The question Who wants what you have? is an important part of the process of helping people come up with ways to make a living doing something they love. It might be an income “bridge” for a while, a way to earn money that frees you from depending on a job. This could include renting out a space or doing contract work. But it becomes magical when applied to what you are naturally good at doing, those things you love to do. My friend Kay is a good example of this magic as she helps other people start up their businesses and realizes she is creating her own consulting business at the same time.
Kay is a creative and resourceful woman, with a worldview strongly rooted in Austin, Texas. If you don’t know much about the quirky capitol, check out this article about Austin from the e-zine Budget Travel. Barbara Winter introduced me to it through her Buon Viaggio blog.
The unofficial motto of Austin is “Keep Austin Weird.” It’s filled with a combination of Texas Hill country descendants, which mean farmers and ranchers and shopkeepers; talented musicians seeking to make their living from music; classic hippies who did things like start food co-ops and live an organic lifestyle decades ago; and young adults fully entrenched in a modern counter-culture who embrace ideas like community, grass roots, locally grown, and handcrafted, and avoid big corporations as much as possible.
Austin is an entrepreneurial hotbed. People who don’t like corporations, and wouldn’t fit in with corporate culture, tend to look for unique ways to make money. People who organize music festivals and help their friends sell their artwork and their craftwork learn about business in a very basic and organic way.
When Kay has a friend starting a business or opening a new service, she gets excited. She has a full plan in her head from the start with ways to get publicity, build buzz to ramp up interest, make it easy to get products and services in front of people in creative ways, and do it all on a shoestring budget.
It’s no surprise that her friends have learned to ask her for advice when starting or expanding a business. She helps plan grand opening and ribbon-cutting events that have a huge “WOW!” factor. She intuitively knows how to catch the interest of other small business owners who will send customers. She encourages new business owners to spend as much as they reasonably can on a launch event, but she provides a list of low-cost and no-cost ideas that stretch the marketing budget.
And she’s a wiz at getting free publicity. She knows a lot about how newspaper and television reporters think, and she can present a launch event in language that helps the reporters see the story unfold. She persuaded a television news crew to film her friend’s new business a few days after the ribbon-cutting. You can see Kay here in the video that ran on a local news channel. She’s the massage therapist talking about the medical benefits of massage for people with chronic illnesses and life-threatening diseases.
Like many people – like me, and probably like you, if you’re seriously looking at turning your natural gifts, talents, and passions into your work – Kay has a hard time explaining what she does or knowing what to call her services. To me, it’s pretty simple. She helps small business owners make sure their customers have a special and memorable experience that keeps them coming back. And she helps new owners launch their businesses with a lot of excitement, interest, and publicity on a shoestring budget.
That’s the key to finding who wants what you have: getting clear about what you have. When you have a unique set of skills, experiences, and perspectives it’s easy to focus on how what you offer is different. Instead, think about who you help and what you help them do.
Will start-up business owners want a ribbon-cutting consultant or an event coordinator? Or will they be more interested in a person who knows how to build excitement and interest, makes sure every experience the customer has with them will be a special event that keeps them coming back, and does it with creative ideas that work on a shoestring budget?
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Ideal Life Work & Self-Employment Advocate