Yesterday I exhibited at a local business expo and shared booth space with a client of mine who has a similar target market. It made lots of sense and we were glad we were sharing when we realized how poorly the show was attended by members of our target market. Anyway…my client emailed me to see what we could use to decorate the booth that used colors from my brand. She had flowers in her colors and we needed something in Mann Made Time‘s orange and blue.
I decided to get a goldfish and put him in a bowl with some blue gravel. I named him ‘Biz’.
At first I thought about all the great little taglines I could use in front of Biz’s bowl:
Too busy to keep your goldfish alive? Time to partner with a VA!
Feel like a fish out of water when it comes to Internet Marketing?
Are you using the right bait to catch the clients you want?
And so on and so forth. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Biz was bigger than all that!
Biz is a small little goldfish and as long as I keep him in a small glass bowl he will remain small. But, if I were to move him to a large tank he would grow much bigger. If I put him in a pond he would grow bigger still. The potential in this little fish can only be realized when he’s put in different surroundings. If he swam around this small glass bowl for the rest of his life, he would probably never know what’s possible for him.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
How big is your bowl?
Partner with a virtual assistant to help you expand into new markets, take your business online or to free up your time so you can develop new ideas.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Thanks for this analogy Jamie!! This is so true about goldfish and business too! We had a small goldfish in a bowl in the house and two summers ago we moved him outside into the pond. We now call him “Whale”. He was able to feed off the outside world and grow and thrive. Same thing as a business, if you feed it and give it room to expand, it can grow as big as whale.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Boy, this can run in all different directions. I wrote a post for you at my blog, Virtually @ EightTwenty-two with a few different thoughts and challenges!
October 30th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
That is a wonderful analogy Jamie! So many of us truly do limit our own growth by limiting our environment.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:40 am
This is a terrific analogy, Jaime.
Interesting, as well, that you were actually in the ‘wrong place’ to grow your own business when the idea of expanding Biz’s horizons came to you. Excellent!