A Business You Would Love

For the past several evenings, I’ve been curling up with Richard Branson’s latest book, Like a Virgin. This collection of blog posts and interviews is subtitled Secrets They Won’t Teach You at Business School.

As you might guess, it’s full of stories, philosophies and insights that are often surprising and provocative.

I’ve been fascinated by this renegade entrepreneur for years who’s always done things with a unique flair. For instance, what other enterprise made up of 400 companies has no gigantic world headquarters?

In many ways, Virign’s success has come about by thinking big, but acting small. This morning, I posted a quote from Branson on Facebook and it got a bunch of Likes from my friends.

He said, “I have spent my career staying away from offices and have only ever worked from three places: houseboat, home and hammock.” I find that endearing.

Happily for us, Branson has always been willing to share his experiences and insights. He’s not alone, of course.

There are all sorts of wise entrepreneurial elders who generously share what they’ve learned. Doesn’t it makes sense to become a voluntary student of those who’ve made the journey ahead of us?

Another favorite of mine is Mel Ziegler who says, “I would not think of starting a business unless I was its first customer.”

Ziegler knows a thing or two about being the first customer. He started out as a journalist, but grew increasingly frustrated by his inability to have creative control over his life.

He and his wife Patricia  started their first business because Mel loved to wear bush jackets and khakis, but he couldn’t easily find any. “The closest you could get to something authentic was in the surplus world, particularly British Army Surplus in those days,” says Ziegler. “It was magnificent. We saw the surplus and were kind of excited by it. We just played with it.”

That business was the original Banana Republic, which began life as a mail order company. They didn’t just sell clothes at Banana Republic; they sold clothes in which you were certain to have an adventure.

Patricia drew the catalog and Mel wrote it. “We just created it more as a theatrical experience than a retail experience,” say Ziegler.”Neither of us had retail experience. Neither of us had business experience.”

I still have a couple of those wonderful Banana Republic catalogs which were unique and fun to read.

After they sold that business, a chance encounter on an airplane got the Zieglers involved with starting Republic of Tea. “The only way I know how to create a company is for myself,” he says. “ I don’t really know how to do it any other way. I mean, I created Banana Republic and Republic of Tea for myself. I’m doing this for myself.”

That may sound simple, but it’s quite revolutionary.

The old paradigm (still much in vogue) has entrepreneurs studying demographics and putting together focus groups, hoping to infiltrate the consumer mind.

The artistic entrepreneur does it differently.

The creative entrepreneur knows that it’s possible to start a revolution by taking an old idea and changing the way it’s been done. That’s precisely how Virgin has built itself into a global operation.

Whether you aspire to build a huge business or are thrilled to remain a small operator, when it comes right down to it, being an entrepreneur is nothing more than spending your days sharing what you love with other people.

“The thing I remember best about successful people I’ve met all through the years,” said Mr. Rogers, “is their obvious delight in what they’re doing and it seems to have very little to do with worldly success. They just love what they’re doing and they love it in front of others.”

A Lesson from Venice

As my Facebook friends can attest, I’m totally besotted by Venice. So imagine my excitement when the amazing Lisa Tarrant came up with this new header for this blog.

Take a look at those lovely buildings and what you’re seeing were originally the world headquarters of many homebased businesses. The Venetians weren’t the first, of course, to work from home, but they did it with more elegance.

Those three-story buildings were designed to house both business and family. The ground floor served as a warehouse for goods coming and going in and out of Venice. The second floor was used for business offices, while the entrepreneur’s family occupied the top floor.

Although tourism is the top business in this magical place today, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well as I was reminded on my last visit there.

When my family and I arrived at the vaporetto stop in Venice, we were greeted by our temporary landlord Carlo. He shook hands with each of us and then escorted us back to the 500-year-old building he owns which housed our apartment.

The first thing I noticed about him was that he didn’t actually walk: he bounced. And he smiled a lot.

The next afternoon he stopped by to make sure that things were running smoothly. “So, Carlo,” I asked, “where did you learn to speak English so well?”

The grin got even bigger and he told us how he’d decided to learn English when he was 16 and began his lessons by listening to Simon and Garfunkel. “Then I went to London and discovered I didn’t know how to speak it at all.”

We invited him to sit down and tell us more about this building which he was renovating. What followed was a delightful story about creative entrepreneurship.

He said he’d been a pharmacist, but when the building came into his family rather unexpectedly, he left his pharmacy to devote himself to this new enterprise.

His parents occupied an apartment on the ground floor. There was another space he rented to a group of architects. Carlo lived on the top floor while the other four apartments were vacation rentals.

Redoing the building had obviously been a huge undertaking and he seemed to be enjoying it all. I tried to imagine how difficult it would be to rehab an old building in a city where everything had to be brought in and removed by motorboat. It seemed daunting.

When Carlo told us that he was facing a couple of off-season months with few takers, my sister Margaret suggested he advertise on Craigslist, which he was unfamiliar with.

To our delight—and his—he promptly got two bookings after posting on that popular site.

The following evening we received an invitation from D.J., the occupant of the apartment next to ours. He’s an American who calls himself a “globalnista” who spends four months of the year in Venice.

We accepted his invitation to stop by for a drink and once the seven of us were seated and had drinks in hand, I asked him a question about himself. That began a long monologue which involved D.J. and his own cleverness as the theme of the story.

While I wouldn’t call him a liar, some of the details seemed a bit fuzzy while other parts of the story were obviously embellished.

When we left, Margaret said to me, “I can’t tell: was he fascinating or tedious?” I laughed and said, “He could have used some editing.”

But it was more than editing that D. J. needed. The difference between him and Carlo really came down to authenticity. Carlo was genuine and D.J. was faking it. Just as important, Carlo paid attention to his listeners; D. J. paid attention only to himself.

Whether we realize it or not, we’re telling our stories all of the time—to strangers as well as those we know. And storytelling can be a powerful—or neglected—business tool.

The authors of Funky Business say, “Communicating a vision not only involves repetition and a carefully distilled message; it demands the ability to tell a story. True leaders are CSOs—Chief Storytelling Officers…Funky leaders give rise to and spread stories.”

After telling a few good stories themselves, they conclude, “The message is simple: light the campfire, gather the tribe, and start preaching and practicing. Lift us up where we belong.”

If you haven’t done so, give some thought to storytelling and how it can enhance your business and your life. Collect stories, share them, find the stories in your business and pass them along.

Make storytelling one of your business building tools.

And while you’re at it, why not make this next year the one in which you write the best chapter of your own story so far?

Keeping it Lively in Austin

Last Saturday I flew to Austin, TX to visit my daughter and her family in their new hometown. Before we went to their house, I got the mini-tour. When I commented on all the people we saw who were running, walking or bicycling, Jennie said, “This town isn’t about buying stuff; it’s about doing stuff.” I liked it already. I got even more interested when Hector exclaimed, “What I love about this place is all the little independent businesses.”

Those words were barely out of his mouth when we passed a parking lot where there was a shiny Airstream trailer with a giant cupcake on the roof—and a long line of people. As I was about to discover every time we passed that way during my visit, the long line of people never diminished. I couldn’t wait to learn more about Hey Cupcake! As soon as it was politely possible to excuse myself, I began investigating this business on the Internet. I found out that Hey Cupcake! is the brainchild of Wes Hurt, a 20-something Texan who says he was born entrepreneurial. 

His story reminded me of an article I wrote in Winning Ways newsletter called Take a Trip, Come Back With a Business. That’s exactly what Hurt did. The inspiration came during a trip to New York when he visited the Magnolia Bakery. He says, “I waited in line for 20 minutes or so and was amazed by the enthusiasm and anticipation emanating from everyone in line. That day I started planning what would eventually be Hey Cupcake!”

Hurt’s idea wasn’t exactly an instant success, however. He opened his first cupcake stand on the campus at the University of Texas where about 10,000 students passed by daily. Unfortunately, not enough of them stopped to buy a cupcake. Hurt was disappointed, but in true entrepreneurial fashion decided to revamp. He changed locations and moved into the Airstream. That did the trick. On their busiest days, they now sell about 1,000 cupcakes.

The entrepreneurial field trip continued. On Monday, I got to meet several more members of the Austin entrepreneurial community when Diane Kobrynowicz and I went scouting locations for my upcoming seminars in Austin. We stopped at a beautifully restored post-Victorian house where David Walker runs Austin’s first co-working space called Conjunctured. He and his partners have created a place where solo entrepreneurs can come and work in a less isolated environment. It didn’t take long to learn that Walker is wildly enthusiastic about the Joyfully Jobless life, but this isn’t his only business. He’s also co-owner of 302 Designs which produces t-shirts with beautiful designs and inspirational words. He told us that they’d just signed a contract with Whole Foods who will be distributing their shirts. Everything about being an entrepreneur seemed to excite him. 

I saw many other wonderful small businesses during my short stay. Of course, any place I visit  becomes an opportunity to explore local businesses. It’s a hobby I enthusiastically recommend if you want to nurture your own entrepreneurial spirit. In a place like Austin, the Joyfully Jobless life is downright contagious.

We evolve at the rate of the tribe we’re plugged into. ~ Carolyn Myss