All of you children of the 70’s sing with me now:

“Who are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood!”

I’ve spent the last two weeks with my head down, nose to the grindstone, trying to get a house not only on the market but also ready for an open house!  Between packing, cleaning and syncing schedules with a painter, my whole world has been consumed with this one goal.  My neighborhood, let alone the rest of the world, could have washed away and I never would have noticed – I was that focused!  Unfortunately, those of us who run small business can often fall into this same mind set.

As a small business owner we have goals and benchmarks at the forefront of our minds.  We have a path to follow and a determination to get there.  We put our heads down and get to work.  And therein lies the problem – we put our heads down.  We are so focused on our goals that the rest of the world ceases to exist.  We miss out on numerous ideas, opportunities and collaborations!

I finally came up for air this past weekend and started looking around.  Now if I was Elmo, I’d have seen that my neighborhood has a grocer, postman, doctor, teacher and librarian.  The beauty and simplicity of Elmo is that he is three and learning.  He hasn’t reached an age where he’s so busy he tries to shut the world out.  He learns, creates and interacts with each of these neighbors. He is an active, social member of his neighborhood.

My neighborhood isn’t the same as Elmo’s, it’s a little more complex.  It’s multi-feathered so to speak.  It consists of artists, etsy, photographers, marketers, online forums and quality service providers.  Through being an aware and active member of my neighborhood I’ve seen creative works that sparked marketing ideas for my business, collaborated with others to create content and learned new processes that I plan to integrate into my own systems of operation.  I don’t necessarily have to actively interact with all my neighbors.  Just by being aware of them and their work sparks new creative ideas as well as spotting consumer trends.  It also teaches me the best way to approach each individual neighbor when I see someplace I can help.  Not everyone likes to be approached the same way.  Some are write out the proposal formal, while others are lets grab coffee social – it depends on the neighbor.

While it’s true the saying “Birds of a feather flock together.”  You’ll notice I said my neighborhood was multi-feathered.  Pay attention – this is important!  When we refuse to let new and different people into our neighborhood our information and learning get stale.  We can no longer grow and progress past where we currently are.  We’ve all seen businesses or people like this.  They’ve been so busy diligently working with their heads down, that when they do finally look up, they have no idea what road they are on let alone neighborhood!  Their whole world washed away when they weren’t looking.  Pick your head up and take a look around.  Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Words are powerful.  They send messages, convey emotions and bring people to action.  In my post about Lululemon and their remarkable social media efforts I touched on the core words that clearly define who they are.

A quick visit to their website and you will find the words – goals, outgoing, upbeat, energetic and fun – permeate the site.  Here’s the really cool thing – had I only ever gone to their Facebook fan page, blog or Twitter feed I still would have received that message.

I want to revisit that thought.  Think of one of your favorite brands.  What words come to mind?  Do these words come from the root of who they are?  To more clearly demonstrate what I mean, I took three brands (Apple, Harley Davidson and Richard Branson’s Virgin) and matched them up to their core words – many of them taken directly off of their own websites.  Here’s what I found:

Apple – creative, fun, user friendly, cool, revolutionary

Harley Davidson – rebel, American, tough, distinct, power, bold

Richard Branson’s Virgin – rule breaker, innovative, quality, fun

Now step back and think about it.  These companies use the words that define them to clearly send out their message.  They stay true to their definitions and use them as a guide to help them see what paths to take.  The definitions of themselves are their core and everything else radiates from that point.  Those words are the foundation for everything that follows.  Defining yourself is a fabulous thing!  It helps you narrow down the choices when making decisions.  The choice is either part of who you are or it isn’t.

Now take a look at your own business.  What words define you?  Are you being true to that definition?  Do you keep that definition in the forefront of your mind when you make new business decisions?  I think you’ll find that if you have a clear definition and stay true to that definition, the decisions that follow will be much easier to make.  Now go grab pen and paper and start defining!

There is an old saying in business – “You can’t sell it if you don’t show it.”  Let’s look at this in relation to the photography business.  A majority of photographers will find that their clients gravitate to the 8×10 and smaller print sizes.  It’s what they grew up with – in their head they carry a picture of what that looks like.  Now say you really, really want to sell 20×24 and larger wall prints.  They are featured in your pricing brochure yet no one seems to buy.  To make those sales happen somewhere in your studio you have to display that size print in a way that your client can envision it in their home.

A few weeks ago this was brought back home to me when I was reading a post called Show, Don’t Tell on Jonathan Fields’ blog – Awake at the Wheel.  He was commenting on how the ipad that is being released by Apple won’t have flash.  I had registered that the new ipad wouldn’t have flash but I hadn’t really pictured what that would mean.  In his post Jonathan posted an image from The Flash Blog that showed me quite clearly what that meant.  Before it was words and talk that I heard but didn’t connect.  With this one visual I finally got it.

Where does Mabel’s Labels fit in all this?  Not long after I read Jonathan’s post the crew at Mabel’s Labels posted this fun video.  One of the benefits they tout is that their – “labels are designed to stick – no matter what!”  To prove this they started creating fun videos challenging that statement.  They attach their labels to something and run it through its paces.  One such challenge is to run the labels over with a car, another to drop them off a roof, but my favorite by far is when they attach them to a hockey puck and have kids use the puck in practice.  Love it!!  The Mabel’s Label crew completely understands the show it to sell it theory and put it into action in a fun creative way.

*Disclaimer – I know I’ve mentioned Mabel’s Labels in the past.  However I have no connection to them.  Well.. my sister does buy them for her kids, which is how I found out about them in the first place.  Or maybe it’s just that I have a thing for Canadian companies.  Looking at my twitter followers – I’m HUGE in Canada.  Possibly it’s all my connections to North Sydney, Nova Scotia… Nahh really don’t think so. *