What a great question. The real answer was no not yet, but I took that challenge to say eventually Yes I Can.
I share this ancient story only to bring up what has kept us in business all these years, the attitude of saying yes we can, or we will learn. The next step was free training provided on the “world wide web” from Maricopa County, and then guess what? A guitar legend Steve Khan whom I’d followed since college asked me: “can you make me a website?” Um, yes. Yes, I can.
If you know any programmers, you might know that they famously say they CAN do something before they actually can, and then they scramble to learn it.
Times have changed, and programmers and Web developers need to prove themselves via GitHub and portfolios, but that attitude is still important. A kind of Captain Kirk mentality that’s fearless, and willing to go where no man has gone before. Or in the 21st century many people have gone before, but you know enough to use Bootstrap for greater efficiency, or use templates that are pre-made and you just tweak them.
Don’t get me wrong. If you’re not qualified be honest, and recommend someone who actually can do the job. But when it comes to public speaking, or doing podcasts, or making videos, what are you going to do if that’s what’s required? Most people who start a podcast didn’t start off as experts, but they have the Yes I Can spirit, and voila! I present to you Episode 1 of Yes I Can, the podcast.
For example I have a growing client that was using my Rackspace hosted email solution for their 70 employees, and one day they announced they were buying another company, essentially merging, and by the way, they already use Microsoft O365 over there so we’re gonna need to drop your hosted email and jump on theirs. If you run a small agency or internet firm you probably know that this sort of sudden change happens all of the time! And it makes the heart flutter. What to do? Can you provide O365 so that they don’t have to migrate everyone off of your system and off to the competition?
I swallowed and said “Yes I Can.” Not that I personally can, but I believe in working with strong partners, and my host had recently announced their expertise in O365, and did I want to be a reseller? So I saved the account and we created a tenant and migrated all of those email boxes onto a Microsoft server, and who’s the sole admin? I am. But my strong partner Rackspace was able to do the migration.
What I prefer to say nowadays is “Yes I can help.” That is the mentality of a consultant, a person who knows how to advise their client, but not one who is going to roll up their sleeves and do it all themselves. You’re still saying yes, and you’re helping others, but with a smarter approach.
To be a voice of authority though, one has to keep reading and researching. It’s a never-ending saga, and to keep up requires passion.
For example I discovered something new today while trying to learn how to get more leads. I recently acquired Leadworx through Appsumo and realized after not checking with it for awhile that it tells you what company was visiting your website, what page they visited, when and for how long. Google Analytics doesn’t go that far. And I was also wanting to bump up my LinkedIn skills and thought: why not connect via LinkedIn with the companies that I see have been visiting my website? It’s a place to start. Or just cold call the company, since in some cases Leadworx will tell you some names of people in that business.
And by the way if you’re not on Appsumo use my link – it’s only worth $10 to me, but is my favorite place to shop for tools for the internet entrepreneur.
But something is finally coming into focus for me in this IM business, which I think is obvious to everyone else: Can you make a living doing this? That is the ultimate question, and the one where you’d better learn how to say Yes I Can as soon as possible. As an agency, we work with businesses, and we love it when they grow and find greater success. That’s super satisfying. But as an agency, although the client is very important, your agency is in many cases less strong of a business than the client you’re helping. Your agency needs to turn a profit just like your client wants to.
The important part to keep in mind is to provide the Yes I Can service, but doing things that are worth money to the client and will, in turn, make a profit for your agency. I recently learned of an agency that used to be the kind offering a wide menu of digital marketing services, and later found one service in particular (Reputation Marketing) that was making sense for them, and profitably so. And now that’s mainly all they do! Finding a focused area, doing it better than everyone else, and making it work for all involved.
But I propose that their agency wouldn’t have found their sweet spot if they hadn’t first been willing to try it all and say Yes We Can. They didn’t stop looking for the next best Unique Selling Proposition (USP). It came at the end of a long road of trying out various skills, and not at the beginning of the road.
So what if someone comes to me wanting the best in Reputation Marketing? I can either do it myself, or use a tool, or possibly buy an account with the agency I just spoke of and sell for a medium profit. At least I know the client will be taken care of, and so will my own agency.
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