I Was Wrong (Again)

So I'm fixing it.

I started TBS with the idea that I would write about the business issues I discover in my corporate work.

Why they are issues in the first place.

How they hurt the business over the long term.

How they cause stress and uncertainty for everyone involved – founder, employees, suppliers, clients, and actually every other stakeholder in the business.

‘Nothing is ever so good that it can’t stand a little revision, and nothing is ever so impossible and broken down that a try at fixing it is out of the question.’
Rebecca Solnit

So here we are, with a new iteration of ‘The Banana Stand.’

It should have been a sure thing, but it wasn’t

I had the image in my mind of successful businesspeople lounging back and relaxing, while the business itself ran as predictably as a Tokyo train. Not automatically, by itself, but systematised to the point that people could finish their work at 5pm and not give it another thought until 9am the next day.

I still think that’s entirely possible.

I have two mantras I try to inculcate at every client site I work with

The first is, ‘For 8 hours every workday, people get paid to utilise their skills, expertise, knowledge, networks and time for the benefit of their employer. The other 16 hours are theirs to do what they want.’

AKA ‘fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.’

The second is, ‘Finish up healthier, wealthier and wiser than when you start, every workday.’

AKA ‘win-win for employer and employee.’

These are great until some unexpected conniption upsets the steady, predictable calm of normal business.

Something like a product quality issue. Or a government safety inspector has a bad day. Or a key person takes leave. Or COVID.

Then the overtime kicks in. The endless meetings about meetings happen. The 2am emails. The blame, the cost-cutting, the short-term fixes to long-term complacency.

And in we go, me and my crew. We look things over and fix them, one at a time. Until the transients disappear and operational steady-state is restored.

That was the plan for TBS, at the beginning.

But over time, I got to understand that the corporate audience that’s attracted to this content was not on Substack. Maybe LinkedIn (God help me) or Beehiiv, but not on Substack.

It could be they come here eventually. When (and if) that happens, I may reconsider my strategy.

But now, a pivot

Substackers are typically creators, people whose reason for being here is to explore new ideas and round them out to completion, if not practicality.

And even more specifically, they are part timers for whom Substack is a 5-9 activity. A side interest, not their full time job.

A few Substackers would call it their side hustle. This is a flag.

It means writers here are using their Substack to generate some level of extra revenue. Buy a car perhaps, pay down a mortgage, save for a holiday, give the kids a new bike.

These are the Substackers I want to write for

Because there are things they can do to make their side hustle operate with the effectiveness and efficiency of a true business.

The 5 topics to be covered are:

1. Get ready

2. Write content

3. Get discovered

4. Make it pay

5. Keep it operating.

Address each of these in a thoughtful, cohesive, systematic way that’s relevant to Substack newsletter-centric businesses.

Document what works and what doesn’t.

Implement small iterations to weave operations towards optimal.

It doesn’t have to be hard

Someone much wiser than me once said, ‘what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.’

This is good advice.

The problems I see in my corporate work are 100% applicable to solopreneur, non-incorporated businesses.

Like a Substack business.

There are no reinventions, or special considerations.

There are no ‘yeah nah my business is different’ moments.

So TBS will publish articles that reinterpret good corporate practice into tactical advice. Specific for micro businesses and solopreneurs, and for whom Substack is central to their business model.

Make sense?

What this looks like

No gratuitous Unsplash images.

Writing that’s as sharp and succinct as I can make it.

At least one article a week posted on TBS.

Multiple notes each weekday.

Occasional PDF guides available via Gumroad. Some free, some paid.

Occasional offers for other people’s products. Only the ones I think are useful and relevant.

All content on TBS is free. Free, as in no paid subscriptions.

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