Open up your mind and say, ahh...

I took my first ever yoga class the other day, thanks in part to having a yoga instructor girlfriend. It was at a really nice studio in northern Massachusetts called Roots to Wings. My instructor, Beth, was very aware that I was new. She was very aware that this was my first ever yoga class, and that how I received every bit of this class would likely shape my perception of yoga. Think about that, the burden on that instructor’s shoulders. Beth is watching me try to figure out her instructions worrying (at least a bit) that if I don’t get it, if I don’t enjoy the class, and thinking that she’s got to deliver a great experience to me so that I’ll consider going forward with the practice she holds so dear.

How often do we think about our own business that way? How often do we build experiences such that we’re welcoming of new people? Do we work enough on that? Do we help people get connected and involved? Do we make them feel like we realize it’s their first time and we’re here to guide them?

Dave asked me to talk about bartering. It’s an interesting concept in the digital age, especially when unemployment and underemployment are the rage. Bartering, the idea of sharing services for services or goods, is hundreds (thousands?) of years old, and yet, it’s every bit as useful today as it was in the past.

In a way, barter is what FLEMINGSTEELE did for me by creating the video for Human Business Works. In this case, they bartered their skill for my platform, such that the attention I bring them might likely turn into more business for them. No money exchanged hands but plenty of value came through. Sounds like barter to me.

How to Look at Barter for YOUR Business

What if you’re a really great content blogger and copywriter but you’re not so great at graphical design? What’s to stop you from offering your writing services to a designer in exchange for some touch-up work on your site design? The trick is to make sure that it’s equal. If you’re a great bookkeeper and financial person and your services are worth $2000, make sure that you’re not trying to parlay that against something worth $10,000, unless you’re ready to offer five months of that work to balance it out.

Another way to look at barter is in the

What Dave Did

Here’s what Dave Thackeray did with barter. His example is a good one, as it’s simple and to the point. But it also makes me think forward.

Barter or Strategic Partnership

I’m getting close to announcing a strategic partnership with a company shortly. What’s the difference between that and barter? Well, because I bring money to that company. I pay money to that company. And they are building things that will grow my company. A strategic partnership is what barter becomes when it grows up and formalizes. (Yes, there are some technical nitpickers who can disagree with me and be right, but it’s in the same neighborhood, agree?)

Look beyond your actual dollar value when thinking of how to grow your business. Look about ways that you can partner and/or barter with others to grow your capabilities. Look at how many ways you can develop more business, if only you complemented what you were doing with _____.

That’s where the gold is.

What do you think? Any examples?

Sales people use CRM solutions (client relations management) to keep track of leads, to work on prospects, and to service customers. There are all kinds of software products that allow you to manage your sales process. However, another way you can use this technology is to make sure that you’re treating your relationships well, or at least that you’re checking in on some kind of reasonable frequency.

We all intend to stay in touch with people, but are we doing it? I know I’m not. So, one of my efforts in 2011 is to make sure that I connect a little more often with people outside of the social media channel. There are a few ways to do it.

Google Spreadsheet – Free/Easy

You can use Google Docs and just write down the list of folks you hope to connect with over the year, and then just keep jotting down in the columns when you do, what you talked about, etc.

But I’m lazy and that idea would take a lot of work and a lot of remembering.

BatchBook – Inexpensive – Easier

I use BatchBook, a CRM solution web app that’s inexpensive and that’s pretty simple to populate. One thing it has is the ability to sort by one or several kinds of “tags,” so that when I want to remember to ping Whitney Hoffman, it will say, “media, law, insidecircle, philly, podcamp, podcaster, blogger,” and a few other tags. When I plan to connect with people in Philadelphia, Whitney’s name will come right up.

See how nifty that can be?

No Matter How You Do It – Do It

Relationships are the lifeblood of a human business. If you’re not looking for ways to keep up connections with people you think matter, then they will deteriorate and fall away. Not only will you lose a few friends just due to the crush of it all, but you’ll lose some potential business relationships this way, as well. Keeping connections alive is a great deal of why we’re doing all this.

I have plenty of room for improvement. I’m going to do my best in 2011. How are you handling your own personal relationship management?

I was onstage recently with Brian Clark and we were talking about how we manage time. He had a really great point about how he manages the many ideas and offers that come his way. This morning, I was on Bernie Borges‘s podcast, and he asked me how I did everything that I do. This afternoon, I had lunch with Peter Shankman, and we had a variation on the conversation about how we get everything we’re doing done. To me, it comes down to knowing how to grow.

Different Types of Growth

First, there are different ways to think about growth. Am I growing my business, or growing my customer base? Am I growing my potential product set, or am I growing my existing product’s capabilities? Am I growing revenue or am I growing capacity? It’s going to be up to you to decide which growth you mean, because if you just look at what I’ve written above this line, you already see that it’s a whole different set of plans depending on which strategy you’re taking.

Ecosystems, Owners, Kings

Every year, on January 1, I talk about my 3 words that I choose to follow for the year. This year, my words were “ecosystems, owners, and kings.” The idea is this: ecosystems means to pay attention to building things that have a whole lot of space to grow; owners means give every project an owner, or I’ll be stuck doing it all; kings means spend more time with kings and practice being kingly myself.

I didn’t know it on January 1st, but I’d actually come up with the process by which I’d learn to grow. Human Business Works is an ecosystem play. Rob Hatch is my COO, and he’s the first of my owners. Estrella Rosenberg is my owner for 501 Mission Place. Estrella and others mingle with the kings and queens of their spaces, just as I seek to spend my time with the kings of mine.

That, in a really abstract way, is how I’ve learned to grow. Some more obvious and salient points will follow.

Brian Clark’s Advice

Onstage, Brian said that he evaluates the opportunities he receives by asking whether or not they’ll best serve his current community. If the answer is no, he doesn’t invest time in it. By doing this, Brian shrinks the vast ocean of possibilities, and keeps his focus on growing out Copyblogger Media. It’s sound advice, and when I look at some of the new projects I’m considering, they neither help New Marketing Labs nor Human Business Works, and so I now know I shouldn’t take them on.

Ask yourself: is this project part of the ecosystem I’m creating?

Peter Shankman’s Question

Peter asked me how I got so much writing done. I said that I did it in big clumps, and then scheduled it out. I do this with lots of my projects. It’s a way to grow by using time when you get it, versus trying to keep things all level and even. In life, we often find ourselves with surpluses and droughts of time. Use your time when you find it. Try not to put things off.

Similarly, stop when you should. Peter is training for an Ironman that he’ll run in a few weeks. He’s going to bed at 7 and getting up at 4:30 to get in his miles and laps and whatever. There will always be more work waiting for you. Go to bed when you can. Don’t put off things just because you’re worried that it’s not finished. Cramming is a self-replicating experience. If you do it once, you’ll do it all the time. Break that habit by making your hours the ruler of the roost.

Hire (or Partner) with Owners

Right now, things run for me because I’ve built them to run with owners in place. Colin and Dave and Tony and Justin and the team at New Marketing Labs and The Pulse Network all appreciate my ideas and guidance, but they RUN the place. I’ve done my best to make them owners.

At Human Business Works, Rob and Liz and John and Josh and Merlene all know what they own. The more I can give people ownership, the more that I can grow. It’s been the best possible thing I’ve learned out of this year.

As for Kings

I’m going to write about kings on your second favorite blog. I’ve got some real concrete thoughts about it that I’ll share there. Suffice to say that this has helped my growth over 2010 immensely as well.

There’s More

I’m learning how to pay for services that help me focus on the details. My development team is 9seeds. There are things I pay them to do that I could do, if I wanted to sit around and build websites, but John and Todd and Shayne and team are much faster and better at it than me. I pay someone to wash and fold my family’s laundry. Given how precious my family time is, I’ve decided that it’s worth the extra money to have someone else play with my socks while I throw my boy up into the air. As you learn how to grow, you learn which things don’t belong in your hands any more.

Beyond that, let’s make it a conversation in the comments. Any questions about growth?

Also, we’ll cover this more in my free newsletter, so if you’re not subscribed, grab it. Good?

I haven’t read a tech blog in months. Know what I have missed out on in that time? Nothing. Partly, it’s because you tell me what I need to know. Partly, it’s because I don’t need a whole lot of “new” to do what I need to do: help buyers make decisions.

We get lost in things all the time. We get a new passion and we decide that we have to update our equipment. I decided that I needed to update my video camera recently. What happened? It’s a little bit fancy, and now I have to learn how to convert the data that comes out of it because it’s not just a simple MOV file. What’s this mean? That I’ve just added a layer of complexity to something that was really simple to do with my Lumix camera.

I got lost in my business yesterday when Rob Hatch and I stared at all the complexities I’d built into my vision of Human Business Works. Instead of just building something simple, with a one-at-a-time mindset, I did what I always do: I got lost in making many things at one time.

Getting Lost Isn’t Helpful

There are goals you have, targets that you seek to accomplish, things you need to do to be successful. It is so easy to get lost, and to think that you’re still doing something useful. Maybe it is useful, but is it the right useful?

I asked a group the other day whether their newsletter was just warmed up leftovers. The truth, near as I could gather, was that it was. They were all just kind of phoning it in. Only, no one had really called anyone on it yet. Think about it: hours a month spent making a newsletter that no one cared about, their list didn’t open, and that served very little in the way of a business value.

Find Yourself

Don’t wait to be found. Find yourself. Ask yourself what the top 3 priorities are: for the day, for your role, for your business, for your home life. Look at these lists of three. Do they make sense? Is that what you’re spending your days doing? If not, you’re still lost.

Find yourself.

I’ve written a lot in the last few posts about business. That was the goal: to help people better understand some of these tools and their impact on doing business. However, I should be really clear that business isn’t all work.

Business, especially human business, can be relationship-minded, can be sustainable, and can even be fun. Sure, transactions have to happen and value has to change hands, but a lot of doing business is about making relationships.

Now, translate the word “business” to mean something a little more broad-minded, and you can see how all these ideas would relate to your nonprofit, to your church, to your homeschooling project.

If you’re lucky, and I am, a good deal of business can be made in the trade of handshakes, smiles, and future encouragement. Mix that with an eye for understanding where value can transfer to the benefit of more than one, and you’re on to something. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that business is all about work.

What’s the fun in that?