evolving is always a challenge for me. I’m an Idea guy and a dreamer! I’m always looking to the next great thing, idea, project, head in the clouds… etc. Chasing the possibilities! But fortunately I have a few key people to bounce ideas off of and keep me grounded, focused, on task. The person on top of that list is my wife. (But! doesn’t mean I always listen though)
With all that being said, I think most businesses have to be willing able to change/evolve or someone else will come along and do it better. (MySpace/Facebook)
In the seven years I have been on my own, My company has changed name and re-branded once. We are in the process on doing that again. Both times I have been able to define two things I think are VERY important in having your own company; 1) Enjoy what you do. 2) Do what you are good at.
Plus, with the current economy, it’s a great opportunity to change or refine your services and go after new business/industries that may not be affected as others by the economy.
Steve
As Woody Allen said ” If your not moving forward, you’re dead.”
Good words. If you stop or if you are tired of something, then you lose. If you think (in any situation in business) some job is not possible to evolve, some script, some CSS, some whatever, you think wrong. Anything IS possible. There are no limits only excuses.
Brian, great article! I passed this on to several people here. I work for a stodgy old manufacturing company who is getting pinched in this economy. They’ve got the assembly line factory…don’t change anything, just try and make it more efficient. I just met with some people yesterday who want to setup an intranet for our location and I just know corporate would try to squash it, but I’m moving forward with that quote in hand to try and setup our own php server running wordpress. Doesn’t seem like much, but in this large company the managers just don’t get it. Anything not corporate approved is squashed or has to go through a months long approval process. And then they wonder why profits fell off a cliff.
I find it very ironic that you read Fast Company for the same reason I read Inc. magazine. I find that reading such magazines stimulate the creative juices that are within me. Articles like those really get you going as long as you but some ACTION behind the idea.
I agree 100% as we have evolved our online marketing by using more videos and by finding your themes along with more content our web traffic has Quadrupled since meeting you. Real Estate sales are down but we have picked up with our online presence using your themes.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Brian. I like the choice of word “evolve” instead of growth or progress. I believe it’s important to know the difference. As you mention, we do need to sit back at times to evolve.
Evolving includes movement in all directions I think. sitting back, reflecting, running, and more.
After all, it takes some silence to make sound. It takes a night to make dawn…
My efforts are constantly evolving and often in unexpected ways. If you are hesitant about change, one of the most important evolutions you can make is to accept and embrace change when and as appropriate.
Brian, I know that you post your rates right on your Services page where anyone can see them and I think that is a great example of a professional change I have experienced. I have never been fond of talking about money—to this day, it often seems rather vulgar to me—but I realized that when I am talking with potential employers or clients, it is something that is often best faced head on. I have never wanted to charge too little nor too much for my services. If I charge too little, I may earn less than my services are worth, but if I charge too much, I may lose potential business. And whatever I might charge, it just won’t do to be wishy-washy about it when the topic comes up, as it naturally does when talking with potential employers and clients.
I realized something about charging too little, though: I may also give potential employers and clients the impression that my work is of lesser quality than it really is or that my capabilities are fewer than they actually are. I certainly don’t want that. I also realized something about charging too much: if I lose potential clients who are cheap, but I still land and retain enough clients who are willing to pay what seem like appropriate rates for high-quality work, I won’t have lost anything I’ll miss. And what’s the worst that could happen? I could find myself unable to find enough work at my higher rates then simply test the market at a different level. It was clear what I had to do—I had to decide on a specific rate at which to start negotiations for my services and that rate should be significantly higher than many people wanted to pay for them—so I chose a rate that was more indicative of the caliber of my capabilities, but still low enough to be competitive. And you know what? I haven’t regretted it for a second. The closest I’ve had to negative feedback about my rates is that they seem low for my abilities. LOW. Ha ha.
Another example of my own professional evolution came after I realized that I should do a better job of marketing my services. I thought about how I wanted to differentiate myself from countless other potential workers offering their services through sites like Craigslist. Thousands of software developers list résumés and lists of their accomplishments, but at a high level, they are practically indistinguishable. I thought about what makes me different and I realized that I could state in a single sentence what drives my development aspirations beyond all of the keywords and it was a very simple statement indeed: “I make cool shit.” That’s it; not that I am the best PHP or MySQL or ActionScript developer in the world or that I am familiar with a stupidly long list of applications or the other usual blah blah blah. The essence of what drives me, both in terms of functionality and in terms of quality (down to the details of error-handling), is that I love to make software that people love to use and clients love to deploy. With that in mind, the new domain name I would was use to market my services was obvious: imakecoolshit.com.
Of course, some people were skeptical. Fellow developers warned me that it was unprofessional and that I would lose potential business. The reverse, however, turned out to be true. Multiple recruiters have told me that they love the domain, a new client told me that he specifically liked my non-nonsense direct approach and chose me over other developers because of it, and the domain hasn’t even scared off potential full-time employers, who seem more concerned about whether I would have enough time to juggle full-time work and freelance work than what my domain name happens to be.
Once again, my decision to pursue a risky professional evolution has paid off, and the only significant negative result is that I have too much work to spend much time working on my portfolio site. Really, though, I think it’s not such a bad problem to have.
Fortune favors the bold, right?
Brian , thank you for providing feedback on a great article. Also , is there a way to contact you? I am not needing to contact you about design work but more to ask for some feedback about the Revolution City Theme I purchased last year and a few more related questions. I appreciate any information that you can provide.
Thank you ,
Jason
There’s a funny thing about change, in that it always seems more daunting when it’s out of your control. When we make our own changes, that’s evolution. Giraffes had to grow long necks to reach the taller trees and find a stable food source, simply to survive. It’s times like this that we need to stick our necks out, looking for that new opportunity that might be out of our comfort zone.
For me, the fear holds a certain comfort of its own, a warmth that is undeniable and lucid. I don’t aways know everything is going to be ok, but that’s the fun of it.
Best wishes to everyone sticking their necks out.
100% agreed.
You definitely have to evolve. I have a background in software and if your technology is not evolving you will be left behind. I apply that to other areas of business as well. I take the approach of trying new ideas knowing not all, and probably not most, will work out. But you won’t know until you try and the few ideas that do work will make you a better person, business, etc.
As someone just starting out in internet marketing, the learning curve is steep.
Even in just the few months I’ve been doing this the changes I see have been fast paced. The lesson here for me is to continue learning, evolving, and to ask for help when I need it.
Thanks for an insightful article and ensuing conversation.
Kind regards,
Theresa
I work for the poor people of the society. Some time they became tired with their work. I passed this message to several people here that” You’re doing new things, and if you don’t work, you can change direction”. Thanks Brian.
You can’t grow if you don’t change. Its people who can’t change or listen to new ideas that get left behind, so stay ahead of the game, and make some changes.
I work for a company of around 40 people. When i first started there were 5 of us, when we started to develop the standards for web design and SEO it was easy to update the designers and documents. Now with 40 people a roll out for changed standards can take days.
I can only image that as we continue to expand it will become increasingly difficult, BUT we must evolve however difficult it may seem. In the world of SEO and Web Design there is no excuse for not moving with the times and pushing development standards.
Nice observation.
Fast Company is kind of like the Maxim of the business world. Fun edgy, little less skin but a good source of info for young professionals.
Never heard of “Fast Company” .. excellent read though.
First of all thanks for the wonderful article. I would like to share my knowledge with you regarding working style. Many times in life every person has come accross a situation where is business going down, because they are using same techniques in their work or don’t change any working style. So, my request is to everyone who runs a business try to do something different to the current working style though your business going well in present situation but you have to think of future so do some changes in your working style quaterly or half yearly.
I have a conflict between wanting to chase every new idea that pops into my head and picking one (or two) things and sticking with it long enough to see it be successful.
My business started when I taught myself to code my coaching website (with help from a Template Monster template) – from there I made a few sites from scratch for friends and then floundered for a while, trying to find my niche. Then I came across the Revolution Templates at the beginning of last year & the concept of Wordpress as CMS & I’ve slowly been refining the offering to the point where I actually launched my own site based on a Studiopress template earlier this year & now am not afraid to say that I customise Studiopress templates.
Having said that – each client I have forces me to refine my procedures, refine & narrow my offerings & get clearer on what it is I’m doing for others – it’s a continual learning process & it’s ok for it to be continual. If I stopped evolving now, what’s the point of being here?
Interesting to ponder.
Helena
You definitely have to evolve. 100% Agreed.