If They Can Do It, I Can Do It

We have an abundance of stories of people who started a project through a burst of creative inspiration, striving for greatness.
These are lovely, but there’s another common origin story that deserves more of the spotlight: the inspiration of the low bar.

I had a classic example come up in a coaching interview this morning:
“So tell us how you started your business…”
“Well, I was working in a medical supply business. I saw how the owner was running the company and thought ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’”

That phrase is brilliant.
It’s loaded with optimism, disdain, surprise and grounded courage.
This isn’t that hard, they are not smarter than me, I have all the tools, I think I can make a good go of this.
Let’s look at when and why it works…

Genius vs Punters
A lot of the case studies you hear about in entrepreneurship and design are the work of geniuses – the legendary figures who are in the top 0.1% of their field.
e.g. Apple’s brand, Toyota’s production line, Nike’s ambassadors, Saul Bass’ posters, Da Vinci’s sketches, etc.

That said, most of the businesses, systems and interactions you have in your daily life were created by, for lack of a better word, punters (Australian slang for an ordinary person who at least makes an attempt).
Their logos were designed by normal designers, their websites are pretty standard, the service they deliver is unremarkable.
And most importantly, they’re doing a decent job and getting decent results.

Here’s my suggestion: aspire to genius, but start by at least being a punter.
Perfectionists tend to freeze at the starting line, because they’re obsessed with creating genius level work.
They feel that if they can’t debut with something brilliant, they don’t want to debut at all.
Starting as a punter means choosing to make an attempt, see what happens then your next series of moves.
Statistically, the majority of punters first attempts fail, but it at least sets them up for better and better attempts in the future.

Trust Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama came out with a fantastic quote:
"I have been at probably every powerful table that you can think of, I have worked at nonprofits, I have been at foundations, I have worked in corporations, served on corporate boards, I have been at G-summits, I have sat in at the U.N.: They are not that smart."
The point is not that everyone is incompetent, but rather that they are not all unattainably smart.

The more you look around, the more you’ll see that the entrepreneurs, designers and leaders you admire are human, fallible and imperfect across the board.
As they say, “Elon Musk can’t dunk”.
Everyone has their limitations, but what often matters is the decision to really push on your strengths, and being willing to be publicly imperfect.

The eBook That Inspired Me
Readers of this site know that I don’t generally criticise other people in my industry, but this is my first-hand experience and everything is true so I’m comfortable in bringing this up.
In 2017 I had a targeted ad campaign follow me around on Facebook for a few weeks.
It was promoting a “lead magnet” (something designed to attract customers to a business) in the form of an eBook, called “108 Steps To Six Figures”.

Eventually curiosity got the better of me, so I took the free download in exchange for my contact details.
In return, I got a 40 page PDF, which had 13 pages of content and 27 pages of filler.
The content, or the 108 steps, looked like this:

I felt…a lot of things.
Disappointed, silly, bemused, incredulous.
I was also the recipient of a number of phone calls from their boiler-room sales team, even after repeatedly assuring them I was not interested in signing up for their program.
But then something clicked.
If they can put this out with jaw-dropping confidence, spending ad money to get it in front of people then chasing up their readings with high pressure sales tactics…then I can write one too.

There was, as I’d always known deep down, nobody monitoring or enforcing a standard for eBooks published and distributed online.
And seeing these 108 steps, I knew I could make something better than this using the material I already had.
That disbelief drove me to create 17 draft versions of my first book in about six weeks.
Each edit made it stronger, by version 11 it was presentable, and by version 17 I was happy enough to post it to my community and this site.

There were a few pivotal differences:
·      Mine was free but required no signup
·      Mine was not 2/3rds filler

·      I don’t hound people on the phone
·      I don’t (intentionally) waste people’s time
·      I genuinely want to help people to create good businesses, with no expectation of reciprocation
·      I genuinely had fun making it, and have loved hearing the responses from groups who have used and distributed the book around the world.

This is not designed to be a brag, mine is a very basic book and already looks dated, but I saw a bar so low that I couldn’t resist trying to leap over it.
Here’s my point – let my work be the low bar for you.
If I can do this, you can too.

You Are Not Your Audience
While I hold my own mixed perspectives of my own work, it’s important for me to remember – I am not my target audience, and my opinions are less important than this big question: does it work?
If I cringe at my work, but it works for my audience, it can’t be that bad.
If I love my work, but it doesn’t work for my audience, it can’t be that good.

Whether or not it works is separate from whether or not it receives praise, in fact the majority of things that work become invisible.
Your job (and my job too) is to put in the effort to create things that work, then celebrate the decision before anyone has the chance to praise or criticise it.
You won when you published it, not when people said nice things to you.
That can be a hard mindset shift at first, but it’s a mindset shift that helps you continue to create what you need to make, without the ego-fueling or ego-crushing weight of other people’s opinions.
If it works for your target audience, that’s what counts.

Getting Started
Once you’ve had your “low bar moment”, there are a few things you can do to make the creative work easier.
This is a battle between momentum and self-doubt, so the faster you move through the steps, the more likely you are to make something that you eventually share with the world.

Here are some ways of breaking down the process:

·      Start with the skeleton, a high level overview of the main pieces of the work.
These might be chapter headings, a storyboard, a Customer Journey Map or a landing page with a promising strapline.

·      Once you have a skeleton, set aside a few blocks of time to flesh out the details, with no consideration for quality and taste.
Personally, I do this by working on my computer while watching old favourite movies.

·      Editing is a powerful process that turns unremarkable material into art.
Use that power to your advantage, by editing the work periodically throughout the process.
If you like, keep all of the “offcuts” in a separate folder for future use.

·      Outside eyes see things you don’t.
When I was ready to publish my second book Creating Compelling Value Propositions, I sent it to my pedantic, clever friend Tomer.
He found 257 typographic mistakes, in work I thought I’d already fixed.

·      Your work is worth polishing, so please don’t talk yourself out of adding some polish where it helps.
I used to get all of my university reports professionally bound at the bookstore – for $2.50 per report, I genuinely believe I added 7-12% to my mark.
Polish is what makes something feel like “a real one from the shop”.
You are probably not the best person to administer the polish, so take it to someone you trust and explain the purpose of the work.

There’s a great equation by Craig Damrauer:

You have to follow through on the impulse to create something, or else you’re just the grump in the modern art gallery.

When you find yourself in the presence of work that isn’t working, why not use it as inspiration?
Make your own thing, put in out there like a punter, then make the next thing.
As I said, feel free to use me, my work and this site as your own “low bar”, so long as you actually follow through and jump over it.