Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

A Broken Wrist, a Bunch of Kettles, and a Marketing Lesson
I'm doing double duty right now. My wife is recovering from a broken wrist, so I'm serving as an extra hand for her.

One of the things I'm doing more of lately is cooking.

Now, I don't consider myself a dunce in the kitchen. I did all my own cooking before we were married and did pretty well for myself. I even take pride in the fact that on the rare occasions when I cooked a meal for our family, some of my old recipes found a place among our kids' favorite meals.

I've cooked very little over the years, though, because my wife loves to do the vast majority of the cooking and -- admittedly -- her skills far outshine mine. She is a genius in the kitchen. I'm just pretty good.

Well, with her limited to cooking with one hand, I've filled the breach. It's been a learning experience that goes beyond just cooking. I've even gotten a few good reminders from it about Internet marketing, too.

Usually, when I've filled in on a random meal, I've gone out and gotten the ingredients I was used to cooking with. What with me cooking on a regular basis, I've gone with the ingredients our kitchen is set up with -- in other words, I've gone with her ingredients.

As a result, I've thrown my usual requirement out the window that she stay out of the kitchen while I cook. She's a genius in the kitchen, but she's also very precise in her way of doing things.

In the past, I've asked her to leave the kitchen to me in order to avoid the following types of, ahem, discussions:

(Jeff grabs cover for the kettle)

Joanne: (grabs an absolutely identical cover) No, here. Use this one. I always use this cover with that kettle.

Jeff: What's the difference? They both look the same.

Joanne: This cover goes with this kettle. Your cover goes with the other one.

Jeff: How can you even tell the difference?

Joanne: This is the right one to use.

After about four corrections of what cover to use, what knife to use, and what part of the cheese grater to grate the cheese with, I've usually reminded her that I was cooking to give her a break from the kitchen and encouraged her to go off and relax while I fixed MY recipe the way I always had fixed it in the past.

Or at least I tried to word it in that kind of gentle manner.

But with me cooking her recipes, I've let her teach me her way of doing everything.

I've experienced a certain amount of discomfort with learning a whole new set of cooking practices. But it keeps her feeling involved in the kitchen, which is a good thing for her morale right now.

And it has reminded me of an important truth about marketing.

You don't always have the luxury of doing everything exactly the way you've always done it. Just as I have had to learn new techniques to satisfy Joanne's precise way of doing things, I find lots of times in business where I have to try something totally different in order to get the results I need.

The discomfort that comes from learning something new is not a bad thing to be avoided.

It's called growth.

And when you do it, you become better able to tackle new challenges and achieve new heights.

I'll come out of this regular cooking duty under her guidance as a better cook with a broader range of experience. And when I tackle a new and unfamiliar challenge in marketing, I come out stronger and more seasoned.

You just have to be willing to try something new.
Jeff

Labels: mindset, start business