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: Humility In the Workplace

There is a millionaire dollar word missing from the workplace. It is not “deal” or “sold.”  It is “sorry.”

Many minor misunderstandings have halted even stopped mergers, partnerships and other proposals because the million-dollar word is exempt from a company’s vocabulary.

Too often your pride or naiveté hinders you from seeing the error in your work or lack of work.

It can be simple as missing a deadline, but over time these “infringements” adds up and will discredit your word. If you say sorry and don not mean it or don not change your word, your million-dollar words will also depreciate until they are in the negative.

One of the ways you can be proactive within your company is to know how to say and be sorry.

Thanks to Dr. Gary Chapman and his BA and MA degrees in anthropology, he has a passion for understanding social interactions. With the help of other doctors, he has created The Five Languages of Apology.

After taking this test, you will have a better understanding of the importance of humility, apology and how you should appreciate others that interact with you when issuing apologizing. After the completion, it is a great idea to hold an open, informal meeting at work where everyone can share their results. Maybe this will even lead to "sorry sessions"!

Furthermore, as a leader, taking a step-down, letting employees have a voice, giving a statement to the press before the fault is found out - this is why the word sorry is so valuable.

This word may cause pause for thought, but once reflection is over, once forgiveness is extended, whether ways are parted or not, you will find internal success. And that’s the first step towards a true millionaire’s success.

-The Green Couch

Sneak Peek! 2015 Green Couch Session

What you see is what you get because of hard work and big hearts. While The Green Couch may be a young and small project with a large outreach, it still takes many hands to make these inspirational sessions happen.

Today we are so proud to give you a sneak peek into some of the people that sat with us and a new app we used to make The Green Couch reach more and do more good on September 15^th,,.

While two guys who represent Digital Bard - but we’ve adopted as part of our team - set up and shoot all the scenes you see, we decided to introduce the world to live footage. Whether it’s three minutes or fifteen minutes long, we gave you a glimpse of a risk-taker’s gutsy through Twitter’s Periscope. The app that lets you discover life through the eyes of someone else…all from a phone. And since the one filming was scoping a Green Couch session, we all were discovering life through the eyes of someone else…

The great thing about Periscope is that if you didn’t catch it live, you can catch it later on our YouTube account: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreenCouchProject

So we challenge you to not just be inspired but to really be part of the Project. And even though the videos may be not be part of the Periscope archive anymore, follow our periscope account because we will still be scoping live inspirational!

Project: Failing Forward

Whenever we interview one of the Risk-Takers on The Green Couch and their story unfolds, their definition of success slowly comes to the surface. Many of which have boldly stated, there is no such thing as an overnight success.

If anyone would tell you otherwise, they either have not found success or they have encountered one long, treacherous night. A night more extensive than the average 8 hours; perhaps one of 8 years?

From the concept to the creation, to the failed experiments and finally the product or service, more than a blink of an eye has passed. Moreover, while some of your experimental components may have fallen into place unintentionally to your benefit, none of your hard work was an accident.

The further you pursue your vision, the further chances you have of meeting it face-to-face.

But what happens when those failed experiments turn your trajectory off course? How can we keep the momentum going, so even though we won’t achieve overnight success we can fail forward?

It won’t be easy, but ask any of our Risk-Takers, and they’ll tell you the ongoing rewards are worth the ongoing time they “serve.”

• Find a mentor: It doesn’t have to be someone in your industry; just someone wiser, someone more experienced who is willing to sit down with you over lunch every few weeks to talk shop and life.

• Ease up on yourself: Remember, it’s okay to be wrong. If you’re always right, you’re not doing the right thing in life. Never settle for something that doesn’t challenge you.

• Set up a schedule: Whether it’s every day or every week, set an alert/alarm/reminder for you, dedicated to specific projects that need your time that are lacking and need more focus.

• Embrace change: In the absence of change is the absence of innovation. Use every roadblock, technical upgrade or trend as an opportunity to stretch your imagination. 

• Get street smart: If you can’t afford to travel or time away, invest in a good book to broaden your mind and refresh your senses. A new perspective from an unknown source always helps see life from outside the city limits. 

• Understand what failure is: Failure isn’t the absence of success. It isn’t meeting your expectations, deadlines or the status quo. Failure is not trying.

• Understand what failing forward is: Failing forward is using every “No” as, No way am I going to let this stop me from succeeding and reaching my goal. This failure showed me how not to do it – not that I shouldn’t do it.”

Fail forward, fail onward!

The Green Couch

Project: Be Unpredictable

Sometimes you have to use multiple platforms and methods. Sometimes you have to hire to fill every C-Level position. Sometimes you have to be mainstream. Sometimes you end up losing a bit of spark from your original plan.

Worse case scenario, there are moments when people know what you are going to do before you do. That’s because sometimes being an entrepreneur turns into being cost effective. It turns more profitable than you could have imagined. 

But as risk-takers there comes a time you have to be unpredictable. You have to take several steps back to the drawing board rather than turn to the Board.

Yeah, you’re thinking, everybody has already done it before; you just have to figure out a way to do it differently, even if that differently means to speak it in your voice.

No one thinks the way you do; use it to your advantage.

So how can you be unpredictable? (Isn’t reading about that and planning for that predictable?)

Be Open to Timeframes – A company that is set in stone and has a rigid five-year plan will miss too many opportunities. Time, technology and we as humans are changing so rapidly we can’t plan too far in advance. Leave room for adaptability and you’ll leave room for unpredictability.

Be Open to Advice – Whether it’s good, bad, left field, right field, from the old or really young, it doesn’t mean you have to take it, but any advice will help guide you to who you really are and who you want to be. And once you intake advice you act – unpredictably – on which you feel is wisest.

Be Open to Failure – Although it looks right in your mind and on the drawing board, success doesn’t always transfer to real life or happen overnight. Out of failure comes resilience, the need to be innovative and the room to be unpredictable.

-The Green Couch