Article

Dragana Nikolic
Dragana Nikolic 10 June 2015
Categories Technology

Stop Applying For The Big Companies And Start Humanizing Your Business

Mind your own business! That has always been a road to success.

When you are surrounded by technology innovations and new products you thought they’d never fit you or even help you, then you realize that the world has changed.



People are talking about abstract things, a production without material products or a service centres offering no services. What are we living through, then? An illusion? In times when everything went online and we communicate without a touch or physical presence, we found out how important is to value all these things that we - as humans - posses. Now imagine that you are chasing a C-level position at one of the top companies you’ve always dreamed about. Lots of stress, demanding tasks, never-ending stories, impossible requests... If you fit into the company’s culture, good for you. If not, what should you do?

Mind you own business! This, usually, offensive statement is now a message to all of you (us) that think outside the daily routine. Minding our own business would only be possible by starting a business by ourselves, because it’s a fact that "big companies are becoming irrelevant for their structure". In our businesses, the structure would be the following: our team, our ideas and our people. Neither customers, nor leads, but - people. Having that in mind, there are several ways to make it.

1. Technology and interactions
Since we do live in the world of fast-expanding technology, our jobs would be normally connected to it (completely or partially). Besides doing a job that includes using technology on a daily level, our activities need to be oriented towards the people. These people will bring interactions, this people we will bless for all they’ve done for us, besides what we’ve done for them (and we really should, a lot).

Lessons to learn: Globalization in economy counts by interactions (Prof. Pankaj Ghemawat) Everything goes faster and faster, so we think that technology is what we have in our pockets (Paul Papadimitriou)

2. Story and appreciation
Build your story, that’s an essence in today’s business. People like stories, they identify with them. If they like it, they will most probably buy it. Your product should be a story; your service, too. Give yourself the credit of becoming the best storyteller for your business. Why people read books? Because they like what’s inside. Appreciate your readers and make them fall in love with your content.

Lessons to learn: Every good story needs a great storyteller who will stand out for it (Amy Guttman) Appreciation is the currency you pay the Universe with (Steli Efti)

3. Internet and people / communities
In the era of Internet and hyper-connectivity, we would really miss the thing if we don’t connect. Using the assets of online technology would not only build our dreams, but would also help other people achieve theirs. The purpose of humanizing the business is to help people - those who need our service either to improve their lives or to build up a totally new life.

Lessons to learn: Internet is the biggest industry we’ve ever seen in history (Peter Sunde) Use the technology to help communities in emerging situations (Christopher Fabian)

4. Small steps and reputation
Problem solving methods consist of taking only one, very specific, aspect of that problem. The same is in business. Choose what you think people will mostly need from you. Be innovative but do not exaggerate in plans and programmes. Your business has to be great; it needs a clear reputation, a mission statement that is common to every user of your service. You need to focus only on one thing in order to achieve that.

Lessons to learn: Do the same all the time! Reputation is what counts. Do your work and focus on that one thing (Tine Thygesen) Small results, over time, really bring you to large success in longer-term (Marvin Liao)

5. Creativity and the learning process
We can all be creative at certain periods of a day. Creativity is a skill that can be learnt; we usually learn it from ourselves (our inner potential) or by education. In business, learning how to handle success and failure is both crucial for brining the right idea at the right moment. If you are in the centre of decision making process, then these two things are essential if you want your business to grow.

Lessons to learn: Creativity is a thinking action (Dave Birss) Fail fast but learn faster than you fail (Prof. JBM Kassarjian)

6. Crowd source and engage
What’s the best thing to do for a start? Before you make valuable investments to your business, try to maximize your profit by crowd source activities. In this way, you will give people the opportunity to participate and will make them feel useful. On the other hand, tell stories that will really engage people. Use social media and effectively communicate with your group, without investing a lot.

Lessons to learn: Share tasks to the audience and get them participate (Timo Vuorensola) I love social media, it’s so powerful (Jennifer Buxton)

Before you choose to start your own story and stop sending applications over to the "big guys", remember to: Tell great stories (Hjortur Smarason)

You always work for the people (Ramon De Leon) ~~~ People to people, preaches to preaches, humans to humans! Amin! ~~~ Majority of statements in this text, besides quotes, are inspired by incredibly organized SparkMe conference 2015 in Montenegro.

The conference brought great speakers, mostly professionals in (digital) marketing and technology. Image credits: Instagram

Original article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stop-applying-big-companies-start-humanizing-your-business-nikolic

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