Business principles: The idealism trap

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After a long conversation, we started to enlighten her about the sheer power and potential of online marketing and, when used honorably, how it could work wonders for her business. It took a little while, but once we explored the technique blow-by-blow and how we could make it work with her business and her morals, she was delighted and couldn’t believe she nearly lost one of the most vital channels to gain the type of exposure that would have taken her decades to achieve otherwise. She can now let people know how to use online marketing in a more responsible and proiftable manner thus making people more likely to respect and adopt her ideals and practices. This is obviously much more significant than doing nothing at all. It is absolutely imperative to continually keep in-check with reality (or what is widely accepted as being “real”). Here are some business principles to make sure you’re not drifting too far into the land of lofty ideals:

• Look at the people or other organisations who are doing the things you dissaprove. List three wise things about the technique and their belief. List precisely how those three things could work well for your business.
• Adopt advisors (paid or unpaid) who like to keep things “real” and have them make suggestions on ways you can improve your business. It’s great if they understand your beliefs but more important for them to have their own. They must be generally optimsistic.
• List the things you could potentially lose if you were to stick to your guns with all your beliefs. Are they really worth it? Really?
• Ask yourself: Would you do better to creatively combine your beliefs with something you would normally dissaprove of? Would this help you make your point sooner and on a larger scale?

Dreams and ideals are wonderful things to have especially when we want to make a difference, and be fulfilled. But they can work against us in many ways if we are blinded by them. We, and the rest of the world, have more to gain if we sometimes combine our ideals with things we dismsiss as being “wrong”.]]>