I'm a unicorn!

Yesterday, I attended a breakfast meeting of an organization for small business owners to help each other by exchanging business leads. It’s a great idea and I’m thinking about joining.

My hesitation is that it meets at 7am. I’m a web developer that fits that stereotype, so I don’t do mornings. I actually had to take a nap yesterday afternoon. In the balance between business and lifestyle, I just don’t know. My wallet says yes and my body says no. I’ll let you know what I decide.

Two interesting things happened during the meeting. We did an exercise where we had to stand up and tell everyone what animal we were and how that related to our business. Sheesh. I hate that exercise. Beside the “snake in the grass” and “I’m a monkey because I throw my poop.” they were pretty boring.

What was my animal?

Why, I’m a unicorn of course! I give people magic powers.

Most small business owners have paid someone to create the web site for them and all changes have to go through the web developer, who gets paid each time, to make any changes.

I figured that when I build web sites for people, using WordPress, they have the power to control their own content. My clients have been excited to have that power. It feels like magic to them, so I must be a unicorn, right?

It all made sense to me, but it was at 7am in the morning…

The second concept that I thought was valuable, even though it had a stupid name, was “power partners”. The idea is that you join with two other people who are complementary to your business. Examples were a financial adviser, a mortgage broker, and an insurance guy. I think another set was a card designer, and event planner, and a photographer.

I think there’s some value to that idea. I’m going to work on finding a couple other people who can complement, and not conflict with, my business here. You might think about other people or businesses that can work with you, so that you can help each other.

I think “power partners” is not a cool name though. I think we should call them “my homies!” instead.

What do you think we should call our “power partners”?