¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy

¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy

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Activism & Action Our Voices

A Conversation with "WE WERE FEMINISTS ONCE" author Andi Zeisler

Andi Zeisler


On September 20th, 2016, Andi Zeisler, author of “We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Movement,” spoke at LiisBeth’s first-ever salon (sold out).  Just prior to the event, Liisbeth’s Managing Editor, Margaret Webb, interviewed Andi.
LiisBeth: Your brilliant critique argues that feminism has been high jacked by neoliberalism, giving us what you call marketplace feminism, where women are engaged with individual choice and empowerment rather than the hard work of tackling and fixing systemic inequality. I want to start where your book leaves off. What kind of feminism do we need going forward in order to make meaningful change?
Andi Zeisler: Something that I hope is clear throughout the book is that I don’t think that marketplace feminism has replaced systemic, boots-on-the-ground feminism. I absolutely think that’s always been happening and will continue to happen. Marketplace feminism just happens to be the most amplified version of feminism right now. All the feminism work that’s been going on over the past decade is absolutely having an effect on things and that will continue to happen. I have seen feminism become much deeper, much more intersectional, much more enmeshed in people’s everyday lives and that’s the kind of feminism we need going forward. It’s not an activist project they need to take time out of their lives to do but it is their real lives and part of their everyday life.
LiisBeth: In your critique of choice feminism — whatever a self-declared feminist chooses is feminist is feminist — you argue that there has to be a “line in the sand,” that surely feminism has to stand for something. What is that?
AZ: It has to stand for equality and the autonomy and freedom of all women, not just women who can afford to make consumer choices that prop up their sense of empowerment or sense self actualization. It has to be about supporting women’s equality in every way, whether that’s financial, body, social, as a parent or whatever. It really does have to be about real equality and not a facsimile of it.
LiisBeth: You offer great examples of how feminism has been co-opted by neoliberalism and capitalism, for instance with femvertising, which is using feminism to sell things. How is this harmful to women?
AZ: Anytime a political and social movement becomes excessively individualized and made to seem that it’s something you can choose and has no impact on everyone else, that is harmful. A good example is the so-called mommy wars that has being going on for the last couple of decades, where women who opt out of the workforce because they can afford to…and talk about it as if that’s a choice versus something that’s coerced out of them by a capitalist system that’s still based on having a stay-at-home parent as an anchor. That’s damaging. It makes it seem like it’s a choice and has nothing to do with how we value women in society and in the workforce. It’s like saying that the framework of capitalism has nothing to do with people’s choices and, of course, it does.
LiisBeth: Given that we exist in this neoliberal world of capitalism, how should feminists engage with it? Are there areas or ways we can co-opt or exploit capitalism to move the feminist project forward?
AZ: I’m not saying this is an ideal form of activism but it’s one we have that seems to work well and that is public shaming — calling out companies when they stereotype women in advertising, when they make really gross gender generalizations. Or calling out TV shows when they use slurs or stereotypes. All of these things threaten to hit corporations and pop culture products where it counts, which is in the chequebook. When a critical mass of people tell them what they are doing is wrong and threaten their bottom line, that tends to get their attention.
LiisBeth: How do you think we can engage men in feminism?
AZ: This is one of those questions that I find bothersome, the very idea that men have to be invited to engage in feminism. If men care about feminism, they should not have to be invited…. (Their role) is to take feminism into spaces where they already have the ears of their peers or superiors and make change there. We absolutely need men advocating for gender equality. But if they are men who are going to wait to be invited, they are probably not the people we need. We need the people who are already on our side and willing to do the work in their community
LiisBeth: Okay, put another way, how can men gain from feminism?
AZ: Feminism has always been, by extension, about men because it’s about decimating the idea there’s a gender binary, that there are certain things women do and certain things men do. Of course, feminism has already had men in mind when we talk about things like child rearing, emotion and sexuality. That women should not be constrained by centuries of stereotypes that are often based on nothing applies to men too. When women are liberated from constricting ideas of gender, so are men and that can be really powerful.
LiisBeth: Bitch has grown from a zine into a business with a website, a lecture series, a feminist curriculum for the classroom, a lending library, a writing fellowship. How do you promote or maintain feminist values in your business?
AZ: For a long time, it was really hard because we are a nonprofit running on a shoestring and there were definite issues around the amount we were able to pay people or that we weren’t able to pay health insurance for a long time. Part of the reason we moved (from San Francisco) to Portland 10 years ago was so we could have an organization that could live its mission of being feminist. That means paying everyone a fair wage; paying health insurance for everyone, including part-time employees; having family leave policy; having a generally hierarchical but respectful staff structure. As a nonprofit, we talk about mission and visioning a lot. We talk about communication and the importance of communicating respectfully, listening to people, being open to discussion, being open to dissent. It’s not necessarily enforced in a structural way, but it’s an important organizational value.
LiisBeth: How do you practice feminism in your personal life?
AZ: I accepted a long time ago that you can be a feminist, you can advocate for feminism, but it’s impossible to live every bit of your life in what other people might consider a feminist way. For instance, I was married for almost 16 years, but I would never argue that marriage is a feminist institution or that as a feminist getting married, I made it feminist. Whether it’s where you live or how you live, what you wear, whether you shave legs — when we start talking about whether x or y is or isn’t feminist (that) gets us into that individual unhelpful place where feminism is no longer an ongoing ethic but this idea of a personal choice that can be weighed on the scales of goodness and found acceptable.
LiisBeth: You have said that feminism is not supposed to be fun or cute or sexy. It’s a movement about changing a system and changing values and that’s really hard work and demands hard conversations and conflict and confrontation. Are you bitch slapping feminists to get back into the streets to hold meaningful protests? If so, what kind of protests would you like to see?
AZ: I don’t think there’s any lack of protests. They just don’t look like they did 40 years ago. A lot of activism now happens online, which is a much more inclusive way to do activism when you think about it. Consider how many people couldn’t participate in those protests in the ’60s and ’70s because they were working in factories or their religions didn’t permit it or whatever. I think there’s much more acceptability in how we collectively practice activism and understand activism now. Feminist activism needs a range of people. Some are going to put their heads down and write policy; some will be out in communities talking to and mobilizing people. The way activism is understood now, there’s a lot more for people to do according to their strengths and what their skills are.
LiisBeth: What makes you optimistic about feminism?
AZ: There’s a lot that makes me optimistic. A lot of it is going to universities and seeing that young women are so very immersed in and involved in feminism and politics and thinking deeply and critically about media and economics and gender roles and things like that. I never understand when older feminists say, where are all the feminists? I just think they’re looking in the wrong place or they’re looking at a much narrower range subjects than today’s feminists are actually focusing on.
LiisBeth: Do you think your work at Bitch will change as a result of immersing yourself in this look at feminism, or your views of feminism will change?
AZ: I’m not sure if I can answer that. A lot of things that I wrote about are still happening and in some ways becoming more pronounced. I also think that marketplace feminism is not necessarily going to remain at the kind of tenor it is now. It’s like environmentalism 10 years ago, which was really embraced by Hollywood and advertising and at some point it was no longer the new lens to promote things. That didn’t mean people stopped caring about environmentalism. It just became less overt. I don’t think that feminist activism has ever stopped or will ever stop as long as things are the way they are. When marketplace feminism is no longer a culturally amplified thing, there will still be a ton of feminist work to be done and a ton of feminists doing that work.
 
Related Media:
A Conversation with Gender Capitalism Expert Sarah Kaplan, by Margaret Webb
How to Embed Feminist Values Into Your Company, by Valerie Hussey
Why We’re Feminists, by Valerie Hussey
Confessions of a Bad Feminist, Roxanne Gay’s Ted Talk,  by LiisBeth Curator
CBC Here and Now Interview with Andi Zeisler (audio) 
Rotman School of Management Talk Video Clip

Categories
Activism & Action Our Voices

Small Business Owners Need To Shift Their Attitude Towards Maternity Leave

Couple knitted bootees to newborn and ball of yarn isolated on white background. Hand-made socks for the baby.Couple knitted bootees to newborn knitting needles and balls of yarn isolated on white background. Hand-made socks for the baby.

My son was born when I had been running my business for almost four years. I was not going to walk away from it so that meant finding a way to navigate my own maternity leave. I had a business partner, which gave me some needed flexibility. The legal time allowance for mat leave was irrelevant given I was the boss; I had to figure out how to make it work.

What my own experience taught me was the value of flexibility. If I hear anyone complain that the one-year maximum for maternity leave permitted in Canada is overly generous, I have to keep myself from attacking. It’s particularly hard to hear a woman say that she doesn’t like hiring women of child-bearing age because “then you have to deal with them having babies.”

Recently, a woman with two school-aged children said this. Sadly, she’s not the only narcissistic ignoramus who thinks that way. The truth is, taking a year maternity leave is terrific for everyone. It’s wonderful for the new mother and baby, of course. But it can also be an easy opportunity for your business to expand its skill pool.

Consider the challenge of accommodating mat leave in positive terms

People who wanted to work with us saw “filling in” for a mat leave as an excellent resume builder. Usually, they had slightly less experience than the person on leave, as most with equal experience won’t make a lateral move for one year, unless they’re out of work and really seeking permanent employment. Then you risk losing them mid-contract if something better comes along. But for someone more junior, filling a mat leave provides new, increased responsibility and exposure. We had terrific interim hires, and broadened our circle of supporters for those who moved on.

Once or twice, a new mom decided not to return. That gave us the opportunity to train and test her replacement for an entire year. By the time we knew the job was open, we knew whether that person was a good fit. How often do you get to audition someone for a year before offering a permanent position?

Allow flexibility that will keep women in the workforce — and help everyone function better

Your business can accommodate more flexibility than you realize. That’s where having a positive attitude starts. Let go of thinking that employees will take advantage of flex options, and you’ll discover just how much flexibility you can build into your business — and how appreciative people will be in turn.

Step one. Ask your employees to tell you what is important to them. They might ask you to put a comfy chair in the washroom so a woman can pump milk comfortably. Or to come in at 10 and leave at 4 for six months, which might enable a woman to return to work sooner or shorten her commute time dramatically. Or, take two hours at lunch so a woman can go home to feed her baby.

Many women on mat leave want to remain involved and engaged with work, and may also need to earn more than employment insurance (EI) pays during their leave. I always encouraged people to take the maximum amount of time off allowed but in the early years of our business, we were too small to top up EI, making it hard for some to afford the time off. Job sharing can be a brilliant solution when the employees propose it. I’ve seen situations in which two women, recognizing their similar situations, set up a job-sharing arrangement that lasted through the births of five children. One had a baby, then the other. It went back and forth for years and worked for everyone — including the business. Though neither earned a full-time salary, they both maintained their experience and currency in the workforce.

View mat leave as an investment in yourself — and your business

My own mat leave was successful for a few reasons. I lived close to work so I could go home at lunchtime. I returned to work three days a week until my son was six months, then four days for the next six months. I could also afford to hire a nanny as I had a partner who worked. My income was modest at the time, and I paid Emily my entire salary, which matched the rate for full-time nannies.  I viewed employing her as an excellent investment in my business and myself. She cared for my son five days a week, which meant that during the one or two days I was home, I could work or take a nap or make dinner — all in a relatively relaxed frame of mind. That helped me perform better as a mom and a business owner. On the days I worked in the office, she brought the baby to me twice a day, allowing me to nurse for 13 months. That was important to me and helped me create balance and feel good about it. When you’re building a business, sometimes that type of investment will help you be successful on both the home and work fronts.

Create family-friendly policies to make a workplace family

Because of my experience and positive attitude towards flex options, women in the office who wanted to have children knew we would be open to their requests for accommodation. Others benefitted as well. We established a policy that gave every employee 40 hours of personal time off a year, no questions asked. Parents could use the time to be with their children for illness, class trips, doctor appointments — without having to dip into vacation time, or worse, lie and call in sick. Other employees could use their personal hours for doctor’s appointments, moving days, or even recharge their batteries by taking in a movie. No one had to ask permission to take the time; everyone used it, as they needed it.

We also instituted a phone call policy that supported parenting. Anyone, at any time, would be interrupted by a call from a child, or the school. No questions were asked except, perhaps, do you need to go home? As a result, parents were more relaxed and the atmosphere was welcoming to kids. They sometimes hung out at the office when they had a stomachache (though nothing more serious). They dropped by after school and curled up somewhere to do homework or nap. They played with the office dogs – and there were a bunch of them, but that’s another column.

The office wasn’t overrun with children. No one complained because we normalized and integrated children and parenting into our workplace practices. For those who didn’t have children, “the kids” simply became part of our culture. We witnessed children being born to co-workers, watched them grow up, invited them to watch the Santa Claus parade as our office had the perfect perch, and eventually even gave some of those kids their first summer jobs. They did good work, too. Real work, and we paid them fairly. We were proud of them. Our company did what we could to make the divide between work and home easier, more fluid. We didn’t just talk about work/life balance; we did what we could to help people achieve it. Now some of our “work kids” have children of their own, and they tell stories of when their moms or dads worked with us, how they loved coming into the office, and how special they felt. That makes an impression on employees, a pretty nice one, I can assure you.

The approach and attitude worked when we had four employees and when we had 40. It allowed us to retain a superbly talented and committed team of professionals. People wanted to work with us for many reasons, but this was among them. No one left because we were unwilling to try to accommodate change, and everyone knew that they might be the beneficiary of that attitude, so everyone worked to help each other. We had full-time and contract workers who moved across the province and across the country and continued their association with us because we were determined to make flexibility successful. Today, electronics makes it easier to do than it was in 1986.

I’m going to continue to focus on flexibility in a future column by shining a light on policies that help keep women in the workforce that also create the best, most productive workplace for everyone. Stay tuned for my thoughts on vacation time (hint, two weeks is not enough), sick leave, caregiver leave, sabbaticals, telecommuting….

 

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Our Voices Systems

When Lightning Strikes: Living With Bankruptcy

Boat with woman and child sinking in the waves

One Sunday afternoon in January, a 39-year-old statuesque blue-eyed blond wearing sneakers and a “No Fear” T-shirt stood on the sidewalk outside her retail store and watched her life’s work get carted away. For the sake of her privacy, let’s call her Tara and her store The Happy Gourmet. On a normal day, The Happy Gourmet would’ve been packed with local-food advocates opening their wallets to buy produce, meats, and cheese produced by local farmers and food artisans. Instead, it was filled with tool-bearing bargain hunters gruffly dismantling anything worth taking, including wall-mounted vintage shelves and antique tin-roof tiles. They carted away café tables, blackboards, display cases, electronic scales and freezers. People out for a Sunday stroll along Main Street saw the action and joined the fray, stuffing shopping bags with hard-to-source gourmet goods, decorations, napkins and even the small encaustic paintings of garlic and peppers, which were gifted to Tara by a local artist as an opening present three years earlier. Everything was being sold off at “best offer” prices. Cash only.

With the poise of a front-of-house restaurant manager, Tara oversaw the very public dismantling of her cherished business.

“How much for this shrink-wrap machine?” John, a regular customer, asked.

“Whatever you want to give me for it, John!” she replied, offering a wide smile, if a little forced.

He gave her $20. They hugged. She said, “See you soon,” and watched him drive away. Then, for the first time that day, she cracked. In tears, she walked down the street for a block or two to collect herself, then returned to the scene where friends and familiar customers continued to cart away her enterprise.

Everything she had built over the past 20 years—her dream business, reputation, professional credentials, celebrated status in the community for providing five full-time positions and contributions to the local economy through her procurement policy of buying local—was gone in less than three hours.

Tara’s business was wiped out by the 2008 global financial meltdown, along with over 3,000 other Canadian enterprises (3.1 per cent of all enterprises in Canada). Incorporating does not protect small business owners. The fact is, most small businesses are primarily financed by a combination of personal savings, credit card debt, plus business lines of credit backed by founder personal guarantees and assets like home equity or retirement savings, which means business debt is also personal debt. Incorporation status does not shield you from having to make loan or creditor payments in these cases. Furthermore, in those tight credit times, banks were pulling loans, not approving them, and Tara did not have the personal financial resources to obtain more credit to carry her business through the downturn. She says emphatically, “I didn’t want to go bankrupt.” However, her advisors looked at the books and short-term outlook and agreed it was the best course of action. Tara was caught, like so many others that year, with a dollar-store umbrella in a Wall Street storm.

“Going under happened so fast,” says Tara. “When it falls apart, it really falls apart.”

The Bankruptcy Experience

Filing for personal bankruptcy took her a day. And typically, “clearing the deck” takes approximately nine months. However, getting out from under the related business bankruptcy process under Canadian law, in her case, which involved liquidating company assets, and paying back business creditors with an agreed upon amount with post entrepreneur job earnings, will take up to five years. Incredibly, it then takes an additional six years to restore her credit history. For Tara, that means it will take her 13 years to get a fresh start.

Conor O’Neill, an insolvency lawyer at Fasken Martineau, says under Canadian law it’s particularly difficult to rebuild your reputation and expunge the blight on your financial record after bankruptcy. “I know a very accomplished professional woman in her mid-40s who had just applied for a high-level corporate director’s position,” he says. “The company did a background check and learned that she had filed for personal bankruptcy 20 years ago. It was still on her record. These days, most corporate and even non-profit bylaws stipulate that directors cannot have ever declared personal bankruptcy. No one wants a director on their board who is perceived to have mismanaged money. She didn’t get the appointment.”

Andy Fisher, a partner in the insolvency and restructuring practice at Farber Financial Group in Toronto, says the way Canada deals with business-related bankruptcy is getting better. “Things have started to noticeably change since 2008,” says Fisher. First, the banks are less and less aggressive about pushing business owners into bankruptcy, since many had to provide personal guarantees to secure their start-up loan. Instead, they are encouraging founders to pursue long-term repayment plans known as a Division 1 proposals (if you owe more than $250,000) or Consumer proposals (if you owe less).

Chad Kopach, a litigation lawyer and partner at Blaney McMurtry LLP, agrees. “Canadian business owners are also getting more proactive in working with their lenders to work out a reasonable solution,” he says. “In a proposal scenario (similar to Chapter 11 and Chapter 13 in the U.S.), unsecured lenders will get some [money]. In a bankruptcy (Chapter 7 in the U.S.), they get none. It’s an easy choice if you are a numbers person.”

However, the proposal option only works if you have some money left to distribute on judgment day (the day the court decides how much you have to pay back, the conditions and when you may be discharged) or have prospects of getting a reliable job and income in short order. For many business owners, their business is their job. Many entrepreneurs, especially women, start businesses because they have experienced employment barriers or pay equity issues in the past, so finding a new, well-paying job that covers living expenses plus paying off business creditors at a set amount for the next five years is no easy feat.

Is there any upside? Fisher notes that for many, filing for bankruptcy is often the only and best way to get a new start for those deep in a financial hole that they might otherwise never be able to climb out of, and that in many cases the discharge process takes 12 to 18 months if there are no complications. He also says, “While it is not uncommon for people who have gone bankrupt to feel embarrassed, they shouldn’t. I’m certain that everyone who reads this article has a friend or family member who has either gone bankrupt or filed a proposal. We had a couple who went bankrupt. They went to a dinner party. Going to the dinner party, they thought they were the only people at the party that had gone bankrupt. At the end of the party, they found out that all four couples at the party had gone bankrupt or done a Consumer proposal.”

Consumer proposals have indeed been on the rise over the past five years and are increasingly seen as a better alternative to bankruptcy by both debtors and creditors.

However, Elizabeth Warren, author of the 2002 Harvard Law School study “What is a women’s issue? Bankruptcy, Commercial Law, an Other Gender-Neutral Topics”, casts dispersions on the bankruptcy industry’s effort to market bankruptcy as completely normal, as if “the courts are overflowing with people who deliberately shrug off their debts as easily as they shrug off an old overcoat.” In her view, it smacks of moral degeneracy.

Is Bankruptcy a Women’s Issue?

Studies show that four of the top causes of business bankruptcy in North America are undercapitalization, management inexperience, over-extension of credit and economic conditions or recessions. Furthermore, typically women-dominated industries, which women entrepreneurs also often gravitate to, including retail, accommodation and food industries, tend to top the list when it comes to high bankruptcy rates.

A continued look at gender and bankruptcy research suggests that bankruptcy, especially small business bankruptcy, is indeed a women’s issue. In North America, women are attempting entrepreneurship at unprecedented rates, despite the additional gender-specific challenges. Some women are opportunity-driven, others are driven by glass ceilings and sexism in corporate environments, financial necessity or because they see entrepreneurship as the best way to tackle the pesky and enduring gender pay gap. While the number of female founders grows at double-digit rates, evidence also shows that North American women entrepreneurs face reduced access to investment and commercial loan capital, resulting in a higher level of reliance on credit cards and personal savings to start their ventures. If five to 80 per cent of new ventures fail within the first five years, and if women entrepreneurs statistically take on more personal debt and financial risk to start their ventures, then it stands to reason that women entrepreneurs could be at higher risk for bankruptcies than their male counterparts.

Warren’s research paper, which focuses on personal bankruptcy, notes that “the number of women filing for bankruptcy is increasing at an alarming rate, and that the distribution of those in bankruptcy is shifting, from decidedly male in the 1980s to decided female in the 2000s”. Interestingly, this increase coincides with the dramatic increase in the number of female entrepreneurs over the same period.

When the Process Does More Harm Than the Credit Rating

The time it takes to be completely cleared of a bankruptcy, plus make repayments for several years is hard enough, but Tara says the process, what she has to endure while under bankruptcy and how she feels about having to do so is arguably even worse.

Once her business declared bankruptcy, Tara was required by law to hire and pay for a trustee. Trustee fees are governed by law, but generally involve a $750 one-time fee plus 20 per cent of any money collected. The trustee gets paid first, and whatever is left each month goes to the creditors. For the duration of her financial purgatory years, Tara’s trustee acted as a sort of financial parole officer. Tara is thankful that her trustee is respectful; still, she has to meet with him regularly to review her income and spending—in coffee-cups-per-day detail. If she earns more than $2,100 per month in gross income or approximately $25,300 annually (just above the regional poverty line of $19,930), which is the maximum allowed under bankruptcy law, she has to write him a cheque for the excess. She faces questions like, “Couldn’t your friend have paid for dinner?” and “Can’t you find a cheaper hairdresser or maybe use drugstore colour?” She even has to declare cash gifts from friends and family, and if it pushes her over her minimum allowance, it also gets appropriated. She had to forfeit her credit cards on day one and is barred from securing any type of credit until she’s discharged. If she is offered even a department store card and it is accepted, she could be jailed.

Five years into Tara’s bankruptcy term, her car broke down and was beyond repair. She was desperate for a loan and surprisingly, her trustee approved her loan application. However, the interest rate offered by the only willing lender was 29 per cent annually, a typical rate for “high credit risk” customers. She turned it down. She is now borrowing a car from a family member.

Overall, the experience has been, in Tara’s words, “humiliating and devastating psychologically.” She says, “For the first year I felt really raw. I developed a real fear of people. I didn’t want to go out, go anywhere, or talk to anyone. I felt shame. Panic. Utter fear.” She recalls how close friends were quick to knock her off their guest lists. Her European immigrant parents were ashamed. Her seven-year-old daughter endured teasing from classmates. Personal bankruptcies are easier to hide; but prominent business-related personal bankruptcies, not so much.

Researchers in the entrepreneurship space would not be surprised by Tara’s emotions. Canadians are smitten with the idea of entrepreneurship as a career choice, but are also known to have a strong cultural aversion to failure and those who are perceived to have failed. Not a good combination for a nation that seeks to be a global leader in the innovation and entrepreneurship space.

It’s been six years since the closing of her dream business. Tara has one year to go before her payback terms are fulfilled. Heroically, she rebuilt her professional life and now teaches full-time at a chef school at a local college. She was recently promoted to department coordinator. Her students love her grit and real-life experience. They learn more from her than just cooking. In turn, Tara believes sharing what she has been through, the good parts and the bad has made her both a better teacher and accelerated her own healing. She has also taken up jiu-jitsu, where falling down and getting up is part of the drill. However, she still avoids socialising outside of work and is deeply wary of ever starting a business again.

“The pull is still there and probably always will be,” she says. “I can’t walk by a storefront for lease without dreaming. Deep down, I guess I am still an entrepreneur. But there is no way I am going there again anytime soon.”

 

Suggested reading:

Slow Growth, Or How To Sleep At Night When You’re Building Your Business, by Valerie Hussey, LiisBeth

Should I put my small business into bankruptcy? by Andy Fisher of Farber Financial

What is a women’s issue? Bankruptcy, Commercial Law, an Other Gender-Neutral Topics by Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Women’s Law Journal, Vol. 25, Spring 2002

How Can I Get a Guaranteed Small Business Loan With Bad Credit? by Malik Sharrieff, studioD

 

 

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#AskLiisBeth Our Voices

Are you “giving it away” for the right reasons?

The talented entrepreneur Casey Morris grew up in London, England with two great role models: her mother and her father. Both were exceptional weavers. Casey’s early memories include looms, threads, dazzling colours and a home studio where her parents taught her to weave at the very early age of three. She likes to say that weaving is in her DNA. Last year, at age 23, Casey decided to “break out of the nest” and launch her own line and business where she could run her own show, express herself as a woman business owner and take the art of weaving and fabric design to a more avant-garde place.

She burst onto the scene with bright orange palettes and quickly grabbed attention. Her work was covered in two edgy design publications. Next month, she is booked to speak at three design fairs in England and the US and has just been invited by The Smithsonian in Washington, DC to submit one of her fabrics for a new museum collection. The attention happened faster than she expected.

Coming with this attention were a swell of requests from promoters and industry specialists asking her to donate pieces and give away product as a “favour” or ostensibly as a way to promote her brand. Inundated by requests, Casey called for guidance. She wanted to know how to decide; when is donating product a good move? And when should you say “no”?

Here’s the skinny on giving it away:

It always feels good to see your name in lights or your product on a display table. Most people experience a momentary high when they’re asked to put their product in front of an audience. Few can resist the temptation, especially when, as with Casey, you’re a young businesswoman anxious to have your name and work become more recognized.

But when the request comes in for “freebie” product, a smart businesswoman does not just automatically say “yes.” It cannot be a willy-nilly decision to dig into the inventory closet to grab leftover merchandise or, better yet, get rid of product you may never need again. She has to determine the value of the product she’s giving away – and the value her business will get in return. A businesswoman should always evaluate freebies based on the following three criteria:

Criteria one: Does the audience for this product have the potential to be converted into a future customer?

The first question to ask is: Who is going to be in the room? The second thing to think about is: Who will see the product and what’s the purpose of the event or display? For Casey, if the room hosts design- or fabric-industry moguls, then showing her product is a smart move. Her product will garner attention and stir conversation. Casey also needs to find out the demographics of the audience to determine if they are potential new customers. It’s fair to ask! It must be part of the decision-making process. If no one can provide information on demographics, chances are giving away product is a waste of your resources and money. If, however, the demographics align with the giveaway, seize on it as a strategic opportunity to build new business.

The next step for Casey is to decide what product she wants to display in order to reinforce her brand, increase the buzz and generate potential new orders. If Casey decides to pass, she has to handle it with grace. Here’s the best way to turn down a request: Always thank the promoter for the opportunity. Make it clear that you took time to evaluate the offer and the audience. Explain that, as your company expands, you may consider participating again and your door is open for future requests. And keep in mind that it’s completely acceptable to say, “No, not now, thank you, as the company is seeking other opportunities that are a better fit.” 

Criteria two: Does the product cost less than the cost of a PR push?

It’s not wise to give away product without looking at the cost, not only of the product, but also of the delivery and potential loss of competing options. If you can determine that the giveaway has benefit (according to criteria one), then first compare it to the cost of a PR effort. Keep in mind that sometimes a small, but very strategic PR push is just the thing a company needs to get attention or entice a new audience. It might be more effective and less costly to place a good story about your brand in trade publications than agreeing to a giveaway. It may be more fun and strategic to participate in a panel discussion at the next industry symposium. Developing and promoting a hands-on workshop might garner more attention. Don’t be so quick to drop product if other approaches might serve you better – and cost less.

Criteria three: Will the product be displayed in such a way that gets due attention?

Display and presentation matter. You should always expect that your product gets the front and centre it deserves. Always ask where your product will be shown, what other product will sit near it, how many other items are being displayed and when the product will be distributed.  Too often, event coordinators are more focused on gathering many items to make a splash rather than thinking about how to curate the giveaway collection. If you’re giving product that will end up at the bottom of a gift bag, don’t do it! If, however, you can supervise the gift bag and be the lead product, then that may serve you well. If you can orchestrate where and how your product will be seen, with proper brand identification, the opportunity can be worth pursuing. Consider having your product custom-boxed, to give your company logo more visibility, a marketing coup!  But, if you ultimately determine your product will only be seen as swag, walk away.

Back to Casey, who was considering an ask from the Summer Design Expo in New York City to put 100 woven table runners into a gift bag. It would be exciting to show in New York, but she had to consider whether the circumstance really was right for her. I told her she’d know the answer once she filtered the request through the three criteria.

We quickly went through the checklist together: Was this a customer-driven expo or a fair that was open to the public with no required entry credentials? How much time and product cost would she be giving up to “play” and could her money be used more strategically to buy an ad? Could she control the placement of her table runners or would the expo manager be in charge of all product placement? As a business owner, Casey couldn’t justify anything on the checklist! She suddenly found it extremely easy to decide and called the expo team to decline. More importantly, she had discovered a newfound freedom in saying “no”, without guilt or regret.

 

Categories
Our Voices

When the Shoe Doesn't Fit, Make a New One

Different direction concept with businesswoman drawing goldfish sketch on concrete wall


I can’t quite remember when it finally clicked. Maybe it was when enough people realized the word entrepreneur wasn’t a good descriptor for the kinds of businesses us “non-business” folk were interested in building.
The first push for a new definition, I recall, was “social entrepreneur.” It came into my awareness sometime in the early to mid-2000s, and I remember feeling really liberated by the idea that I could have a business with social, rather than economic, drivers as its engine. It felt like a homecoming actually, like someone finally gave me words to describe something I previously could not articulate. Social entrepreneurship inspired me to experiment with turning our café in Berlin into a salon that would host different kinds of conversation events exploring interculturalism, philosophy, city-building and language exchange events.
Over the past two years I’ve been very involved in researching and designing training for a new form of entrepreneur: the creative entrepreneur. Again, taking up this qualifier for entrepreneurship has been really exciting. What would businesses look like if creative people drove it? What would artists, writers, filmmakers, illustrators, designers, playwrights and any other creative professional bring forward as a business model? What could their efforts mean for our communities?
Working in this domain has brought me back to consuming more art and performance, while also creating art. The push on the definition has inspired me to venture into completely new places; it’s caused me to challenge my own understanding of what commercial exchange is in the first place and what it could mean in the future.
And although I’m in my fourth year as a freelancer/consultant, I’m only now realizing a new term has emerged for my breed of professionals: solopreneur. Our motto? Have no boss, be no one’s boss.
Rather than turn myself into someone who perpetuates hierarchies of power and/or income, I’m much more interested in exploring collaborations, collectives and partnerships. What does it look like when people of different skills sets come together to work on projects, to organize our own learning, to band together around our collective interests, and to support one another without replicating old models of doing so? I feel incredibly excited to think about what new ways of organizing will look like among all of us independents.

Out With the Old

In the past, the word entrepreneur only really included a small sliver of the population, primarily males interested in growing very profitable companies. The vision was not that appealing to anyone who did not find thoughts of monopolies of distribution channels, IPOs and complicated cash forecasting techniques something to look forward to.
For those of us looking to create something for ourselves, rather than fit into what was on offer for us, we only had these guys to look to as examples of what it meant to run a business. If we were on a social or cultural mission, then we only had non-profit models to aspire to. The past decade has changed all that. Entrepreneurship has been disrupted and it’s happened as a result of creative, heart-and-soul-filled people who prioritize mission, purpose, significance and impact above the instrumental approaches to business that were birthed from and supportive of industrialism.
When I think of it like this, it all feels kind of revolutionary. We’ve managed to snatch entrepreneurship away from those who have benefited from it the most. We’ve pulled it out from underneath the feet of a male-dominated technocratic start-up scene. By taking up a social mission, we’ve challenged and exposed sclerotic non-profit institutions and organizations that have lost sight of who they are there to serve.
We’ve stretched the definition of the possible to fit a larger group of people who are not looking to establish large corporations or institutions, are not looking for investors or funders, are not motivated by the possibility of growing rich and who are not business school grads. We are people who are in this to try something new, not to replicate the methods, cultures, values and techniques of those who’ve already made it.

Defining the New

What that “new” is and exactly how it will be done is still in the making. We know that most of us are interested in nurturing practices, values and spaces supportive of a more humane way of living together. We also know that we need to earn a decent living doing so or none of our visions will stand up in the material world. But we have, by no means, landed on a clear understanding of exactly what these new attempts at building businesses and means of organizing will look like. And because we don’t have a clear path ahead of us, we are all invited to take a crack at shaping what entrepreneurship will look like in the future and how we will use it to build our world.
So on that note, I’d like to put forward the essential meaning that I hold when I approach entrepreneurship — socially, creatively and individually. I don’t see it as a process or a destination but rather, I see it as an overall approach to interacting with the world around me. Being an entrepreneur to me means:

Being someone who appropriately relates to the environment I operate within, who is able to remain flexible enough to perceive and respond to changes and cues from that environment in a way that is satisfying to both me as the entrepreneur and those I serve.

Put more simply, I believe being an entrepreneur is about being good in relationships. There is no, one-size-fits-all approach to define what being good at relationships is. Rather, the definition varies depending upon the partners involved in the exchange. That’s why no one can give you specific instructions on how to be good at relationships and even if they do, it doesn’t mean you’ll actually be able to do it. Relationships always involve a dynamic and delicate interplay between at least two people.
Of course you can be in a relationship and not be good at it. Think, for example, about parenthood or leadership or teaching. Just because you get the title does not make you good at it. The same goes for entrepreneurs. You can start a business and be manipulative. You can thrive on exploiting other people. You can be an egomaniac interested primarily in power and prestige. You can grow rich as this kind of entrepreneur. That’s a choice you can indeed make, but it certainly isn’t a requirement.
Creative, social and solo entrepreneurs, amongst others, are at the forefront of creating new relationships with those they serve and by doing so, are challenging the very way in which business is conducted. They are questioning the tenets of our economic system, they are challenging the divisions between for-profit and not-for-profit models, they are pushing themselves to take action to make art, products and experiences that shake up our world and invite more people into the process of world-making.
If you think about it, being in relationships with others can help us strive to be the best people we can possibly be; entrepreneurship can and should be the same. Building a quality relationship between you, your business, those you serve and the community you all exist within can be the primary focus of an entrepreneur. The commercial exchange that happens as a result of that relationship comes second.
Or at least, that’s how I see it. You are completely free to contest that definition in any way you want so please do so. This is our world to make, so let’s get to it!
Originally posted on www.allisonhillier.com by Allison Hillier.
 
 

Categories
Our Voices

When the Shoe Doesn’t Fit, Make a New One

Different direction concept with businesswoman drawing goldfish sketch on concrete wall

I can’t quite remember when it finally clicked. Maybe it was when enough people realized the word entrepreneur wasn’t a good descriptor for the kinds of businesses us “non-business” folk were interested in building.

The first push for a new definition, I recall, was “social entrepreneur.” It came into my awareness sometime in the early to mid-2000s, and I remember feeling really liberated by the idea that I could have a business with social, rather than economic, drivers as its engine. It felt like a homecoming actually, like someone finally gave me words to describe something I previously could not articulate. Social entrepreneurship inspired me to experiment with turning our café in Berlin into a salon that would host different kinds of conversation events exploring interculturalism, philosophy, city-building and language exchange events.

Over the past two years I’ve been very involved in researching and designing training for a new form of entrepreneur: the creative entrepreneur. Again, taking up this qualifier for entrepreneurship has been really exciting. What would businesses look like if creative people drove it? What would artists, writers, filmmakers, illustrators, designers, playwrights and any other creative professional bring forward as a business model? What could their efforts mean for our communities?

Working in this domain has brought me back to consuming more art and performance, while also creating art. The push on the definition has inspired me to venture into completely new places; it’s caused me to challenge my own understanding of what commercial exchange is in the first place and what it could mean in the future.

And although I’m in my fourth year as a freelancer/consultant, I’m only now realizing a new term has emerged for my breed of professionals: solopreneur. Our motto? Have no boss, be no one’s boss.

Rather than turn myself into someone who perpetuates hierarchies of power and/or income, I’m much more interested in exploring collaborations, collectives and partnerships. What does it look like when people of different skills sets come together to work on projects, to organize our own learning, to band together around our collective interests, and to support one another without replicating old models of doing so? I feel incredibly excited to think about what new ways of organizing will look like among all of us independents.

Out With the Old

In the past, the word entrepreneur only really included a small sliver of the population, primarily males interested in growing very profitable companies. The vision was not that appealing to anyone who did not find thoughts of monopolies of distribution channels, IPOs and complicated cash forecasting techniques something to look forward to.

For those of us looking to create something for ourselves, rather than fit into what was on offer for us, we only had these guys to look to as examples of what it meant to run a business. If we were on a social or cultural mission, then we only had non-profit models to aspire to. The past decade has changed all that. Entrepreneurship has been disrupted and it’s happened as a result of creative, heart-and-soul-filled people who prioritize mission, purpose, significance and impact above the instrumental approaches to business that were birthed from and supportive of industrialism.

When I think of it like this, it all feels kind of revolutionary. We’ve managed to snatch entrepreneurship away from those who have benefited from it the most. We’ve pulled it out from underneath the feet of a male-dominated technocratic start-up scene. By taking up a social mission, we’ve challenged and exposed sclerotic non-profit institutions and organizations that have lost sight of who they are there to serve.

We’ve stretched the definition of the possible to fit a larger group of people who are not looking to establish large corporations or institutions, are not looking for investors or funders, are not motivated by the possibility of growing rich and who are not business school grads. We are people who are in this to try something new, not to replicate the methods, cultures, values and techniques of those who’ve already made it.

Defining the New

What that “new” is and exactly how it will be done is still in the making. We know that most of us are interested in nurturing practices, values and spaces supportive of a more humane way of living together. We also know that we need to earn a decent living doing so or none of our visions will stand up in the material world. But we have, by no means, landed on a clear understanding of exactly what these new attempts at building businesses and means of organizing will look like. And because we don’t have a clear path ahead of us, we are all invited to take a crack at shaping what entrepreneurship will look like in the future and how we will use it to build our world.

So on that note, I’d like to put forward the essential meaning that I hold when I approach entrepreneurship — socially, creatively and individually. I don’t see it as a process or a destination but rather, I see it as an overall approach to interacting with the world around me. Being an entrepreneur to me means:

Being someone who appropriately relates to the environment I operate within, who is able to remain flexible enough to perceive and respond to changes and cues from that environment in a way that is satisfying to both me as the entrepreneur and those I serve.

Put more simply, I believe being an entrepreneur is about being good in relationships. There is no, one-size-fits-all approach to define what being good at relationships is. Rather, the definition varies depending upon the partners involved in the exchange. That’s why no one can give you specific instructions on how to be good at relationships and even if they do, it doesn’t mean you’ll actually be able to do it. Relationships always involve a dynamic and delicate interplay between at least two people.

Of course you can be in a relationship and not be good at it. Think, for example, about parenthood or leadership or teaching. Just because you get the title does not make you good at it. The same goes for entrepreneurs. You can start a business and be manipulative. You can thrive on exploiting other people. You can be an egomaniac interested primarily in power and prestige. You can grow rich as this kind of entrepreneur. That’s a choice you can indeed make, but it certainly isn’t a requirement.

Creative, social and solo entrepreneurs, amongst others, are at the forefront of creating new relationships with those they serve and by doing so, are challenging the very way in which business is conducted. They are questioning the tenets of our economic system, they are challenging the divisions between for-profit and not-for-profit models, they are pushing themselves to take action to make art, products and experiences that shake up our world and invite more people into the process of world-making.

If you think about it, being in relationships with others can help us strive to be the best people we can possibly be; entrepreneurship can and should be the same. Building a quality relationship between you, your business, those you serve and the community you all exist within can be the primary focus of an entrepreneur. The commercial exchange that happens as a result of that relationship comes second.

Or at least, that’s how I see it. You are completely free to contest that definition in any way you want so please do so. This is our world to make, so let’s get to it!

Originally posted on www.allisonhillier.com by Allison Hillier.

 

 

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