What a 7th grade dance can teach you about business

You all remember it. A wall of boys on one side of the room. A wall of girls on the other side of the room. A crowd of amused chaperons at the back, hoping that none of the boys will ever get up the courage to cross that invisible line in the middle of the room. And then, inevitably, one brave boy will venture to the other side and set off a chain reaction that leads to the revelation – “hey! Those girls aren’t so scary after all!”. And then good luck pulling them apart, chaperons!

It’s a classic scene that everyone recalls with varying degrees of fondness. But what many don’t realize is it’s a scene that many business people repeat on an ongoing basis. It’s just matter of if you’re the kid who walks across the room to have that dance, or the one who sits in the corner because you figure nobody on the other side would ever say “yes” because you think you have nothing to offer.

Nowhere is this more true than when we’re a small company or an independent business person trying to target niche audiences. When you’re looking for the broad audience, you’re generally dealing with the big boys and as we all know, the big boys are never afraid to ask for a dance, or more accurately, tell you how they want you to dance for them. To run with the analogy, let’s call them the coolest kids in school. But us smaller players have a terrible tendency to become the wall flowers who move closer to the corner as we see the cool kids’ dance cards filling up.

Now hopefully everyone has gotten over their fears of the opposite sex and have realized that the only thing that kept you from sharing a dance back in seventh grade was your own fear of asking. Well guess what? Plenty of you are still afraid to ask!! Only now, instead of your “Q” rating at (insert famous leader) Public School that’s suffering, it’s your business that’s that’s taking the hit!

The fact of the matter is, any player, big or small, who really looking to speak to a specific audience, is looking to do so in the most effective way possible – but nobody can know everyone that’s out there when we talk about these smaller, more segmented markets. Further to this, often there are so many smaller players out there that it’s tough to know the right one to dance with. That’s why it’s crucial for you to know your own value statement. If you don’t realize the unique benefits of dancing with you, how is anyone else supposed to realize it?? Once you get this figured out and can articulate it, you’ll quickly see, there are people out there who would love to dance with your business – they just needed to know you were available to cut a rug!

Lesson One: Let others know why you’re worth dancing with. Then ask them.

But that’s not quite the end of it. To extend the metaphor again, recall that the kids who got asked to dance first were always the most popular, and by popular, we really mean the most visible – captain of a sports team, leader of the student council, maybe the class clown. Other people knew who they were. Well in business, it’s no different. If you’re looking to target a specific market segment, get involved in it. There’s an industry association for everything these days – heck, there’s even an industry association for industry associations!! Join them. Get online. Get LinkedIn. Tell people about yourself. Help others begin to articulate your values as a dance partner for you. Before you know it, you’ll be a cool kid too and other kids will be asking you to dance!

Lesson Two: Be visible. Be the cool kid.

And guess what? That’s it. Not very hard hitting, but somehow it’s something I’ve seen countless business people young and old forget more times than I can count. Just like boys and girls at the seventh grade dance don’t realize how great the other is until the first time somebody crosses the room, businesses never realize the value of a partnership that hasn’t been presented to them. So get your business out there. Get yourself out there. Go to the dance, walk across that floor and find yourself a partner.

Chances are, there’s someone on the other side who’s just your type and has been dying for you to ask.

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