THE 7 BAD HABITS OF STRUGGLING ENTREPRENEURS
Published May 4, 2014
With apologies to Stephen Covey’s brilliant “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” there are some things that some of us struggling entrepreneurs do that are counterproductive to our success and effectiveness.
As a voice talent, these are critical to my business. Unfortunately, I speak from personal experience. I hope you’ll take these seven bad habits as non-judgmental observations, in no particular order of priority, that I’ve learned from my own missteps. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on any of these. I’ll leave the application to you.
1. Not Seeing Themselves As Their Clients See Them
“You have the voice we’re looking for,” said the man at the other end of the phone line.
Well, naturally I took that quite personally. So with a bit of fake humbleness I told him how pleased I was that he was willing to entrust his voiceover project to little ol’ me.
“Well, we’ll see,” he answered. “The voice is right, but we’ll see if the delivery is what we’re looking for.”
I missed what that client was saying up front.
See, the right voice is like choosing the right oil color for a painting. Ok, fine. You’ve got the right color, but it’s more about what you do with that color that counts.
Yes, it’s important to see yourself for what you really are, but that needs to be tempered by really understanding how your clients view you.
2. Not Knowing The Difference Between Good, Better, and Great
This is a common failure among voice talents.
Good is based on the market standard. One isn’t even competitive until one is good. Better is stepping beyond good to get noticed. But great is what the client chooses.
I see this all the time in the marketing materials of a number of entrepreneurs: “I can do….” Frankly, that tells me that you aren’t the person I’m trying to hire for that particular matter. I don’t want to hire someone that “can do” something. I want to hire someone who excels, who is a specialist, who owns the element that I’m looking for.
3. Emotional Decision Making
Interpreting, creating and developing a project based on emotional interpretation is deadly. Why? Because everyone’s emotions are different.
Voice talents who interpret copy by emotion rather than by understanding are completely missing the intent and point of the copy.
Emotion is a reaction. You can’t create that in the listener or viewer. All you can do is give them the story and let them assimilate it and apply it to their life.
But if you understand what the copy is saying, and you focus on that, instead of trying to manipulate the listener’s emotions, you’ll be ahead of what I would guess is 98% of the other voice talents.
By the way, this little realization revolutionized my content delivery for my clients AND my audition process.
4. Selling Rather Than Connecting
This is very similar to the previous point.
Know the target audience’s needs. The product will sell itself to people who need it.
People respond to what their perceived needs are. If I don’t think I need a new pair of shoes, all the shoe commercials in the world won’t make a difference. On the other hand, if I believe I need a new pair of shoes, coming across as trying to push something onto me that I already am willing to consider will just cause me to build resistance.
Connect. Don’t sell.
5. Wrong Clients
I can’t fully explain how critical this issue is.
Wrong clients will suck you dry. They will soak up your energy and steal your time. I don’t know about you, but in the voiceover business time is a critical element of what we have to sell.
As hard and harsh as it may seem, you have to unload wrong clients. I’m talking about clients that steal your success by being high maintenance, hard to collect, abusive, and demand unfairly low rates.
Let them go.
I learned a long time ago that a client that consistently underbids a project, and therefore asks me to low-ball my rate, or consistently comes back with changes that they don’t want to pay for, or are insulting and think they have the right to talk down to me, or take an excessively long time to collect is the wrong client for me.
6. Wide Thinking
This is another way of saying “trying to do too much.”
A few years ago I needed a finish carpenter to redo some shelving and woodwork around my fireplace. I talked to a number of carpenters who told me that they could certainly do the job. But when I talked to this one guy, I learned that shelving and interior trim was his specialty, and in fact, all he did.
Yes. He’s the guy I hired.
You can’t do everything. I mean, you may be good, but you’re not that good. And even if you were, a client is going to be looking for someone who is a specialist in the area they are trying to fulfill.
You don’t start out as the best of everything. And you never get there. Find and develop your niche. Become the authority in your niche!
7. Finding Time Instead Of Making Time
This is a personal issue.
As entrepreneurs we are driven to succeed. We’ll do whatever it takes to win. The problem with that mentality is that sometimes it causes us to lose sight of the real priorities in our life.
If you take the approach of “finding time” for your loved ones, yourself or the other important things in your life, you will be giving them “left over time.” Believe me, they are worth more than that. Way more than that!
Real quality and balance in this area happen when you make time for yourself, those people and other important things. They are worth more than your leftovers.
Sometimes, because we are so driven, we forget to breathe.
Ever go on a trip and suddenly realize that your gas gauge says you are driving on fumes? What happens? Driving on empty increases stress…distracts you…makes you a worse driver.
Same thing is true in your business.
So, there you have it: Seven bad habits many of us entrepreneurs develop as we try to make it in the business world. Break these habits, replace them with good habits, and you’ll see your success soar!