Category: Leadership

Human beings are hardwired for threat detection.

Some more so than others. And, some have whatever genetic level of anxiety or neuroticism they were born with amped up by the circumstances that brought them to today. So, some people might actually be predisposed to be, let’s say, risk takers, but for all intents and purposes, what you or I see is someone who is risk averse, skittish, pick-your-particular-flavor-of-threat-detection-behavior because maybe they grew up without a stable home, were in an abusive relationship, have been attacked, or something else.

Again, at the end of the day, we all have some level of predisposition for avoiding threats, but some have that level amped up by their experiences.

Imagine a young mother 5,000 years ago needing to decide if this stranger that just walked into her village might be a threat to her child. Or, imagine that child’s young father seeing that stranger and not knowing if he can leave for the hunt that day or if he needs to stay close for protection. Some people in those circumstances decided they were safe and left to do what they needed to (hunt, farm, barter, whatever), and their child (or whatever they were protecting) was harmed. Others stayed close to home, did not get done what they needed to, and suffered due to for example their family not having food or income.

They could not predict the future. They could only place a bet. Some of them made the wrong bet by leaving, so maybe they didn’t pass on their genes because their child was murdered. And, some of them made the wrong bet by not leaving, so maybe their child starved because food was not brought home for the day when it was really needed, and again, their genes were not passed on.

Ultimately though, if your child went hungry or your household had a little less income for a single day, you stood a chance of recovering, but if your child was–let’s say–killed by that stranger, there was no recovery from that. As a result of the ability to recover being different from one choice to the next, human beings are on average more averse to threats than we are attracted to opportunity because permanence of opportunity is unreliable. The permanence of death is quite reliable though.

This is just one small contributor to the extreme attention we now pay to levels of protection that would seem odd to someone from decades or centuries past. That is not to say that for example seatbelts are unnecessary or that there is any problem with making bottles BPA free, but every potential threat piled on top of the next–no matter how small–creates a slippery slope, where we increasingly come to think of these threat avoidance measures as being necessary, and we forego potential benefits in favor of staving off threats.

You or I might think for example that it’s harmless to just walk my daughter around the corner to play at the neighbor’s when she could have just walked by herself, but society leads me to believe it’s not acceptable to just let my daughter walk alone, so I go along with that expectation despite not feeling it is necessary. It’s safer and harmless right?

But, as Todd Rose says, “Today’s collective illusions (the thing that no one believes, but goes along with, because we think everyone else believes it) become tomorrow’s norms.” And those norms just get built upon with more collective illusions, which again become norms. It’s a positive feedback loop.

We’re working our way toward a society that values protection at all costs. No risk taking. No weighing of the costs and benefits. It’s like the extreme version of Dick Cheney’s 1% doctrine. If there is any chance of threat, that’s too much.

And sadly, the media through which we increasingly engage with and understand the world amplify the collective illusions because that natural, human threat detection tendency reacts more strongly to the negative stories we encounter than the positive stories. This is why Hans Rosling said, “Good news is not news.”

All of your information (let’s call them “news”) outlets are selling something. TV and websites need visitors so that they can sell ad space. Forum and social media users are selling a viewpoint. And, so on. If they weren’t selling something, they wouldn’t care about getting your attention.

And sadly, if you’re one of those people that actually does not follow the collective illusion, if you think there are some gambles worth taking, you are now put in a position of being seen as untrustworthy because obviously you’re just not concerned about the environment or animals or children or God-knows-what. You’re too cavalier, but they (someone else) care even though you don’t. Clearly.

In today’s environment, that “compassion”, that moral high ground wins in all arguments even if it’s over-protection and comes at the cost of other benefits that could be gained, such as for example teaching my daughter within a relatively safe setting how to navigate the world alone. No, protection today over long term protection or competence in the future, right?

Within our businesses, this manifests not as an environment in which people can say and do hard things and where they can be safe to make mistakes while working toward our collective goals. Instead, this manifests as workplaces where you cannot say certain things because they make others uncomfortable, where–instead of being encouraged to do–you are mandated to no do.

The downstream implications of this are workplaces in which most people do not feel comfortable being themselves because they have been told making the wrong joke, using the wrong phrase, looking at someone the wrong way is an unforgivable offense. So, people do not open themselves up and fully commit. Why commit when you cannot be yourself? And certainly, if I’m not committed and if I fear punishment for making mistakes, why work hard to try new things, to innovate?

At the societal level, I don’t expect this to change. This is human nature, and the machinery we have built around us support it. The structures and the collective illusions we have built within most businesses support it.

What you can do though if you question some of this security-at-all-costs is not stay silent.

If you’re silent, that makes the collective illusions even stronger and more likely to become norms for the next generation. If you at least say something though, you create the opportunity that other likeminded people can find you and that–maybe, just maybe–someone predisposed to avoid that threat starts to question the value of avoiding it over the value they could get from spending their time and energy elsewhere.

Within a business, that gives you the opportunity to build a culture in which people can be themselves, commit, find the mission and people they truly align with, and achieve something that every other organization foregoes in the interest of immediate “protection”.

I joined a mastermind network earlier this year and began guesting in meetings outside of my market in May. With 44 total guest appearances, that is an average of 5.5 90-minute meetings per month.

The format for these meetings varies from group to group, but one of the most consistent things is that it is a 90-minute meeting once each month rather than for example the half or full day that some groups put in.

After having guested in 44 of those groups, this is what I have learned about what it takes to both run and also be a solid contributor to a mastermind meeting.

Leading a Great Mastermind Meeting

Undoubtedly, it is more difficult to lead and build something than it is to take advantage of it after-the-fact. And, there are many more ways to do something poorly than there are to do it well. Fortunately, if you are motivated by opportunities for improvement, this is why the statement that the path to success runs through failure is so true. Hopefully, if you are a mastermind leader, you can use some of this information to make your investment return as much as possible.

Without further ado, what I believe it takes to lead a great mastermind meeting:

Respect the participants’ time.

It is difficult to start meetings or anything else on time. I get that. We’re all running from one thing to the next, and it is nice to be able to ease into things with some personal conversations, discussions about the weather, or whatever else, but most mastermind groups are made up of people that are executives and CEOs, whose time is expensive. And, they’re paying to be there, so start your meetings on time, set an agenda, and stick to it. If anything I already mentioned, like personal conversations, are valuable to your potential outcomes, make a deliberate and overt decision to have that be part of the agenda.

Prepare for the meeting.

Unlike most participants, the meeting leader has to prepare. If you’re meeting in person, you have to secure the space and likely food or beverages. If it’s virtual, you still need an agenda and featured topics, members, or guests. Sadly, no one is going to take care of these things except the meeting or group leader or someone they delegate to.

While not having food or beverages is not the worst thing in the world, not having a feature and having to ask, “Does anyone have anything they want to discuss?” is nearly always a meeting and value killer. It can occasionally result in valuable conversations, but that is far from guaranteed. And in my experience, that almost always results in a wasted meeting.

Do not go into the meeting without a planned and prepared feature member, speaker, or topic.

Establish continuity.

In addition to developing a consistent format that you stick to, one of the least common, but most valuable, things I have seen group leaders do is a checkin at the beginning and end of every meeting. Typically, this takes the form of going around the room, asking for a 1-10 score/status on your personal and business life (lives?), and then soliciting an answer to a general question like, “What is the biggest news at home or at work from the last month?”

The continuity piece comes in the ability to extend a conversation about one of these issues over multiple meetings. For example, I experienced one group speaking with a participant about what was going on in their business because their score had been low for months, but in this particular meeting, they finally raised it.

Rather than just having a topic-of-the-month and not much more than the individuals or the format that tie things together, this checkin allows for participants to extend consideration of and discussion about a topic over a longer time, which also helps with the next item.

Build community.

The best groups I have guested in had members that demonstrated that they were invested in the group, the time, and their fellow members. This exhibited itself in how open and vulnerable some of the featured members were and how frank, but clearly caring, the other participants were with their questions and recommendations.

The worst groups I have guested in had members that knew little to nothing about one another, featured members that had not prepared, and discussions that rarely got beyond the feedback that you could get from anyone on the street. Additionally, some of the worst groups typically had a majority of members that said that they wanted to be in person more, wanted greater depth of conversation, and so on. But as far as I could tell, they were not making an effort to drive to a meeting place, really focus on giving genuine help, or otherwise investing their time and effort. They might have wanted those things, but the individuals had either gotten tired of making the effort without it being reciprocated, or they simply talked the talk and never followed it up with action.

I believe that a large portion of the potential for community in a group of 10-20 people from different industries, who often have no pre-existing connections to one another, comes from the natural predispositions of the members to genuinely invest in one another and connect one on one rather than for example from some already existing community standards that the members opt into or adopt when they join. That being said, the behaviors and activities that I could see fostered a strong sense of community were:

1. The group leader investing in each new member. Getting to know them, helping them understand how to make the most of the group, and so on.
2. Members working to build relationships outside of the meetings. Setting up one on one coffees, working to understand how they could help each other, having social times such as parties or happy hours, etc.
3. Members investing their time and attention.
4. Members being open, honest, and vulnerable.

Set standards.

Years ago, my wife and I went to Thailand. At one of the temples, they would not let us in because we were both wearing shorts. The fact that we had to purchase and don pants in order to enter the temple felt like an unnecessary restriction, but by enforcing a certain dress code, officials at that temple were working to establish a specific environment that generated certain outcomes.

At any point in life, we can feel that some rules are silly or unnecessary, but in most cases, groups have rules and standards because those things facilitate achievement of the group’s goals. The same should be true of a mastermind group.

Some of the basics should be:

1. Stick to a schedule.
2. Prepare an agenda.
3. Ensure that your featured speaker or member is ready and equipped for their time.
4. Enforce a discussion format. Generally, asking questions before moving to recommendations is a good idea for example.
5. Encourage deep, genuine, and vulnerable conversation. I don’t mean vulnerable in the sense that people just talk about their weaknesses, but rather that the speakers are open and transparent in an effort to get to the best possible solutions.The encouragement part of this also involves members, or at least the leader, courageously calling out when for example someone veils a recommendation as a question during the question portion.
6. Make sure that everyone shows up on time, stays the whole time, and pays attention. Unexpected things happen, and there are times when for example someone has to leave early for something they cannot miss, but the number of times I’ve been in bad meetings due to people multi-tasking, showing up late, or showing up just to pitch their company and then leaving is astounding.

Being a Valuable Mastermind Participant

Let’s be honest. It’s not that difficult to just show up and follow some rules. It is more difficult to be completely open and honest about personal flaws, insecurities, or sensitive topics, but that is also manageable if trust can be established.

After guesting in 44 groups, this is what I believe it takes to be a good participant in a mastermind meeting:

Invest your time and attention.

It does not matter whether you’re a CEO, a hairdresser, or a stay-at-home parent. We’re all busy. We’re all short on time. Don’t disrespect your fellow participants by showing up late, not sticking around, or not paying attention. You and I have both paid to be here. Don’t waste my money and time because you don’t value yours.

I get it that–especially with a virtual meeting–you’ve got your email and Google and who-knows-what-else right there. And for in-person meetings, you have your phone and smartwatch or whatever else. But, we’re all paying to be here, and some of us are really investing a lot in you and ourselves. If you’re multi-tasking, you’re not invested. If you show up late or leave early, that detracts from the flow and the quality of conversation. And if you really aren’t invested in being helpful, I could just as easily have talked to anyone. Why pay to be a member of a group of leaders if I cannot get better advice than what I might otherwise find on the street?

Love the problem, not your solution.

I have a bad habit, a common one but still a bad one. When I think I have the answer, I so want to be right. And when I think I have the solution to your problem, I tend to forget that maybe there are important details I don’t know about. And, I probably stop asking questions that might help me better understand the issue. Unfortunately, the same is true of a lot of people.

Some of the best run mastermind meetings I have been in ask for the featured member to answer a standard set of questions in advance so that the other participants do not come in blind. They can have spent some time reviewing the topic or issue and letting it rattle around in their heads so that they come to the meeting prepared. Then at the meeting, the member is asked to give a synopsis of the issue and what they are seeking from the group. And finally, the group has two time blocks dedicated first to asking clarifying questions and second to making recommendations.

Two of the most valuable aspects of the time for clarifying questions are that this often helps break the featured member free from their existing way of thinking about the challenge, so that they might actually solve the problem themselves, and it aids in the other members getting a better understanding so that they can give advice that might actually be unique and useful.

Ask questions.

If you think you know better than someone else, if you think you have the answer, you stop asking questions and demonstrating curiosity. And most of the time if you just tell someone what to do rather than having them come up with the solution themselves, you make it much more difficult for them to take responsibility for their actions.

The reason is that, if what you recommend does not work, it’s your fault not theirs. It was your idea. And if what you recommend does work, you’ve encouraged that they seek creative solutions from others rather than believing that they can solve their own problems.

Let’s be honest. In a group that includes a CPA, a lawyer, a banker, a management consultant, a marketer, and so on, there are a lot of challenges that each person might encounter that are unique to that industry or vertical. And if you are outside of the issue, it is unlikely you will have a better solution than the person that brought the challenge to the group. That being said, you might have a new way of thinking about the situation, so rather than saying, “Try this,” or, “Do that,” consider asking, “Have you thought about…” and, “What do you mean when you say…”

Stick to the format and structure.

My goodness, people. It’s not that hard. Almost no groups that I have guested in have been able to successfully follow through on this though.

Group leader: “We spent a lot of time on introductions last meeting, so even though we have a few guests this time, let’s just do the shortest elevator pitch description of yourself you can do. Name, role, and industry. That’s it.”

Inevitably, one or two people follow the format at first, the third forgets and doesn’t follow the format, the fourth tries to get back on track, and from the fifth on it’s just abandoned altogether. So, what could have been 20 people introducing themselves in 10 minutes or less turns into a 30-minute segment in which a feel people at first said 10 words over a 30-second intro and some of them say hundreds over 5-minute soliloquy.

There is such as thing as positive constraints. These are generally defined as limitations that benefit the situation. Whether you are in a debate club, the NFL, or a court of law, an agreed upon set of rules that we all follow allows us to get more out of the engagement than we would without those constraints. The same is true in mastermind groups.

If your group–or your group leader–provide some guidance for the benefit of the group, just follow the damn rules.

Don’t sell. Help.

Whether in the meetings themselves or in one-on-one discussions, the number one reason participants ever gave me for feeling the meetings were not valuable was that other participants were too salesy. While I hesitate to judge too much because I honestly did not experience much of that, I can imagine what it would be like. And as it relates to some of these points more broadly, you as a member of a group–and your fellow members as well–simply are not going to get as much out of the time as you could if you are more focused on overt lead generation than on actually trying to help your fellow meeting participants deal with the challenges they face.

I hope this has been helpful–whether you are considering joining a mastermind, you’re a leader, or you are just a participant yourself. If I can help you with anything mastermind related, shoot me a line at eric@inboundandagile.com.

I know someone that won’t leave their house when it’s dark and their spouse isn’t in town. Another person won’t visit their family across the country because flying scares them so much. Yet, another hides all of their money IN CASH around their business and home because they’re afraid it’s not safe in a bank.

I hope you’re asking yourself now:

• How many things has that person missed by not going out after dark?
• How much time and valuable experiences with their family has that person lost out on?
• How much of that money has been stolen? What if there’s a fire? What if they forget where some of it is hidden?

I can’t help but wonder what the real value of those fears are. How does entertaining those fears make any of those people’s lives better?

Fear is a tough thing. It makes your heart race, makes your feel vulnerable and uncertain, and worse, but most of your fears are irrational, and they hold you back from experiencing, achieving, and reaching everything that you really could with your life.

Years ago, I made a small name for myself through blogging about social media and tweeting pretty much anything that I could find on Reddit. I got to the point that I was getting a fair number of job offers, as well as just a lot of praise, so what did I do? I blogged and tweeted more. It got to the point that I would be out with my friends or family and spend most of the time on my phone because I knew that, if I blogged and tweeted more, I would see more progress. Even when I’d walk from one place to another, I’d be glued to my phone.

Unfortunately, I never questioned whether it was the volume of blogging and tweeting that led to my progress or if maybe it was something else like me being a first mover or having the right personality or connections or something else. Had I questioned that, I might have seen the cost-benefit problem that was going on. While I was getting noticed and seeming to move my career along, I missed out on experiences with friends and family. I often wasn’t there when important things happened, and if I was, I was too busy on my phone to really be involved.

This is one of the things that frustrates me about “analytics” the most.

Just because you can A/B test tweeting at 8am vs 9am or emailing on Mondays vs Tuesdays doesn’t mean that the answer tells you anything useful. When we see graphs of the best times to post to Facebook, we have to ask ourselves if the time a post goes live on Facebook has anything to do with its performance. Perhaps, it’s the day of the week, the topic, the phrasing, the thumbnail image, or something else?

One of the most frustrating drivers of this seeming need to A/B test everything is the fact that it’s so easy now. With EdgeRank Checker or PageLever, I can see how my Facebook posts do. With Radian6 or any number of other monitoring tools, I can see how my brand does across the web. With Unbounce and Google Content Experiments, I can see how my landing pages perform, but A/B testing and even performance testing over time does not give us science fact. It simply gives us more questions.

If I blog and get job offers, do I get more offers when I blog more? If so, did I get more offers because I blogged more or because of the topic or time that I published or something else?

If you email your donors with a blue template and get more donations, was it the blue template or something else that cause the increase in donations?

This is not to say that you shouldn’t invest in analytics.

You should, but you should invest in analysis that means something and people that ask the right questions. Just because someone knows how to gather a million tweets on political topics doesn’t mean they can tell you anything about how the election is going to go. That is one reason that I trust people like my friends at Analytical Ones or the folks at Edison Research (the people behind the presidential election exit polls).

Analytics done right helps you make better decisions. Analytics done wrong helps you make decisions… aimless, pointless, potentially harmful decisions.

Rand posted last night about his thoughts on firing employees and how SEOmoz handles it. Having managed teams and left companies of my own choice, I found it to be an interesting read. On one hand though, talking about the financial, emotional, and team impacts of firing leaves the picture incomplete if you don’t look at how someone choosing to leave a company also affects everyone.

Companies and individuals are rarely transparent about the reasons people quit though, which I honestly find disturbing, but I think that too many employees are concerned about slander, libel, defamation, etc and are simply unsure about the legality around sharing information about why they left a company, so they keep their mouths shut.

I’ve never been averse to leaving a company – or any relationship for that matter – when I believed that it was the best thing. That being said, leaving a company at the first sign of disagreement or problems is counter-productive as well. It leaves you without the ability to deal with complex personal and professional conflicts, a track record that might make you look like a mercenary, and a lack of experience in being part of a company for a long period and everything that goes along with growing and changing with it.

Running away versus walking away

A former manager of mine once made a clear distinction between leaving a company because you need to get away and leaving a company because there’s something they can’t give you. He called it “running away versus walking away.” The difference between the two is this:

1. Your friend tells you he’s going to start looking for a new job because he’s unhappy at his current one.
2. Your friend tells you he was approached by a new company with a really interesting position, or really great pay, or something else enticing.

In the first case, there is a 90% chance that your friend will find he’s still not happy at his new company. Why? Because he didn’t go to the new company because of something about them – because he loved their mission or because it was always his dream to work there. Instead, he went there to get away from a problem. In the second case, there’s a 90% chance that your friend will find happiness because he’s not running away from something and is able to better decide what’s right for him, if the new company will give him what he needs to leave somewhere that he is already happy.

When an employee tells me they have a problem, this is a sign that I have a chance to fix things. If he doesn’t like working with me, I can attempt to change our relationship, have him report to someone else, or make some other change. If he doesn’t like working with certain coworkers, I can try to limit their contact or can facilitate repairing a damaged relationship. If he wants to leave after giving me a chance though, running from the company almost certainly ensures that she’s not going to find happiness, so I always recommend that you be as open and honest as possible with your management along the way, and if in the end there is still a problem, they should help ease you out of the company and into a better situation. Sadly, I believe that most people do not feel they can trust their management enough to be open with them and this is one reason that so many go running from rather than walking from or running toward.

I have in the past sent job openings at other companies to my own staff members when I knew they could make more money somewhere else, they would be happier there, or they would get something they needed that I/we could not provide. I have also introduced them to hiring managers and recruiters looking for their skills. Being able to be open, honest, and helpful with my teams has ensured that as few gaps as possible were left when they departed and that they found what they were looking for. Unfortunately, I have also had employees leave without me having the opportunity to fix problems and/or support them in their search, and sadly in every case, I’ve found out later that that next job they took wasn’t right either.

Guidelines for employees before quitting

• Talk to your boss or her boss if you’re not comfortable with your boss. This can make you feel very vulnerable. I know. I’ve been through. “What happens if he tells my boss? Are they going to talk? Can I trust him? If I tell him I hate working for my boss, they’ll probably just get rid of me, right?” Honestly in most companies, firing a good employee that just has a few problems is greatly frowned upon. Not only is it bad for the manager’s and company’s reputations, it’s also terrible for morale. Managers know this, and if you tell them that you have a legitimate problem, they will do their best to address it.
• Make sure you’re safe if the worst happens. It’s rare, but it does happen that you’re open and you get fired, so before you speak to someone that you’re not sure you can trust, make sure you have your finances in order and know what you would do for work if you were to suddenly lose your job. This could be reaching out to contacts and saying that you’re looking to consult, getting your resume out to prospective employers, or simply checking that your bank account has 6 months of expenses to get you through a period of unemployment.
• Put in the time to fix the problems. It’s not enough to talk to someone. You have to work on yourself to make things better. I remember listening to an audiobook a while back in which the author stated that only 6% of relationships that become condescending ever get turned back around, and while you can think that’s a sign that it’s not worth working through problems, I interpret it as the exact opposite. I think that only 6% of condescending relationships get better because one or both parties don’t work on themselves to find the solution.
• Look elsewhere in your company for opportunities. If you’re part of a big enough company, it’s very likely that you can more from one department to another to get the pay you want, no longer report to a bad manager, or otherwise get what you need.
• Don’t be a dick when you quit. Having been on both sides of the quitting desk, I can tell you how much it sucks for the manager, the employee, and the other team members when someone quits without giving the company a chance to address the problems. Don’t tell your manager on the day you give notice, “I’m leaving because I hate that you do X, Y, and Z.” She can’t fix anything at that point. Be as open as possible, but don’t damage relationships anymore than they might already be. If you have to bite your tongue, just tell her that it’s time for you to move on or that you have an opportunity you can’t pass up.
• Keep your formal resignation simple. HR people and experienced managers know that, much like when you deal with the cops, anything you say, write, or otherwise communicate when quitting can be used against you in the future, so don’t put that you’re leaving the company because of disagreements with management if you never talked to them about the problems because they might decide to share that little tidbit of information with a potential future employer that calls to check your work history. Of course, most companies are concerned about potential defamation issues and so shy away from this, but some aren’t, and you don’t want to be their victim.

Just as Rand says that SEOmoz’s firing process is amazingly hard, giving your company and boss a chance to rectify things, while as well working on your own responsibility and reactions in these situations, is also extremely hard, but being both an employee and a manager, I’ve found that you get so much more out of working with people to find solutions than you do out of avoiding or otherwise not addressing problems.

I wasn’t familiar The Lean Startup movement until this year, which is one reason that I didn’t push back when I once joined a company (this was before the book but after the movement had a name), and my boss told me that they didn’t want to buy me a laptop because they were “trying to do the whole Lean Startup thing.” Come to find out later that my boss wasn’t really familiar with the Lean Startup concepts either and just assumed that it meant that you should be a cheap ass.

This is the first problem with being a Lean Startup. People think that just because they understand the words in the name of the approach or idea that they understand the concept. I’ve encountered the same issue with things like The Tipping Point or Blink.

Just because you understand the words in a name does not mean that you understand the concept itself.

This is how to build a broken Lean Startup machine.

1. Don’t even bother to read the book, and assume you know the principles held within. It is 2012 after all. The book came out in 2011, so you don’t even, like I did, have to google it and read a bunch of disparate articles to figure out what it’s all about. You can get all of the information in one handy package.
2. Insist on rapid prototyping without customer feedback.
3. Ensure top-down management and decision-making.
4. Force everything to move fast… even things that take longer to develop like content or a brand.
5. Forget about testing.

It blows my mind – it really does – that people waste money and time jumping from movement to movement without ever fully embracing and learning the concepts behind them, but then, this shouldn’t be all that shocking. A retiring consultant friend of mine once told me:

If you’re at an organization that has gone through restructuring or changes in mission or vision every few years, just look at the bookshelves of the executives. You’ll notice that rudderless companies make a major change to their business every time an influential book comes out and a new movement starts.

And, I couldn’t agree more. The frustrating thing is when changing priorities are coupled with incompetence and misunderstanding. That reduces morale and turns your employees into disheartened, dispassionate workers.

This is how to build a working Lean Startup process.

Be smart. Be nimble. Give the people on the ground, doing the work, the power. Invite your customers in. A/B test smartly with a plan, and make it possible to turn on A/B tests only for a segment of your customers. Most importantly, let go of the reigns.

Whether it’s being a Lean Startup, adopting something older like Just In Time or whatever else comes next, the thing that will torpedo your business more often than not in a time period when every employee has access to social media and is approached by customers wanting help is not letting them act on your behalf and live out their passion through your brand, but rather dictating to them how things should always be done.

One of the most consistent misconceptions non-marketers have about marketing, whether in-house or through an agency, is that us marketers can “do marketing” for free. I’ve had non-marketing managers tell me, “We need to cut the marketing budget and still hit our numbers.” I’ve also had clients ask, “What can we do for free?”

“We’ve never spent a dollar on marketing.”

It seems like every time you see a successful startup founder talking about Pandora, or Pinterest, or Hit-Startup-X, they say, “We’ve never spent a dollar on marketing, and we’ve grown our business successfully.”

Yet, they have a CMO, VP of Marketing, marketing associates, an email tool, and more, don’t they? Don’t they?

But unfortunately, too many people listen to the startup folks say these things and think that marketing should be free. After all, viral is free, isn’t it? Email is free, isn’t it? Landing pages, SEO, community management, and more are free, aren’t they?

No. No, marketing is not free.

Of all the things that I’ve ever done in marketing, nothing that was successful was ever free… not even close. I ran one email program for a client that generated enough revenue in two emails to cover their entire annual marketing budget, but that involved writers, designers, coders, and more. Another client spent tens of thousands of dollars every month just on analytics around their market and competitors in an effort to provide the best customer service in the industry, and guess what, they’re considered to one of the best as a result.

The best marketing involves an investment just like the best product development, manufacturing, sales, and more all involve an investment. Just hiring people and telling them to make due without any budget isn’t going to get you very far. You’d be better served by not hiring a marketer at all and spending the money on simply creating a product that begs to be talked about, that begs to be loved, and has to be shared with friends and family.

For that matter, why not just make a great product in the first place?

The best marketing is a great product, and when you have a great product, it makes not spending money on advertising, tools, writers, and more so much easier. Your marketing person can at least get by with doing their own outreach, creating their own landing pages, guest blogging, and more all with their own time and no additional expense. Even though all of that is extremely time consuming, your great product at least allows their “free” efforts to have some legs.

But, if you can’t ensure that your product is great in the first place, telling your in-house people or your agency that they need to cut their budget and still hit performance goals is just plain crazy.

I’ve left jobs I loved and jobs I hated. Leaving both types sucks, but leaving a job I love makes me feel sick. I remember coming to the decision that it was time to leave a great job for a new opportunity and really feeling pained. It got even worse when I told my boss.

The questions and self doubt:

• Am I making the right decision?
• Did I just burn my bridges?
• What happens if I’m wrong?

It’s terrible. It really is.

Being on the other side is really weird too though. I’ve had people that work for me quit and nearly quit for heaps of reasons:

1. A better opportunity came up.
2. They weren’t happy about something with their current job.
3. Something in their life changed and they couldn’t keep their job anymore.

Sometimes, you can keep people from leaving.

But, why do it? In the case that your employee found a better opportunity, it’s good for both parties to wish them well and end your working relationship on a good note. Sure, it’s flattering to them if you try to keep them, but if they decide to stay and then realize that they made a mistake, you’ve got a problem.

If your employee isn’t happy about something with their job and they gotten to the point they’re willing to quit, this shows at least one of two things and possibly both.

1. Whatever it is is so bad that you won’t be able to satisfactorily change it.
2. Your employee waited so long to bring it to your attention (or at least bring the dire nature of it) that this might show you that you don’t have a relationship where they’re willing or able to speak openly with you.

In either case, it doesn’t matter whether it’s compensation, management style, cultural fit, growth opportunities, or anything else. Your employee has chosen to leave in order to get away from something rather than to get closer to something, and trying to keep them is no guarantee that things will change no matter how hard you try.

In the third case, there are few instances when you can keep an employee that chooses to leave their job due to a life change, and the only legitimate one that I’ve ever encountered is an employee relocating for their spouse. That one was easy, “We’d love to keep you if you’re okay with working remotely.” “Yeah, that’d be great.” “Awesome. Consider it done.”

In all other cases I’ve encountered though, how can you keep a mother that wants to be homes with her children, a son that wants to take care of a sick family member, and so on from doing so without feeling bad and potentially engendering some ill will? You can’t.

My preference is to avoid the conversation altogether.

If you think your employee is considering leaving, talk to them about it. This is the time to find out if you need to let someone go or make changes to keep them. It’s too late when they’re the one to approach you.

If you’re the one leaving, talk to your boss early. Telling them about problems that you have with them, the company, or your position on the same day you say that you’re quitting is really crappy. You don’t give them any opportunity to change. If you’ve made the decision to go, make it clear to them that, while you would love to stay, your decision is for the best, and you’d like to be clear. You’re leaving.

Not being open and honest early can burn bridges and cause a lot of bad decisions down the road. Once your or your employee have made a decision to leave though, the decision has been made. There’s almost no talking to be done. Just make the parting as easy as possible.