Sincerity and Strategy: How Online Dating Relates to Entrepreneurship

Just as I wrote my dating profile in a way that allowed me to blame the guys, many business owners choose to operate in a way that allows them to blame potential customers. For instance, do you ever find yourself saying:

“They just don’t understand the value of what I do.”
“If they can’t handle my honesty, I don’t want their business.”
“No one is looking for what I create.”

If so, it is time to take another look at your strategy. Because when you choose sincerity without strategy, you set yourself up to lose.

It is easy to say these things instead of taking a new look at how you communicate with prospective customers. In fact, I’d put my money on the root issue being your fear of true success. It’s not that you are trying to lose (who does that?), it’s that you’re fearful of succeeding. Because big success means:

You’d have to serve the big client. You’d have to write the book. You’d have to create a life-changing program.

You’d have to put it all on the line despite the uncertainty of the outcome.

Sounds pretty much like dating to me…

How to Integrate Sincerity and Strategy in Business

Strategy and sincerity are not mutually exclusive. The question is: Does allowing sincere communication to fit within a strategic framework make it less true?

I believe it does not.

On the contrary, allowing strategy to be your framework for relating sincerity means you have a much better chance of actually communicating in a way that allows your customers to see the whole picture, understand how your business can serve them, and make a true impact in their lives. Best practices, tried and true techniques, and definitive strategy work because they shed light on what we share as human beings.

When you inject your own personal truth into the framework of strategy, your truth comes in contact with our most profound sources of connection. You can do the good you are meant to do through your business because you give your potential customers the best chance of being attracted to what your business has to offer.

Like so many aspects of business today, it’s both/and, not either/or. Choosing to engage both sincerity and strategy is a winning combination.

But, entrepreneurs beware, if you start combining sincerity and strategy, you might actually have to go on a few dates.

Connect with Tara on Twitter.

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Photo: Blanco