Project: 6 Ways to Condition Your Clients

When you are in a creative field, you want to give your all to your clients. You want to say “Yes!” because you want to showcase your skills and market their services and products to the best of your ability. But there comes a time when they begin to bulldoze your kindness and take advantage of your willingness to serve.

It can be a risk to start saying “No.” To being upfront from the beginning to being transparent, to not negotiating. To not being a doormat when your clients walk into your studio even though they could be an ideal creative canvas.

There are more canvases out there and you have to protect both them and yourselves. Here’s a good guideline to abide by:

1.    If your hours are between 9 and 5, don’t answer before 9 or after 5.

2.    If you add surcharges, enforce those surcharges.

3.    If you say that is something your company does not offer, do not offer it.

4.    If you say it will be ready in two days, do not provide them with a rush service benefits.

5.    If they challenge your expertise, be assertive in your work integrity.

6.    If your client signed a contract, refer and uphold them to the contract.

-The Green Couch

Project: Nominate The Next Green Couch Risk-Taker

http://www.thegreencouchproject.com/contact.php

January 28^th, 2014 The Green Couch Project™  began the initiative to see what it was like to walk an hour or two into another risk-taker’s shoes. And so we invited several, five entrepreneurs to be specific, to individually sit on The Couch. It changed our lives. It changed theirs.

Since then a total of twenty-four people have sat on The Couch, shared their risk-taking gutsy and taken the Pinky Promise challenge. Nothing is ever rehearsed or auto-tuned. When it comes to the questions, everything is left to the unknown but everything is from the heart.

The Green Couch is where they get to fall back in love with who they are, what they do and why it matters - because it does. The Green Couch Project™ is where they have a chance to inspire others to speak, follow and inspire others to fulfill their dreams.

To do what they get to do every day – live their love.

We’ve caught it on paper, video and pictures. We have shared it on our website, in newsletters, in podcasts, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… because their risk-taking is what inspires us, their story is our gift to you.

And now it’s time we hear back from you.

This fall, The Green Couch Project is doing something different. We want you to submit an inspirational entrepreneurial story of someone who motivates change in your life. Whether you know them directly or indirectly or they never heard of your name, give us a glimpse of their courage so they can spill their gutsy on The Green Couch on September 15^th, 2015.

Whether they’re on their own, or manage a team of 100, we’re looking for people with outstanding company culture, integrity, community impact and irresistible risk-taking gutsy.

We’re looking for someone who inspires people to speak, follow and fulfill their dreams. It doesn’t matter if they’re ages 8-108, are a college dropout, new to the game or have years of experience; this is your chance to nominate someone you’d like to see on The Couch who lives their love and has a voice that needs to be heard.

-The Green Couch

Accepting nominations July 9th – August 15th, 2015 

Project: Your Greatest Competition

Don’t let the competition dictate whether or not you will do something; unless that is to dictate that you will work harder to be better.

Suppose your alleged rivals are wearing black, do not be intimidated to wear black for fear there will be naysayers and other spectators that question why you are the runner up.

Be confident in what you do and even if someone is reaching for the same result, do the same thing, just do it differently. Do it your way. No matter whom you compare yourself to, The biggest threat to your ideas is yourself. Think big thoughts and be bold enough to share them. 

Three tips to feel confident against your biggest competition (that’s you):

Be Knowledgeable: Doesn’t it feel good to begin a conversation where you know what you are talking about? Don’t just pursue what you like in life; pursue what you love you will have the power to retain the knowledge and hold a passionate conversation.

Be Open to Knowledge: There is always something new to learn and always someone who can teach you something new. Confidence isn’t knowing it all, it’s knowing who you are in what you do. And if you want to improve what you do, you’re going to have to understand that that what you do might change.

Be Bold: You’re going to make mistakes, misunderstand and have miscommunications no matter how much your knowledgeable about something.  Keep growing your idea and sharing it boldly. A baby doesn’t stop walking no matter how many times it falls down. It looks for his or her destination point and runs for it until it grows into the proficient toddler walker. Learn to be like that baby. Don’t let shaky legs or a shaky voice shake you up. Set your eyes and heart upon your destination and don’t give up.

And if you’re lucky, just like a baby has loving people cheering him or her on, make sure you have your cheer squad. And make sure, as your greatest competition, you’re part of that squad! Because we definitely are!

-The Green Couch Project

Project: The Trust Fall

Friends and Family!

Everyone who has ever had a cell phone through a major carrier (isn’t that everyone, you’re probably thinking. Haven’t we all traded in our landlines for handhelds?) has heard this cellular campaign rhetoric before. You get to pick a limited amount of friends and family members to make unlimited calls and texts messages.

Of course, if that gets leaked, it is a tell-all to who’s who in your life - a few of your favorite people in life. Maybe they are just your I.C.E contacts? Of course like a Netflix queue, we have the privilege of adjusting those we call our top priority people.

However, sometimes out of those five friends and family (or however few or many we may choose) we decide to take a risk, take the plunge and pursue the vision we have. We decide to open shop.

Whether it is developing an app.

Or breaking ground for a new shopping complex.

We take the trust fall.

But because we are a family we often make a trust fail.

Hive fives do not cut it:

Now, maybe business used to be conducted with a firm handshake – and if only things were that honest and simple. However, imagine if you were in a family, would that handshake translate to a high five? Even so, don’t take for granted the love, birth to the present life-long relationship and subsequent character reference that you have with a family member or friend good enough to go off of.

You need paper trails. You need John Hancocks. You need digital files.

You need to protect both of your interests.

1) Define leadership:

Sure, there’s always someone who will give the shirt off his or her back. And, sure, on the flip side, if the plane has the potential of crashing you have to put your mask on before you can help someone else. So it is all about give and take. Still, one of you has to take the role of leadership more seriously. Otherwise, you will have apathy on some parts or alphas butting heads.

Without a clearly defined leader, you will not have a clearly defined business plan or direction.

2) Family time is family time:

Learn to set business parameters. Home. Work. Play.

Also, there will be times you have to distance yourself from each other. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Don’t let your basketball court squabbles come into your conference room at work.

Don’t let your shredded documents from work become confetti at your kid’s birthday parties.

If your cell phone is used concurrently as your work phone, use discretion.

You do not get ahead by putting in more hours. You get ahead by putting more in your hours.

Also, when it comes to friends and family, it is always been about the quality. The quality of those whom we spend time with and the quality of time we spend with them.

So the hours you are at work with them, use them wisely. Because the hours you are not at work are the hours that made you feel you could trust them enough to have a business.

That made you feel passionate to pursue your vision. That made you excited to start a business that would make you jump out of bed.

That is the kind of family time you need to structure.

3) Mom & Pop & Sons:

A Mom & Pop store. A Father & Sons Establishment.

Either way, it is more than making a name for yourself; it is about making a legacy. You do not have to own an entity that employees thousands, you do not have to own a megaphone or have your face plastered on a billboard.

You have to see a problem, come up with a solution and start to resolve it. You have to make a difference and open the door for those behind you so they can continue to follow through.

You may have started with your family, but it is essential that you maintain your business in such a way that you protect it for your business family.

The trust fall takes at least two people.

Shake on it, hug it out, high five all the day long. Call each other up on the ol’ friends and family plan.

Just make sure you sign on some dotted line, somewhere. Make sure you are honest and up front. Make sure you protect each other. So make sure that you not only have each other’s backs, but you are protecting the backbone of the community. Both now and that of the future.

Going into business with those you love may be hard, and it is not for everyone. However, you do not have to have your trust fail you.

Are you a risk-taker? Did you take the trust fall with your family and loved ones?

Tell us your story!

-The Green Couch

Project: Speak Up or Someone Else Will Do It For You

We all have something to say: it is just that sometimes we suffer from Entrepreneurial Laryngitis. (The loss of voice that causes us to lose sight of our vision.) It can be a form of stage fright or the fear that what we think about isn’t worth sharing. And so we keep to ourselves our ideas and our strategies. Any platform in which we could exercise public speaking we avoid as if it were the iceberg and we were Titanic come back from the caverns of 1912’s North Atlantic Ocean.

But why are we so persistent in this endeavor to NOT do something?

Our reasoning could be in thinking that our story is not worth telling, but none of us have a story that is finished. Therefore, if that is our excuse none of us should take center stage. All of us should avoid the soapbox.

Our reasoning could be rooted in the fact that we have been heckled before. Remember the days gone by where we dreamed of becoming a magician, a puppeteer, a singer, a comedian? And for what? To be laughed off the stage? Perhaps it didn’t even have to occur on the stage. It could have been on the field or the court. Tryouts can be brutal, and we end up the butt of the joke. The emotional scars run deep, and the results are how we excuse ourselves from any occurrence where we could stand behind a microphone.

 Our reasoning could be hidden in fear that we will suffer from vomiting before and after. We will stumble over our words. And ultimately we will do more harm than good to what we attempt to represent. In addition, will ruin our personal reputation. And the urge to hide beneath a baggy hoodie becomes an outward visualization of how we hide emotionally and internalize everything; questioning the purpose of our projects.  

But if we don’t speak up someone else will do it for us. If we do not speak up someone will shut up the entirety of our dream and shut down the path that needs to stay open. There are millions that might depend on the vision we are trying to develop.

We could be the cure for Entrepreneurial Laryngitis. Speak up and inspire another to speak up until our voices are loud enough that we don’t need a microphone. Until those who think they are average will tune into social media to find an outlet to build their business, develop their product, travel the world and continue their philanthropic ways.

When our fear of rejection, either from the audience or ourselves, is bigger than our vision, it is often self-imposed. We choose to scratch out our voice and deny others from hearing what we have to say. Maybe it is not much. Maybe it is not “right” or not a “right now” kind of mentality. But we don’t have to remain quiet all the time.

As Singer-songwriter Mat Kearney says,

“For the ones who are forgotten. 

For the ones who are told to speak only when you are spoken to, and then they are never 

spoken to. Speak every time you stand so you do not forget yourself. Do not let one 

moment go by that doesn’t remind you that your heart beats a hundred thousand times a 

day and there  are gallons of blood making every one of you oceans…”

  

We all have a story; speak up and share yours. We’re listening, want to hear it, and share it: 

-The Green Couch