Charles Gupton

Business

What Distinctives Make You Distinctive?

A number of years back, I ventured into the area of personal portrait work. I wanted to apply the storytelling approach I took with commercial assignments to the world of family portraits. My venture was not the raging success I wanted, partly because most folks couldn’t picture themselves doing something that wasn’t just like what their friends were doing.

To dig into the story of a family, I would ask a number of questions to give me insights into how we could capture a portrait that was distinctive to them. Although the answers that were most revealing led to better portraits, many people could not come up with anything distinctive about themselves or what their purpose was.

In one particularly alarming case, a mother came back to me several days after our meeting. She was angry that, “There are no activities that bind our family together because we’re four people living in separate worlds all wanting to go our separate ways!” Initially, her wrath was directed towards me for asking the questions that revealed an unsettling truth. But a couple of weeks later she called, grateful to have finally addressed an issue that was leading to a divorce.

What is even more unsettling is the number of business owners that I talk with who don’t know their distinctive purpose or reason for being either. Rather than dig into the uncomfortable process of discovering their story, they simply ignore the process and go about their business using the standard operating procedures that everyone else in their field is using. Yielding to peer pressure to be like, and look like, everyone else.

Most people are looking for a new set of tools, or life-hacks, that are going to give them an edge. But any improvements that are based on technology or a formula are also available to their competition.

The only distinctive that sets you apart is your unique story. Your history, world-view, and vision. Telling that story to the world allows your potential clients, employees, and partners to connect with you in a way that they never can with anyone else.

It’s your distinctive story that moves you from being a commodity in your market to being a competition of one.

Charles

 

Are you Hoarding Fear?

Over the last couple of years, as Linda and I have moved in the direction of creating short films for companies, we’ve encountered a fair amount of underlying fear from business owners who need to be telling their stories. But their fear is holding them hostage.

Fear of trying something new. Fear of uncovering their own story about why they do what they do. Fear of spending money in an uncertain economy. Fear that cripples them from growing and using their abilities to be more productive and profitable.

During the same period, we have been more deeply involved with elder care for several relatives. We’ve seen parallels that are unsettling when people are unwilling to address fear and make necessary adjustments before those changes are no longer as helpful to them.

I have an aunt in Charleston, S.C., who is being placed in a nursing home this week. When her husband, Tony, died twelve years ago, her life virtually stopped. She wanted no changes in her life to occur. When her refrigerator stopped working several years back, she refused to allow it to be replaced because Tony bought it. Her washer and dryer were in an outside storage room that she could barely manage to access but she refused to move them in the house because Tony had put them there when he did the laundry. She wouldn’t allow his pickup truck to be moved from under her carport so that it could shelter her and her car in inclement weather even though she is extremely handicapped.

Some of the trash, mixed with new purchases, stacked in my aunt’s home as a result of hoarding.

Knowing that she would become increasingly more disabled,we tried, without success, to get her outside help to prepare her food, clean her house, and take care of her physical needs. Because she’s a hoarder, trash piled up. When cat litter boxes were no longer emptied, feces and urine filled the house. Although Social Services was called several times, we were told there was nothing they or we could do.

When she fell recently, a concerned neighbor called the police, who finally got Social Services involved and got her home condemned. She was placed in the hospital until her placement into the nursing home.

Her greatest fear was to be forced to leave her house. Had she been willing to make the emotionally uncomfortable but incremental changes to maintain her quality of life, she could still be in her home. And in better health. Her “story” of distrusting other people – friends and relatives who love her – exacerbated her fears and paralyzed her life.

My aunt is an extreme case. Reality TV shows feature people like her so that viewers can think, “I may hold on to my particular comforts or fears, but I’m not that bad!”

Maybe not. But the fears that hold you back are not allowing you to grow your life or be of service to people around you. Fear causes you to keep your attention on you.

I work in the business of telling stories for businesses because I believe the stories we tell have the power to launch us forward. I want to uncover and shape stories so that people can reach their potential for helping others (and making a profit). But I’ve come to understand that I can’t help anyone who is unwilling to stop being a pack rat holding on to fear.

Are there fears holding you back today?

Charles

Negotiation Starts With Value

The most important element in any negotiation process is defining the value of what is being exchanged. Without a clear understanding of what you have to offer and its value to the person you’re communicating with, the negotiation process will quickly become frustrating.

The challenge for many commercial artists/photographers is that they are artists first while the “commercial” aspect unfortunately takes the back seat. The mindset of many artists is that it’s acceptable to be under compensated for their work, hence the description “starving artist.” And what you do is an extension of what you believe.

If you are struggling with the negotiation process, take a look at these two aspects— the value of what you offer and your relationship with money — and think about where you stand. In her book, “Overcoming Underearning,” Barbara Stanny writes: “Psychology is to money what an engine is to a car. Whenever you’re stalled, that’s the first place to look.”

Although “looking under the hood” may be disorienting and the last thing you want to do with your time, negotiation is simply a process of exchanging beliefs about value.

You can’t transfer a belief you don’t have.

Charles

Launch and Learn

The last year or so has been a particularly exciting and, at the same time, particularly scary time.

As I look back, the last ten years or so – since 9/11 – have been an ever-changing mix of scary and exciting for us. When the communications world seemed to stop spinning with assignments, Linda and I took an informal sabbatical from actively chasing communications projects while we were pursuing some other directions for a time, including starting a sustainable farming operation and retreat center.

As we returned to the communications front lines, we were aware that the technology environment had made sweeping changes and that I, especially, would have to climb a steep learning cliff to catch up. There have been more slips and falls than I can count, but I believe I’ve caught up and have been running along quite proficiently for a while now. Until this past year.

After dipping my toes in the waters of multimedia for a couple of years, I decided to take a leap into the deep current and see if I could swim. In my experience, and from numerous conversations with peers, I’d realized that shooting a project in motion is exponentially more challenging than to do so in stills.

With age, I’ve come to realize that I can’t possibly learn all I want to about everything I want to. If I can’t learn it all, I certainly can’t do it all. So I turned over the audio production and the post-editing responsibilities to my assistant while Linda took over the producer’s role, leaving me to concentrate on filming, directing, and client engagement.

When my assistant bailed two days before a critical project, my choked-backed fears of relying on other people shot to the surface and I realized that I couldn’t reliably deliver unless I could handle every aspect of my productions as insurance against being caught unprepared on location. Although panic-induced adrenaline became my elixir for the week, it was the jolt I needed to get me up to speed in short order.

The excitement came when I realized that I had the foundational skills to start really building a new career direction. I also knew enough to make better hiring decisions about who I need and what skills are necessary when I call in support crew on a particular project.

My greatest “ah-ha” has been to re-discover that launching new projects with the focus on deep-learning of new skills is the best way to grow both knowledge and passion. Every project I initiate has at least one or two high bars that I hope to clear with perfect form and agile grace. And with every project, I fall short of my perfection.

My human propensity is to build my confidence first by gathering knowledge before venturing forth on any endeavor. But what I’ve learned, and will continue to learn, is that the most important thing I will always do is launch, fail, learn, repeat. The best knowledge comes in the doing.

Charles

Corporate Policies are People Stories

Over my 30 years of shooting photographs for corporate and editorial clients, I’ve encountered numerous policies established by companies to regulate how their buyers interact with their suppliers. The policies cover the usual areas including payment, usage, rights and delivery. I even had a recent client who had a company policy against — against, mind you! — giving recommendations or referrals for their suppliers. Talk about a policy that works against building trusting relationships. And this from a company that emphasizes its commitment to building relationships!

For a long time, I simmered with anger over the various boilerplate policies companies threw at me, even accepting for a time that they weren’t personal. It was, after all, just business. Often I’ve heard the establishment of said policies being blamed on “butt-puckered lawyers,” “the suits,” or “the bean counters.” The admonition to not take it personally was delivered in a tone intended to convince everyone to just accept such policies as “industry standards” that could be neither questioned nor changed.

But, over time, I grew to understand that all policies are personal and therefore have the possibility of being changed. Policies are personal because they are established or initiated by a person. Even if a large governmental body or a board of directors agrees to a certain policy, one person was instrumental in advancing the idea for a particularly personal reason. That reason is usually based on a fear of loss or the scarcity of some important resource, usually money.

I’ve found that through a personal relationship or a sympathetic client, an established policy can often be modified or have an exception made. For example, a 60-day payment policy can be shortened by having someone willing to walk an invoice through accounting.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about policies and the people who present them is that they are, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, parts of a bigger picture or story of the people who make up a company.

People who treat other people, including their suppliers, like replaceable commodities are very likely being treated like a replaceable commodity by their own company. Like a bully who’s being bullied at home, people usually treat others the way they feel like they are being treated.

Corporate policies are, at their roots, stories of the people who created and enforce them. The only way to modify a policy is to change the story that surrounds it.

Charles