Without Ego

“So you’re a freelance writer,” Mark says to me at a recent breakfast meeting for local business owners. We are seated at the same table. I’m eating badly cooked eggs, he wisely opted for a fruit platter.

Mark owns www.flowerbud.com, an e-commerce business devoted to delivering fresh flowers to homeowners worldwide. This is the first time we’ve met, and we’re comparing notes about our respective businesses.

We’re talking about blogging, and writing in general, and how writing as a craft has degraded over the years. We agree that while the spontaneous, colorful, and sometimes ungrammatical bloggers have their place, business owners on the blog circuit should post properly written content.

From here conversation turned to editing – and he was surprised to hear me say that I don’t have an ego about my work.

Of course I take pride in what I do – I wouldn’t be writing professionally if I didn’t believe in myself – but having an ego – which I define as every word I choose is gold and every sentence I craft is platinum – does more harm than good.

“If I write something for you, and you don’t like it, then I work with you until you’re satisfied,” I said. “It’s the same as with any business – that’s customer service.

“But I don’t take it personally,” I added. “They’re just words. I can go make some more. It’s not about me or who I am.”

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I believe what I told Mark. A thick skin is necessary for any “creative” type, and so is a down-filled pillow for those days we land particularly hard.

But then I began to wonder:

Is it just creative types who have to balance their ego – their rock-solid belief in a job well done – against the client’s expectations and opinions?

I don’t think so.

Most sales jobs – outside sales, commission-based retail sales, even a job selling books – carry with them a daily quota of rejection. No means no, and it always means the seller goes back to square one, and needs to re-evaluate how to close the next sale.

It’s no surprise that a toddler’s favorite word is “No!” She must know, instinctively, that she’s going to hear it all through her life so she might as well shout it all she can, while she can get away with it.

Every entrepreneur has to sell something at some point. If you’re in public relations, you’re selling an idea to a busy editor. If you’re in marketing, you’re trying to out-shout the competition to reach the consumer. If you have a hot idea for a solve-all piece of hardware, you have to convince the bank before you can produce your first board.

I’ve been told the Portland area is a haven to small business owners. That’s a lot of people swimming against the current, pushing a solo idea against a wave of doubt.

Some of them don’t write well. Or draw well. Maybe their sales skills are shaky, too. But what they do have is a great idea, a belief in themselves, and their refusal to take no for an answer.

Ego plays big here, it’s why we keep slaying dragons. But if you want to succeed, learn to separate ego from your business persona. A strong ego protects you from the sting of rejection; too strong, and it will prevent you from managing a business reality.

If a printed circuit board has a flaw, that doesn’t mean you are flawed.
Likewise, a poorly turned phrase is not about me, it’s about the work I did.

If the customer is always right, that means sometimes your ego – the part that believes you did a stellar job on a project – is wrong.

In those instances, ignore your ego. It isn’t acting in your best interest. Take the hit, fix the problem, and go sit on your soft pillow.