The Sticky Note Problem—or Why We Need Business Friends to Hurt Us Good

My friend Hannah recently said something that was hard for me to hear: “I don’t know how to refer you.” Wait, moi? I help other founders with their positioning, messaging, and offers, so surely she was mistaken.

Right about then, because she loves me, Hannah twisted the knife: “The last three times I’ve seen you, you’ve said three different things.”

She was not wrong. I saw her at events in June, July, and October, and I often test out new language when I go to events. I’ve worked with founders of various metaphorical shapes and sizes across industries, and based on which direction the wind is blowing the balloon labeled “what I want to do with my one wild and precious life,” I introduce myself as one of the following:

• Founder of the Freelance Cake Community (which is true)
• Business coach for solo founders and advanced freelancers (also true)
• Consultant who does strategy and growth advisory for solo founders (also true)
• Author (ahem also true)

I mean, what’s the problem here? How could Hannah possibly be confused?

For those of you sitting in the back, I’m being facetious. I don’t want to make it hard for people to refer me because I subscribe to the flavor of the month club.

If you sell anything, you must be mindful of what I call “The Sticky Note Problem.”

Unless you spend a lot of time with them and they know you really well, other people only give you a sticky note’s worth of space in their minds related to your work and livelihood. We’re talking about a maximum of three or four bullet points.

Think about a person you occasionally see in coffee shops where you live. Let’s call her Beth. Beth is not in your inner circle. She wouldn’t bring you a meal when you’re sick or pick up your kids from school if you had an emergency. But you always enjoy your interactions with her and have gotten the impression that she is smart, likable, and capable. You’d be happy to connect her with someone or send business her way.

So what does Beth do?

Uh…

[Jeopardy music]

You see what I mean? What you can quickly recall about Beth can fit on a 3” by 3” or 8cm by 8cm sticky note.

Depending on when you last spoke, you may be able to dredge up her industry or title, but you probably wouldn’t be able to name who her dream client is or the specific, painful, expensive problem that she solves or explain how she solves it.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t listen, that you don’t care, or that you don’t have a good memory. No, our minds are little librarians constantly making judgment calls about what is interesting or helpful enough to file on the shelf for future reference and what will go straight to the waste bin. Blame it on your mother or the current administration or caloric efficiency.

Strange as it is to write this, we do not know much about most of the people we know. We have a sticky note for them, and they have a sticky note for us. Your business and preferences will evolve, and Beth’s will too. But unless you proactively update your bullet points and she updates yours, your respective sticky notes won’t match current reality.

You would be willing to refer someone to Beth, but you would say to her what my friend Hannah said to me, “I don’t know how to refer you.”

To be clear, Hannah does know me well, so the Sticky Note Problem has not one but two facets:

• Most people only remember a little about us (which is not true in Hannah’s case).
• We have to pick what we want them to remember.

Even people who know us well may remember the old thing or the wrong thing or nothing in particular because we keep changing things up on them. I have been experimental to the point of being careless with how I introduce myself at events. In the “what Austin does for money” category, I end up with half-formed impressions and a jumble of words: founder… freelance… coach… growth… strategy… advisory… author. Yum, word salad!

The irony here is that I help founders with positioning, messaging, and offer design. Physician, heal thyself.

Referrals don’t follow confusion, and content marketing doesn’t reward confusion. So if you want to charge a premium by virtue of being a recognized authority, if you want to author your way into a certain position or reputation, then you must say the same thing over and over. Repetition gets you the bullet points that you want on the sticky note. Repetition. Repetition.

If you aren’t sick of hearing yourself say it, you haven’t said it enough.

If other people can’t say it back to you, you haven’t said it enough.

If people who would send you referrals haven’t sent you referrals, you haven’t said it enough.

And if you keep changing what you say because you keep changing your mind about whom you want to serve or how, then recognize the tradeoffs of your experimentation. You won’t become known for anything anytime soon. You will remain your industry’s best-kept secret.

I help creative agency founders grow by subtraction. I’ve done it well, and I’ve done it for years. It’s time to commit to a script.

What about you?

If you’re not sure what’s getting in the way right now, find someone who cares about you enough to give you honest answers to these questions:

• Can you think of anything that you’d like to tell me about my business that may be hard for me to hear?
• What are the reasons why you would or would not refer business to me? Please know that I am open to your answers and pre-accept them. Even if your answers hurt my feelings, I won’t make you pay for them later. I need your honesty and outside perspective right now.
• Does a particular path seem obvious for me, and if so, why do you think I hesitate to fully commit to it? Please speculate.