Small Business Storytelling: Hat Stories
As small business owners there is one thing we can all agree on – we wear a heck of a lot of hats! All of them bear different titles and come loaded with responsibilities – and most of them we learned to wear while we were growing our businesses. No advanced degrees prepared us for what we were actually getting into. We put these hats on the hard way: On-the-job training.
Have you ever thought that those different hats you wear are the perfect sources for some of your best storytelling? Think of it. Try this list of hats on for size – see if any of them are familiar:
- CEO
- Production Supervisor
- Human Resources Everything
- Accountant/Bookkeeper
- Tax Specialist
- Customer Service Manager
- Sales Executive
- Marketing Executive
- Administrative Assistant
- Shipping Supervisor
- Technical Support
- Social Media Expert
- Maintenance Guru
- Janitorial Services Savior
- Lost & Found Department: Where brains masquerading as marbles go
Of course, there are probably several hats missing from this list – so you just go ahead and fill those in.
Now take a moment to look over your list. Don’t each of those hats bring up memories of moments you learned something about your business – something good, hard, funny as hell, or something you secretly filed under “Nobody’s Gonna Believe This”?
All of these moments are your personal, inspiring, motivational, delightful hat stories! All of them.
Tell your small business adventure stories by sharing your experiences learning the ropes of each “Hat” – your tips and tricks for survival, how you learned to turn an unexpected “oops” into a great customer service experience or how you managed to work production and shipping magic when you were out of a specific item but had committed to fulfilling a wholesale order in 24 hours.
Tell us about those on-the-job problem solving skills, tips and tricks, those unexpected lessons you learned the hard way, the amusing way, or the hand-smacking-forehead way. Tell us about learning to do payroll for the first time versus how you handle it now, or how you were introduced to the nightmare that is calculating sales tax for multiple states without losing your mind. Tell us when you first knew you were comfortable hiring additional staff and what interview tips you can share that will help others hire the best people for their growing company as well.
Tell us about the first time you worked 17 hours – 7 days in a row and how you kept yourself sane doing it.
Share the business experience you didn’t learn in a textbook. Share the stuff that didn’t work and how you found what does.
Tell us about the moments you wore your Tech Support Hat while you built your first website with zero coding skills, a Dummies guide and a new appreciation for certain words you didn’t learn from your mother. What saved your brain from imploding? What made you laugh at yourself…out loud? Remember that first fist pump of glee when you got something right? Go on, tell us what you learned from DIY-ing stuff to save money – and how many bottles of Advil you wrote off as a business expense.
Tell us those stories. The ones about you learning and growing and building your business. Tell us if those hats were snug across the forehead when you first tried them on and how they are fitting more comfortably today. Tell us how all the good things take time and patience and the ability to laugh at yourself.
Tell us how you did it. All of it. Tell us about the light at the end of every tunnel. Let us learn how to wear our hats like you – with confidence and humor and above all, a can-do-will-do mentality.
Your business is your Big Adventure Story. All of these “moments” in your career are the ones that not only your customers and prospects will appreciate but other small business owners and entrepreneurs want to learn from. Don’t stick those stories in a drawer and only bring them out at dinner parties to amuse friends and family. You have a much wider audience dying to hear what has made you a bigger, bolder person because you followed your heart.
What hat are you wearing today? Can we try it on?
