A probably-not-so-startling admission if you know anything about me:
I am not a details-focused kind of person.
I hate minutia. I hate red tape. I hate bureaucracy. I HATE, HATE, HATE paperwork.
Over the last 10 years of running a business, I’ve forced myself to get a lot better at it. I’m not one of those people who thinks you should only ever do what you’re good at … I think you should push yourself to improve in all areas that will make you a better entrepreneur. And the ability to focus on the details and take care of the annoying bits and pieces is definitely a pre-requisite for success.
That said,
(For those who are all TL;DR – It’s a “Notice of Proposed Deregistration – ASIC initiated” from 18 September 2012 citing proposed deregistration of my company, Unique Value Propositions under the Corporations Act 2001, Section 601AB).
It was an annoying turn of affairs. My old accountant hadn’t updated my address details on file and was sending all of the ASIC notices to Melbourne, even though we’d been living on the Gold Coast for 2 years.
Because the accountant was the point of contact, ASIC continued to send them the letters and we didn’t receive them.
Eventually, when the proposed deregistration notice came, someone from the accountants office bothered to call us, got our new address, sent us the details and it all got sorted out.
All my fault, really – I should have know that it had been longer than 12 months since I’d heard from ASIC. I should have contacted them. Exactly the kind of small, annoying details you need to focus on when you’re running a company. Exactly the kind of small, annoying details I let slip through the cracks.
What’s MOST annoying is ASIC’s insistence on publishing this on a page entitled “insolvency notices”. Obviously, ASIC can’t just deregister a business if it’s insolvent. There are all kinds of steps that need to be taken to ensure creditors get paid out.
This was simply an administrative error, where mail was disappearing into a black hole and therefore ASIC decided we probably weren’t operating because we weren’t responding to their messages.
Control the Conversation
In one of my patented flame wars recently, someone went looking for dirt on me and this was all they could find. When they posted it publicly, I hadn’t actually seen it.
I had a bit of a moment of panic – until I realised what it was and that it was from August 2012 (as noted in the link, ASIC deregisters within 2 months of the notice – it’s 2014 and the company is still registered).
It’s certainly not fun having this sort of thing sprung on you like that! I believe that when things like this happen, the best thing you can possibly do is TALK about them.
10 years ago you could get away with trying to hide things and sticking your head in the sand. But now, these things have a way of coming to the surface.
Take the opportunity to explain things, in your own words. To apply context to them. On it’s own, the deregistration notice looked bad … even to me!
But once context is applied, once you know the story, it’s like,
“Meh. So you weren’t paying attention to one small fraction of your business. Slap on the wrist, don’t do it again.”
I see a lot of people, and companies, trying to control the conversation by ignoring it. But the fact is, you can’t control the conversation unless you CONTROL THE CONVERSATION.
Sticking your head in the sand isn’t control. Quite the opposite – it’s systematic and intentional surrender of control.
Everyone Knows Everything
It’s 2014, kids. Anyone with basic Googling skills can learn a whole load of stuff about your business and your personal life. Those with the contacts can get access to information you’d be horrified by, for very small amounts of money.
In a world where we live online, there’s very little that’s truly “private” – and that goes double if you run a business or have any form of public profile. If people want to find out your secrets, they will.
As Brian Tracy says,
“Everyone knows everything. And if you think they don’t, you’re kidding yourself.”
The best solution is to put yourself into a position where the only person outing your skeletons from their closet, is you.
That can be scary and horrible. And I mean, intensely scary and horrible. But once it’s done, there’s a sense of freedom that comes with it that will change the way you feel about your business.
Yes, I know your mother taught you never to air your dirty laundry in public. But she wasn’t dealing with the technology revolution you’re in the middle of.
The only question is – who is going to do the airing?
Will it be other people?
Or will you take control and explain things yourself, in your own words?
As you’ve no doubt seen from a million PR disasters over the years, trying to explain post the reveal rarely goes well. “Damage Control” is a misnomer. You can’t control damage. You can only clean it up.
It’s far, far more powerful to inflict the damage yourself – only then can you be truly in control of it, by giving context to the conversation.
Are you a Liar and a Fraud?
This is an incredibly powerful exercise I will often give to my clients, when they’re being held back by the fear of unleashing their true selves on the marketplace.
All you need to do is to think about the #1 thing in your life you’re most petrified of your clients knowing about you. It could be something you’ve done or something that happened to you.
Now, right the story down from your point of view. Typically, most people will start the story with
“I am a liar and a fraud.”
And then proceed to explain why they feel that way.
Then comes the tough bit: publishing this piece publicly. Whether it’s on a blog or on Facebook – putting it out for the world to see.
Now, of course, I’ll put some proviso’s around this.
- Use common sense: if the thing you want to talk about is currently part of a legal proceeding, you probably want to avoid talking about it publicly until it’s resolved.
- Avoid slander: if the story involves someone else and you’re going to talk about something horrible they’ve done, you might want to be a bit careful and potentially even run the piece by your lawyers.
- Stories are rarely just ours: it’s not unusual for our stories to feature other people. Whether in a positive or negative light, that’s not always comfortable. Sometimes, it’s worth leaving out certain players, changing their names, or even swapping people out for fictional or meshed characters in order to avoid hurting or discomforting people we care about.
- Be prepared for the fallout: it’s absolutely possible that there will be people in your life who don’t agree with you putting this story out. You need to be prepared for the criticism that may be leveled at you.
Even if you’re not yet ready to post it publicly, I would challenge you to write the story.
Don’t post it yet, if you don’t want to. That decision is intensely personal and no one has the right to tell you that you should – or shouldn’t – do it. It’s got to be in your own time.
But I can tell you this – my clients who DO post it, find that they typically have one of their biggest sales weeks directly after.
I think the reason for this is partially because other people sense how open and vulnerable they’re being and respond to that.
But more importantly, I think the freedom that comes with putting the “worst” out there and finding out the reaction is not nearly as bad as you fear it will be, is incredible. It shows you that you really CAN do anything and that your self-imposed limits are mainly just figments of your imagination – and far more frightening when you’re feeding them in the dark than when you show them the light of day.