Goodbye, Wrong People

All hail Guest Post Wednesday and the excellent Gareth!

There is a lot of talk about finding your Right People, or, if you’re trying to impress your mother-in-law*, your target demographic. Why you need to know this is easy to understand: once you have an idea of your Right People, you can cater to them.

But what about your Wrong People? Knowing who they are and how to gently encourage them to find somewhere else can be just as important.

The cost of working for the Wrong People is far higher than you would think. While you’re working for the Wrong People, you aren’t working for the Right People. Now this doesn’t seem to be too big a deal. After all, the Wrong People are paying you the same as the others. What’s the problem?

Working for your Wrong People has costs that cannot be weighed in mere coinage. The Wrong People are energy vampires. You feel as drained after dealing with them for an hour as you do after dealing with your Right People for a solid week. This energy drain translates into huge opportunity losses. As long as you have to deal with the Wrong People, you can’t go looking for your Right People, you don’t have the energy. You can’t create the products, write the content and generally be awesome so that your Right People know when they have found the place for them.

Basically, you get stuck in the position where you have to continue to work for your Wrong People because those are the only people you can find. Doing this is a one way ticket to the padded cell with white canvas long sleeved blazer.

So why? Why do you continue to work for your Wrong People?

You get trapped into working for the Wrong People because you haven’t taken the time to define who the Wrong People are. You need to understand what your Wrong Person likes and dislikes. You need to know the differences between the Wrong People and the Right People. You need to take steps to actively discourage your Wrong People.

Take some time now and figure out who your Wrong People are. Think about what they like and what they don’t like. Then, do some gentle dissuasion.

Gentle dissuasion requires that you look at the differences between your Right People and your Wrong People. Ideally, you’re looking for the things that your Right People like and your Wrong People dislike. Once you have this list, do more. This improves your connection to your Right People, and subtly (or not so subtly) encourages your Wrong People to go somewhere else.

If there aren’t any clear cut differences, there are two approaches you can use. Either you find the things that your Wrong People dislike but won’t have an impact on your Right People. Or find the things your Right People like that won’t have an effect on the Wrong People. The first pushes the Wrong People away, while the second improves your relationship with the Right People, making it harder for the Wrong People to be heard.

Your five-minute mission, should you choose to accept it…

Think of one thing you can do now to discourage your Wrong People and implement it. Then, come tell me what you did in the comments.

*I stole that line from Catherine, isn’t it glorious.

25 Comments - Join the conversation!

http://kirstyhall.co.uk/blog/ Kirsty Hall

Fab post, Gareth. For my consulting, my Wrong People are pretentious wazzocks with a stick up their butt who don’t like being called honey, sweetie and lovely. They are also special snowflakes who need too much coddling but are resistant to taking action.

The Wrong People for my art think sequins are tacky instead of funny. They think my stuff is decorative and domestic and they mean that in a mean, artworld way: they can’t see the bittersweet pathos in what I do. And they hate that I speak so plainly and accessibly about my work. They can piss right off, frankly.
http://www.FionaFell.com.au Fiona Fell

Put my prices up. And charge small projects (and changes) by the hour.

My ‘wrong people’ have generally had extremely small budgets and as a result micro-managed every step of the website development process.

Now that each ‘small change’ has a financial consequence they are more involved in the stretegy steps and less involved in nit-picking. Or they have left me to do great work with my ‘right people’
http://www.anencouragingbird.com BirdyD

Oh, yes, most glorious indeed! As is “You took a sheep and made THIS???” from this afternoon’s Crafter’s Call.

Hmmmm… to answer your question, what could I do? Part of it is to simply be myself. My Wrong People aren’t going to like the fact that I see the world in some unusual ways. My Wrong People won’t like the fact that I believe that we can Play & Tell Stories and have a better life.

Etc.

Thnx for another Post of Awesomeness!
http://completeflake.com/ LaVonne Ellis

Ooh, I love how specifically you know your Wrong People! And that I, who THOUGHT I hated being called honey and sweetie, now LOVE it — because you started calling me that in your tweets. I love it so much, now I do it too, lol!
http://completeflake.com/ LaVonne Ellis

I’m still trying to figure out who my Right People are. Hadn’t thought about the wrong ones, except for the ones I got rid of by no longer offering the services they wanted. I used to set up and customize WordPress, but the last one drove me literally out of the business. I didn’t ever want to deal with anyone like that again.
http://kirstyhall.co.uk/blog/ Kirsty Hall

Well, I didn’t know that I was so clear on it until Gareth asked.

I’m glad you like the honey thing now. One of the reasons I call people honey is that I have a dreadful memory and if you’re known for calling everyone by affectionate names, then people don’t realise you’ve forgotten their names! Thankfully it’s not such a problem online.
http://www.imagemaven.com Marlene Hielema

I have never really thought of things this way, but how true! Those wrong people make my job un-fun and stress me out. (I’m thinking here of some recent volunteer work I have done for an organization I belong to.)

I think we need to be careful though, and be sure that they are the wrong people and we’re not just having a bad day.

For me, implementing this plan could be a challenge. I’ll need to think about this a lot more.
http://taraflyart.com Ladypem

I just have to say…
I absolutely love that photograph by Steve Jervetson! I haven’t laughed so hard in days!

Perhaps if we all simply hang signs on the landing pages of our websites…
“If I don’t like you, it’s instant death… and a $200 fine for wasting my time.”
http://www.BeAwesomeOnline.com Catherine Caine

Simple. Effective. Awesome!
http://www.BeAwesomeOnline.com Catherine Caine

I stumble on names in real life sometimes. Thus darling, dearest, sweetpea… I have a few special names for people like beautiful. Tragically, when two people who have the same endearment are in the room together the system falls apart.
http://www.BeAwesomeOnline.com Catherine Caine

I approve.
http://www.BeAwesomeOnline.com Catherine Caine

For me, spotting the Wrong People was a trend. I could notice which calls went whooshing by and which draaaaaagged. From there it was simple-ish to figure out who I did and did not respond to.
http://www.BeAwesomeOnline.com Catherine Caine

That’s a very simple way to do it. Excellent.
http://www.BeAwesomeOnline.com Catherine Caine

That was the most amusing of my calls as you realised that you really didn’t like working with people you like hanging out with.
http://completeflake.com/ LaVonne Ellis

Well, I didn’t like hanging out with her either. But I just recently figured
out that I was hanging out with people I don’t like, IRL. That has been
rectified and I feel much better now!

~LaVonne
http://fight-mediocrity.com/ Gareth

“You took a sheep and made THIS???” – I love it. But only if it’s used in a good way.

It’s amazing how many people don’t like stories, or at least feel that stories are too juvenile. I pity them.
http://fight-mediocrity.com/ Gareth

always nice to implement something that works so effectively. (and dealing with micro-management is never fun)

I loved your portfolio (especially the phoenix one )
http://fight-mediocrity.com/ Gareth

This is why at parties I tend not to call people by their names.

I always hope that when someone new walks up they introduce themselves so I get a chance to relearn everyone’s name. I hate it when both people look at me to introduce them, there’s always an awkward silence at that point.
http://fight-mediocrity.com/ Gareth

You speak plainly about art?! Heresy!

I suspect with art it’s a little easier to identify the Right and Wrong People. Right People like your art and get it. Wrong People don’t.

I wonder if there’s any market for a Stick Extraction Session. People who want to get the stick removed but don’t know where to start.
http://fight-mediocrity.com/ Gareth

Those Wrong People pop up everywhere. I was fortunate in that most of the Wrong People that I used to hang out with have moved cities. Yay.
http://fight-mediocrity.com/ Gareth

The bad day thing is a bit of a concern. But an easy way to check is to ask yourself “If I had to deal with this person again tomorrow, how would I feel?” Often that gives you a good indication.

Unrelatedly – I don’t know if I could call the histogram my friend. I tend to look at it and go yes it’s a histogram, Kind of like I do with car engines when there are issues. I can identify that it’s the engine but couldn’t tell you what was wrong.
http://fight-mediocrity.com/ Gareth

excellent

I want a landing page that reads “I’m working on a device to slap people across the internet. It’s almost perfected, it just hits too hard. You’ve been warned!”
http://www.imagemaven.com Marlene Hielema

Aha Gareth, caught you looking! Well the histogram is MY friend because she tells me if my exposure is correct so I can fix it when taking my photos which saves me oodles of post processing time down the road. Everyone wants to FIX things in Photoshop, but my main premise is to do it correct in the camera and you’ll have more time to take your pictures. Begin with the end in mind! Thanks for your comments.
http://fight-mediocrity.com/ Gareth

Ah, I have to agree with the whole do it correctly the first time. I like to play with the exposure settings, so I normally have 2 or 3 different ones of the shots I like. (i’f I’m really having a bad day I’ll just bracket shoot and pick the best one) The only things I fix in photoshop are crops and occasionally I’ll change the saturation a little.
http://twitter.com/karenparitee Karen Paritee

Gareth!! Even after all this time I haven’t forgotten that I wanted to tell you why your post irritated me so much. Just the fact that I’m still thinking about it gives you a sense of just how much, but I want to be SURE you know.

I really didn’t want to answer what I had to admit were your very good questions. I have already thought long and hard about my Right People, and I wanted to get on with giving them what they want, so I didn’t have time for any more questions, no matter how good the questions were.

Then I realized, umm, I might have a little bit of time, since I seem to have a lull in that full of Right People schedule I’m creating, which maybe if I took the time to answer your questions, then later on I WOULDN’T have to the time to answer them, because between Catherine and people like you who are here and glad to help, I’ll be tripping over my Right People.

SO I ANSWERED THEM.

Enlightening. As in lifting my load.

Thank you, kind sir.