I don’t care how introverted I am, at my core, I am a quiet leader, but I am also open-minded. I do not need to lead every day. I have no problem with considering someone else’s opinion. Whether I agree or not is a different story, but I will hear it and be open to it nonetheless. However, I have not always been this way, especially when it seems like everyone is doing the same thing. That’s a big turn off for me, but sometimes we at least need to know what everyone is doing because we might need to be doing it too!
When everyone started going live and using Periscope in 2016, I hated it! What the hell could they possibly have to talk about every single day? Who has that type of time? I wanted no parts of it. Plus, I have never been too comfortable in front of a camera. Yet in almost every call I had with Jarmel (SwagHer’s VP of Marketing), he would say something about how people needed to see my face. Whether he said it directly or indirectly, I always made an excuse. I just didn’t see how it could benefit me, and if everyone else was doing it, I didn’t want to.
Big mistake. It’s possibly my biggest, because I have watched so many others grow their brand since they started being more visible online. While our online presence has always been strong for our size, I now realize we could have grown a great deal more had I hopped on the bandwagon a lot sooner, because I could have been building my own tribe instead of now trying to do so.
However, I was so closed minded and not wanting to be like “them†that I missed the opportunity to be a pioneer in this trend. In some ways, it’s not so bad, because I am not sure I would have been able to be as transparent as I am now, but I hate it took me so long nonetheless. Now I am struggling to learn how to use all the cool tools they have on Instagram.
Speaking of Instagram, we slept on our Instagram for a year, not seeing how beneficial it could be. When I finally began to really utilize in 2014, it helped to grow our brand tremendously. The connections I made there are partially what inspired me to take the leap and move to Atlanta.
I still hadn’t really caught on to Snapchat though. Neither my life nor work are popping like that right now.
Anyway, as leaders we often speak of thinking outside the box, but sometimes we may need to at least look inside the box and see what is going on. Whether you place yourself in it or take part in it, is on you, but you should at least be open minded and knowledgeable to what is going on around you.
