The best ideas, and the truest epiphanies, come to you in the shower (or so ‘they’ say.)
This morning, I noticed that I held my breath for a moment as I washed my hair.
A new client has given me the opportunity to join a team helping a small business launch a line of organic, toxin- and silicone-free beauty products. Our role is to help them craft a strategy to go from startup to success – to help get them from where they are to where they want to be. At the conclusion of the first meeting, the team was sent home with sample sized versions, to “see for ourselves.”
I really like the business owner. She’s passionate and genuine, and her product seems to be compelling, legitimate, and fit a need in the marketplace. She’s got incredible energy, a great story, a vision, and is willing to do the work. She knows she needs help. As I poured a quarter-sized dollop into my left hand, I realized that for me, it was the moment of truth.
What if I hate it?
What if it smells funny? What if it leaves my hair feeling limp and disgusting? (One of my few true vanities is my hair.)
I chastised myself for being overly dramatic; I made quite a ridiculous picture standing there stark naked debating this dollop of gel in my hand: “So what? It’s shampoo. There are a million. If you hate this one, there are others.”
… but my job is to help THIS one.
I found myself whispering a little prayer that it would lather. As the bubbles formed beneath my fingers, the tension in my shoulders eased and I took a deep breath. I was palpably relieved when the scent of the shampoo mixed with the steam was a pleasant herbal – citrus, the resulting effect a kind of aromatherapy sensation. I’m pretty sure I have never paid that much attention in the shower in my life.
I’m not arguing that every piece of work we do has to be an all-encompassing, life-fulfilling, purpose-driven one, but rather proposing that (for me, at least) I do my best work when I care about, believe in, and like the people / products I’m working with. I recognize how fortunate I am to have a career that has provided me a wealth of opportunity to work with products and industries I genuinely like, doing work that makes a difference in the lives of individuals who I care about.
There are only so many hours in the day, and so many days in a lifetime, a number which none of us can know. Can you pour your heart , effort, and your most precious resource of time into something you don’t genuinely like or believe in?
Some people can: they believe in the process or art of what they do without necessarily finding a kinship with or liking the product, company or person itself (criminal defense attorneys, for example, representing a distasteful or possibly-guilty client – but believing in the bigger picture of the justice system). Others can’t detach their personal self-identity from the specific people & products they choose to work with.
Can you?
For me, the answer came in the shower.
Photo credit: Alex France
By the way, the client here is anonymous, in keeping with the ‘Rules of the Game’.
I’m curious – if you really didn’t like a product (or the people behind the product), wouldn’t that come through in your work or conversation? Personally, (and this might limit me in the future), I’m not sure I could get behind a person/product I didn’t like. I think I’m just too honest (or transparent). Good post Kellee, gives me food for thought.
Sherree: I feel similarly to you, but I could see where an accountant or an engineer, for example, might love practicing their craft so much that it doesn’t necessarily matter who the specific client is? When I start thinking about it, there are plenty of examples: A financial advisor who helps a couple achieve their retirement goals even if they don’t really enjoy/admire the people. An actor who is fine doing a commercial for a product they don’t really care about. A graphic artist who lays out the ads regardless of his personal feeling about the product itself, or the client paying for the work. That’s in part why I was fascinated with my own reaction – I hadn’t really stopped to articulate that it WAS so important to me to like the product.
Harder yet, I think, is what happens when you START with a client/product you like, but through the relationship evolution, there’s a shift: a different project manager or executive takes over, or the quality of the product declines (lack of reinvestment). Or the company’s commitment to change or willingness to invest in progress diminishes. In this particular case here, even if I LOVED the shampoo itself, if I didn’t get the sense that the business owner really had the fortitude and resources for the road ahead… how would I feel?
For me at least, it’s apparently not enough to just be able to practice what I’m good at. It’s a complicated recipe, it seems, of the other factors in play also.
Do you have to like your clients? If you’re a marketer responsible for telling the client’s story, yes, you have to like them.
In this context, “like” means respect, believe in, admire, think highly of. Otherwise, the work you do is — to put it bluntly — a lie. And that doesn’t work for you or them.
You loved the shampoo … Happy Dance! 🙂