Life Without Television

You can always beat the big guy. If you’re starting out in a business, there are always some people, some companies that are big names, and it looks like they’ve got all the bases covered. But you have two big advantages.

First of all, when you’re small, you’re agile. You can change quicker than the big company. When an organisation grows it has a lot invested in its existence, and risks start to look less enticing. So it starts to play safe, it relies on what has worked in the past, it gets choked up in its own bureaucracy.

Secondly, you’ve got creativity. There will always be the new. Creativity is about difference, newness or even just rearranging. Maybe Google dominates search, but what if search changes? Auction sites might find it hard to supplant eBay, but how about changing the nature of online auctions?

I’m not giving you solutions, because the answers are far from easy. But a solution is always possible.

Let your customers go quickly and painlessly.

When someone decides that they no longer want your services, it’s usually too late to do anything about it. What you can do, is act professionally and make the process of switching suppliers uncomplicated and swift.

A bureaucratic, unhelpful attitude does not reverse a bad opinion, it confirms it.

It’s also worth remembering that when customers leave, it can be because of budget, location and just not being a great fit with you or your company. If you make their final experience a negative one, they’re much less likely to recommend you to someone who could be your customer.

I was reading through the archives of Veerle’s excellent design blog, when I came across a post about her sending out her CV as a kind of package. The funny thing is that most advice about job-hunting steers you away from being this imaginative.

When you’re writing your CV, it’s easy to get bogged down in details. What is going to make the most impact? Which font, how much line-spacing, what order to put everything in?

The best CVs are not CVs at all. They’re one of a kind and they break the rules. Sometimes they aren’t even about work or experience or qualifications. Sometimes they’re packages or blogs or gifts or paintings.

There’s the guy who sent a ransom note to Disney with a piece of Mickey Mouse’s ear. (Is this apocryphal? I can’t find a link.)

People who do the same as everybody else are great for companies who want a horde of drones. But you don’t really want to work for that kind of company do you? The best way to stand apart, is to do what no one else has done. Don’t be afraid to stand out. Why do you think the word is outstanding?

If you’re worried about what your CV will look like to the person that’s hiring you, ask yourself how you would react, put yourself in the mind of the recruiter. The truth is that the best people to work for are human and humans love things that are extraordinary. There’s very little extraordinary.