Suitable Shoes and Eight-Passion Business Talk

In this country the business advisory systems work well. If you have an idea, they do their best to help you to develop it further. Today we went to business counselling to report the results of a marketing research of a business idea we are developing. The research shows that the market exists. All the rest seems to depend on how to finance the project. Three small businesses together does not make one big and prosperous one. We ended up talking about pitching the idea. In other words, we started thinking how to explain the whole concept in three minutes while standing in an elevator by side of a likely business angel.

"Just in case you see proper size shoes while standing in a lift," our advisor said.

Shoes are important. Not only in the elevators but also in art galleries. As far as I know there is only one Finnish art gallerist who has had remarkable success in international art business as well. All kinds of people pop in into art galleries. "How do you recognize, who are the real, big customers? How do they stand out from ordinary visitors?" the interviewer asked.

"You never know," the gallerist said. "There is nothing especial to indicate big buyers. They do not stand out. You never know. " After some thinking she added: "Well, maybe I could say one thing. That is their shoes."

World is filled with valuable tacit knowledge. Sometimes it is in recognizing shoes. Sometimes somewhere else. However, it exists. That is something you can be sure about.

Pitching is of vital importance when building business, no doubt about that. However, it is equally important to be able to talk about life outside business. If you talk only business, you are dull. Dull people do not attract business angels.

The problem embedded in this is that building business does not leave a lot of free time to live a colourful life filled with versatile interests to talk about. What can we do? There is much enough risk in your business idea. You do not want to extend risks to your social life around it. The remedy has been found. You can talk about hockey. If you do not like hockey, you can choose some other passions:

"Audi cars, Breitling watches, tinnitus/Ménièr´s disease, boxers (the dog breed), adopting children, London, digital photography, and Macintosh. With these eight passions, I can connect to anyone in the world."

Having read that I feel helpless. The most familiar one of those topics would be tinnitus. Talking about that is unpleasant, because I need to first imagine the tinnitus sounding. It is a sharp, annoying whistling at the background of the slight rattle of the keyboard. It is like imagining the bagpiper at the corner of a street without the man wearing a kilt. I do not want to talk about tinnitus. Next alternatives would be London and adopting children, but the tinnitus is now going on. I´m unable to concentrate on collecting ideas around any other topics just now. Maybe later.

Audi cars, Breitling watches, boxers, digital photography and Macintosh! A Spanish poet once said to me: "Tener una conversación contigo es como hablar con un extraterrestre." Maybe I should become one to be able to talk passionately about the topics on that list.

Perhaps I am "a pathetic person with no passions". In that case there is one thing I can do: read voraciously. People who read voraciously can at least talk a little about a lot of things.

If you want to learn more about business and passions you will find the above information in the book Kawasaki, Guy: The Art of the Start, The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (Portfolio, 2004, ISBN: 1-59184-056-2). I greatly appreciate people who share the valuable tacit knowledge they have gathered as business advisors, art gallerists and writers.

Kawasaki says that he would rather be poor than play golf. I would rather play golf than listen to the tinnitus. Luckily I know the message it is telling to me - Go to bed. It´s past midnight.