Planting

March 27, 2011 By

Strawberry flower in my garden!

Today was a good day for planting.

(Ahem! True-life metaphor alert!)

It’s cool and overcast, but not raining. ANd it rained recently so the dirt is nice and soft, which makes weeding super-easy and digging holes a cinch.

I have a bunch of seedlings purchased from the Cal Poly Farm Store, sitting in their tiny plastic pots, waiting to be transplanted into the garden (or in some cases, simply into bigger pots).

I bought them a week ago, and their roots are probably getting more crowded by the hour. Several of them, like the strawberry pictured here, are already flowering!

So it’s time to plant.

Which means clearing some weeds.

Which means finding my gardening gloves.

And the trowel.

And digging some good compost from the bottom of the pile, which means finding a shovel and a wheelbarrow and, wait, side-project alert, let’s just skip the compost for today.

(Breaking projects down into tasks is something I’m slowly, slowly getting better at, as is not letting the projects spawn side-projects — but this is an ongoing process, and the side-projects need a safe holding pen in the meantime…)

So here’s what’s waiting to be transplanted:

I've discovered the oregano labeled "Greek" is more flavorful than that labeled "Italian."

  • Eight tomato plants (mostly weird heirloom varieties)
  • Three pepper plants (two poblano and one bell)
  • Six sugar snap pea vines
  • Three yellow crookneck squash plants
  • Eight Eversweet strawberry plants
  • Four herbs (no, not parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme — we’ve already got rosemary and sage growing like crazy. The new ones are curly parsley, Greek oregano, cilantro and thyme)

And that’s simply too much to plant today. Too daunting. Would take too long. Impossible.

(Just like my normal everyday freakout over my to-do list, which is always too long for any mere mortal to accomplish…)

So it was extremely tempting to just not start.

It’s a familiar pattern: Simply engage in extreme short-term thinking and avoid the project (*cough* blog post *cough*) for one more day. Also I was secretly hoping it would start to rain so I would get all the virtue of “planning to plant” but not actually have to do the muddy work of it.

But the skies didn’t cooperate — it continued to be absolutely perfect planting weather.

So out I went.

Normally I detest weeding. But with the ground so soft and moist, I was able to get whole clumps of big bad weeds, roots and all — which was deeply satisfying. The sense of triumph each time I ripped up a long snaky root is something I completely didn’t expect.

(Just like when I get some amazingly cool caller during my Thursday Open Office Hour, or one of my WordPress Swimming Lessons graduates tells me about how much fun they’re having with their site, or someone retweets me on Twitter…)

So, in what seemed like an astonishingly short time (always a clue that there has been some serious State of Flow going on), I had cleared enough room for the squash plants and the pea vines. Amazing!

Two of the strawberries went into a wide, shallow pot. With a mental note that I might want some more pots like this.

And the oregano and thyme went into box planters that didn’t need much preparation.

Newly transplanted squash seedlings, with their bed of pine-needle mulch and their drip irrigation line

Newly transplanted squash seedlings, with their bed of pine-needle mulch and their drip irrigation line

So I’ve still got the tomatoes and the peppers (not even counting the Fresno peppers that I haven’t even bought yet) and the cilantro and the parsley to transplant, and the basil seeds and green bean seeds to start, and what else haven’t I thought of?

(Just like when I endlessly remind myself that there’s still more to do…always more to do…the to-do list stretches to infinity…)

And also, I have peas and squash and strawberries now stretching their roots into good soil.

And also, I have the recent memory of the intense satisfaction of getting rid of weeds.

And also, the work that I did long ago to run drip irrigation lines to all the garden areas is still paying off, right now, every time the new plants get watered. (Thanks, past me, for knowing it would be worth it!)

And the compost, whenever I get around to digging it up, is going to be super-good for all my little plantlings.

(Just like all the interactions and conversations and ruminations that have happened for me in the past few years of entrepreneuring — they are feeding everything that’s happening now, and all the things I’m choosing to do next…)

What are you planting?

(Metaphorically or, you know, with actual leaves and roots and stuff — both kinds count!)

Filed Under: Small-Business Tree

I could get used to this

April 26, 2010 By

A good piece of business advice, that I’ve heard from several places and I can’t remember which was first, is to start hanging out with people at the level you want to reach. So instead of just frequenting the new-to-business forums and meetups and clubs, start reading and emailing the people you admire and want to emulate.

I’ve found this to be enormously helpful. I’ve also made good friends this way. And I recently had a real-life metaphorical experience that backs it up…in a backwards kind of way. Well, maybe. Bear with me while I tell a little story…

Necessity is the mother of experimentation

I needed a pickup truck.

Just for a day or two. See, one of the 4,032 things on my list of stuff to do before I head off to SOBCon was to pick up some furniture my brother was getting rid of. His old couch is going into my office, and his old loveseat is going into Genius Daughter’s room.

This furniture influx also required a corresponding outflux: We gave away our old couch, a dresser, and a rocking chair to a friend who’d recently moved into the area from across the country. Everybody wins!

So I called up my local car-rental place and reserved myself a Dodge Ram 1500.

The rigidity of self-description

To understand how ludicrous this seemed to me at first, you have to consider that I am really not a pickup-truck kind of person. In fact, I am annoyingly smug about my small, nimble, fuel-efficient, low-emission Honda Fit (her name is Bridget. As in Bridget Fonda the Honda. Ask nicely and I’ll tell you about my previous cars’ names…). It costs me about $30 to fill her tank, she can fit into squeezy parking spaces, and I don’t really care where she was made as long as she’s safe and reliable. Which she certainly has been so far.

So this beast of a truck is the opposite of my regular car in many ways. I didn’t go so far as to name him, as we were only acquainted for 48 hours, but he was definitely male. Climbing up into the driver’s seat was like scaling a ladder. He felt like he was twice as long as my little Bridget, and he was quite a bit wider as well (there was room for an entire pizza box on the seat between the driver and passenger! Astonishing!).

I was actually a bit concerned about driving something so large — would I underestimate my size and end up smashing into things? Would I be able to parallel park? What if I made some novice-pickup-driver error and, I don’t know, killed someone??

But I had to scramble up into that sky-high driver’s seat in order to get the furniture delivered. So, after adjusting the mirrors, reminding myself not to grope for the clutch whenever I slowed down (because this was an automatic transmission and I’m used to my stick-shift), and making sure I didn’t accidentally turn on the windshield wipers whenever I wanted to flick the turn signal, I shifted into D and we were off, my rental Dodge and I.

And you know what? I was fine.

I mean, at some level, driving is driving. And although I quintuple-checked before changing lanes, and I proceeded pretty gingerly when edging into a parking space or backing up, my supposedly non-pickup-person self managed to drive around in one for two days without any problems whatsoever.

A hatchback blog trying on a pickup-sized business

So naturally I was blown away by the metaphor I was living.

Here I was, actually enjoying being at the wheel of a behemoth I’d probably never consider buying (my 5-year-old son asked, with wide eyes, “Mom, is this a monster truck?” and wanted to ride with me all weekend). This was a vehicle that would not even fit into my garage.

Here I was, eye-to-eye with all the SUV- and pickup-driving environment-destroyers I’d previously zipped around in my earth-friendly hatchback. I was having fun looking down on all the little cars from my my gas-guzzling Ram.

I could get used to this, I thought.

This new perspective. This power. This having-room-to-carry-almost-anything. Yep, I could see myself someday owning, maybe not this particular truck, but maybe a midsized, good-safety-rating SUV. Huh. How about that.

And I thought, is my business acting like a low-horsepower hatchback when it wants to be a monster truck? Or even the reverse — what if my blog is trying to be a Hummer when really it’s got the heart of a Smart Car?

What if I tried something new on for awhile, like renting a car that you’re considering buying? What if I hung out with the pickup-driving crowd for a bit, or got friendly with my local Smart Car dealer, just to see what it was like?

What if?

Filed Under: Small-Business Tree Tagged With: , , , ,

Moments of zing! Or, what I’ve been learning about Right People

December 15, 2009 By

I read Havi’s post on Re-explaining the Right People concept today, and feel inspired to tell my how-I-found-Havi story here because it is my best (living, organic) self-reminder of the whole idea of Right People. It was my moment of zing! that gave me a visceral (in a good way!) right-people experience that I draw on to this day.

Back when I was a wimp…

Non-Icky Self-Promotion for People who Hate Self-PromotionAbout 15 months ago I read an item in Pam Slim’s blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation, recommending Havi and Naomi’s course, Non-Icky Self-Promotion for People Who Hate Self-Promotion (otherwise fondly known as Self-Promotion for Wimps). The course has been over for more than a year, and you can now finally get it as a home-study package, by the way. (Yep, those are totally affiliate links. I’m sure you can find the page another way if you’d rather not use them.)

I had never heard of either Havi or Naomi before. But on Pam’s recommendation, I clicked through to the sales page.

And I was suddenly in a new world. I had never, ever, ever read a sales page like this. In fact, it didn’t feel like a sales page at all. I felt safe. I felt respected and appreciated and invited.

I knew instantly, bone-deep and with total clarity, that I had to be in this course, because I wanted to meet these people who could write such an amazing sales page. I wanted to learn how it was possible to create sales pages like that, because I wanted my future customers to have the same moment of zing! when they read my sales pages.

There was no internal “should I or shouldn’t I?” There was no worrying about “will it be worth it?” I never felt like I was being persuaded or convinced (let alone manipulated). As I read, I became sure that a course this wonderful would be way out of my price range, so when I got to the price, I was amazed that it was so affordable. It was truly a no-brainer to sign up.

Yes, I believed there would be some practical benefit to the course, but honestly my biggest desire was simply to hang out with Havi and Naomi (which was why I knew I had to buy the VIP option). And I’ve been doing it ever since.

In search of The Perfect Sales Page

I’ve thought a lot about marketing tactics and sales pages and my experience interacting with them (both as a consumer and as a marketer) since I took that course.

For a long time I believed that Havi and Naomi had some special and mysterious marketing smarts and writing skills and pricing methodologies that allowed them to create sales pages that were better than anyone else’s. And I wanted to learn that stuff.

Now, not to knock their marketing/copywriting/pricing smarts at all, because I have learned tons about all three of those things from hanging out with them, but it’s only in the last few months that I’ve truly understood that that sales page wasn’t The One and Only Unquestioned Perfect Paragon of All Sales Pages that I should model Forevermore Without Question.

There is no perfect sales page (when “perfect” means perfect for everyone). Like there is no perfect product or website or business. There are only varying degrees of matching up, or resonating if you prefer, of rightness, between buyer and seller.

That sales page resonated with me. It was perfect…for me. I was a right person for that class, because I was (still am) a right person for Havi and Naomi. There were plenty of other right people for that class. And there were some people who would have read that sales page and had no reaction at all.

I’m OK, and I guess you’re not crazy either

This was brought home to me a couple of months ago on a forum where I’m a member. Someone asked for feedback on a sales page, and another member recommended that the asker check out Havi’s sales pages, and the asker replied saying that Havi’s sales pages had always left him kind of flat. He wasn’t dissing her or her products, or in any way being a jerk, just saying that he didn’t have much of a response to the sales pages.

And my initial (in my head) reaction was are you crazy? How can you not have a response to the most perfect sales pages in the universe? Which was like a big hello?!? moment because of course the guy wasn’t crazy. He’s got marketing smarts, copywriting skills, and stuff to say (I like him and read his blog). He’s just not resonating on the same frequency as Havi. His ideal sales page is another style.

So I’m getting increasing clarity around the idea that smart people can disagree about the effectiveness of marketing, websites, sales pages, etc. and it doesn’t mean that some of them have to be wrong.

Does the concept of Right People imply that there are Wrong People?

My answer is no. I’ve been using the term Right People for, oh, several months at least, maybe a year, and although I might have talked about people being “not as right” or “not quite right” or even “not my right people,” I don’t think it’s ever occurred to me to use the label “wrong people.”

When I think about people being “not so right” for me or my business, it’s not with an intention of exclusion…it’s more like a willingness to let go.

I don’t shove them away. They self-select.

And we both win. I firmly believe that.

It’s not a loss to me for the person to not come into my orbit (or for them to wander by and then leave). And it doesn’t hurt or reject them to not come into my orbit.

So it can only benefit me, and my Right People, to work on tuning my own frequency so that my right people can hear it really clearly. And my doing so doesn’t hurt the people who can’t hear it (or who would simply rather not).

So I’ll be here, tapping and tuning and tweaking, and sharing what I learn along the way. Have a listen. See if it sounds good to you. Either way, it’s all good.

Wendy Cholbi

Filed Under: Small-Business Tree Tagged With: , , , , ,

Small-Business Tree seasons of growth and change

March 27, 2009 By

Here’s a quote straight from the mailbag that is so so so perfect I had to ruminate about it in public here on the blog.

I don’t know if your other clients do this – but I find myself wanting to jump in right away and build my website so I have it.  But there is another part of me wanting to go slow and be patient and build my biz from the inside out.  I’m still finding my voice and trying to describe what I do in coherent terms.  It’s a process, eh?

Ohmygosh yes, is it ever a whangdoodle of a process. It can totally tie you in knots, and then it can straighten out and feel completely blissful. And then another knot trips you up.

There is so much I want to say about this. So I’ll start with the simplest thing:

Organic growth is not a linear process.

Sure, parts of it unfold in a linear-looking fashion. A tree grows bigger year after year, new growth appears on the end of existing branches, gardening books can tell you approximately how many years it will take for a certain species of tree to reach a given height. But the whole organism? From seed to tippy-top leaves? It’s just not linear growth.

(C’mon, you knew I was going to mention a tree at some point, right? It’s Friday, which is Small-Business Tree day here on the blog, and the SBT is the guiding metaphor for pretty much everything we do. So prepare for some major tree-hugging metaphor talk!)

In fact, there are two kinds of non-linear growth that are in play here.

  1. Organic growth is exponential. One cell divides into two, which divide into four, which divide into eight, and so on. A tree branch grows multiple new twigs, each of which then sprout multiple leaves. So for awhile you have what looks like nice slow steady predictable growth, or maybe barely discernable growth, and then, all of a sudden, watch out because you’re headed to the stratosphere.
  2. Organic growth is seasonal. In spring, there’s a burst of new growth. In summer, there’s slower, more steady growth — and also the production of flowers and fruit. In fall, growth slows dramatically and actually shuts down in the branches as the tree prepares for winter. Leaves fall, and in winter, the tree appears dead on the outside. Inside, there are still healthy live cells, and the roots might even be growing deeper into the ground, but most of the tree is dormant. Until spring switches those cells back to “on” and the cycle begins anew.

The constant play between these two types of non-linear growth is what makes things seem wacky at times. A seed (idea for a business) can take a long time to germinate into something you might want to actually do. You think, plan, wonder, and ruminate. Maybe it’s winter in your head and heart, and you’re hunkering down, gathering strength for what comes next. And this winter can last a long time.

And when spring comes, oh goodness watch out. It’s exponential-growth time. Those seed cells are dividing so fast you can’t keep track. New ideas pop into your head at a staggering rate. You suddenly feel like you can conquer the business world on hope alone. It’s intoxicatingly amazing.

And if you follow that energy, if you allow that rush of spring sap to rise straight from your life-giving roots and nourish your branches and leaves, if you take action to build your business, you get the bounteous reward of summer. Your ideas come to fruition. You put systems in place to support your business. Maybe you even outsource some tasks. The exponential growth slows down to a manageable pace.

And then the launch is over, or the new product is on shelves, or the new website is up, and so much energy has gone out into the world that there’s a totally normal and natural contraction process that happens. It can almost seem like an exponential slow-down in growth.

It’s time to review what worked and what didn’t. Time to take a breath. Time to let some marketing-leaves fall and draw energy back to the roots. This is autumn, and it’s what separates the short-lived plants from the trees. Businesses with strong roots and systems in place will survive until the next idea-spring, the next product launch, the next growth spurt. Businesses that grew like weeds — wildly but unsustainably — simply drop their seeds and die.

And then the strong business trees can begin the hunkering-down winter process again, to build strength and sap for the next juicy springtime burst of inspiration.

(The whangdoodle really gets crazy when you consider the possibility that different parts of your business might be in different seasons — one product might be launching, five more are barely germinated, and one’s done and feels dated. I’m not saying you have to be on top of all of that — just bring your awareness gently to the different parts of yourself, and your business, that might be pulling in and putting out different amounts of energy.)

It’s so important that I’ll say it again:

Organic growth is not a linear process.

Spring has always been my favorite time of year. Here in Southern California we’re already planting gardens and installing irrigation lines (apologies to those of you elsewhere who are still getting snowed on). I’ve already planted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, green beans, and some herbs. Leaves and blossoms are popping out all over, and the trees that were so bare all winter are covered with a fuzz of that gorgeous shade of new-leaf green (OK, sorry, that was rubbing it in a little. You can get back at me when you’re having a nice temperate summer and I’m baking in 115-degree heat this August. Promise!).

Spring is powerfully great, and it can also be turbulent and chaotic and confusing. And I firmly believe that we humans are influenced by seasonal rhythms. We really do get bursts of energy in the spring, and we really do retreat energetically from the world in fall. Some people more than others, some years more than others. But the fact that it’s spring right now means there’s an absolutely natural tendency to get moving, to grow, to take outward-facing action.

That’s the part of my reader that wants to “jump in and build my website so I have it.” And I say go for it! Follow that energy! If it’s exciting to think about, take some action!

But don’t just steamroll over that other part, the part that wants to “go slow and be patient and build my biz from the inside out.” Honor it and sit with it. After all, building the website (or taking whatever inspired action step you’re contemplating) is only a small part of The Big Picture that is building your business from the inside out. And that even building the website is not a one-shot action; the website will be a work-in-progress that reflects the organic growth of your Small-Business Tree.

Those first sprouts may look tiny and vulnerable, but they’re already exponentially bigger than the tiny seed that started them. Your first web page won’t be your last.

So, yeah, I’m saying that you can do both. Follow your energy and have a sustainable growth plan. Stay heart-centered and put energy out into the world. Tune into your seasonal rhythms, learn to recognize and nourish your internal growth spurts, and give yourself credit and breathing room when it’s time to slow down.

Oh, and that part about “I’m still finding my voice and trying to describe what I do in coherent terms”? I’m doing that right here in this very blog post! So welcome to the tree-hugger club; we always have room for more!

Filed Under: Small-Business Tree Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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