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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Joel Swanson
April-May 2015

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Leadership.

The Pacific Crest Trail is a long-distance hiking trail that runs 2,658 miles from the Mexican border to the Canadian border through California, Oregon and Washington.

In 2009 I quit my job and set off from the Mexican border.

Five months and six pairs of shoes later I arrived at the Canadian border an exhausted, triumphant and changed person. (The photos that accompany this article show me at various points along the trail.)

By nature I am both curious and introspective, so throughout those five months my business mind never took a break, even though my career did. What I discovered was a direct link between what I was learning on the trail and how it applied to business leadership.

What follows are the three most influential lessons I learned in those five grueling months; may they serve you as well as they have me.

 

Lesson 1: Go see for yourself.

Less than two weeks into my hike I found myself facing the snow-covered Fuller Ridge. Other hikers were telling tales of terrible snow conditions and how another hiker had died on Fuller Ridge a few years prior. I was scared and felt completely out of my league.

After more fretting and hand-wringing than I’d care to admit, I decided to push on, unsure if I was being courageous or reckless. I called my wife, took a deep breath, put on my best “tough guy” face, and forged ahead.

Before long the forest was completely blanketed by snow, and I was wet up to my thighs from repeated falls. Here it comes, I kept thinking. The really nasty part must be just ahead. After several hours I unexpectedly arrived at a tiny dirt parking lot. My heart sank—how had I gotten lost?

Reaching the parking area I discovered a battered wooden sign reading “Fuller Ridge North Trailhead.” After a few bewildering moments I suddenly realized the truth and kicked a large pinecone in disgust at my unnecessary worry.

I was not lost, but had already crossed the infamous Fuller Ridge, blind to that reality because I had expected something far worse than what I’d found.

In lean manufacturing there is a Japanese word “gemba,” which roughly translates to “the place where the value is created.” Lean practitioners frequently admonish others to “go to gemba.”

The idea is that problems on a factory floor don’t get solved in a conference room; you must solve it where the problem actually exists. In short, you must go see for yourself.

In that tiny parking lot I learned a valuable lesson that has stuck with me ever since: go to gemba. Trust, but verify. Lead your people from the front lines, not from the safety of your office.

Refuse to believe that something is as bad or as good as reported until you’ve experienced it first-hand. Go see for yourself.

Lesson 2: Be unwavering in your goals, but flexible in your plans.

At heart I am a planner, and prior to my 2009 hike I had routinely thought one must always have his ducks in a perfect row. At one point early in my journey, a fellow hiker and I got lost.

We eventually found the Pacific Crest Trail, but we’d missed several miles of the official route. I was frustrated, and my hiking companion quickly tired of my complaining. “I have a joke for you,” he said. “How do you make thru-hikers laugh?” I just looked at him, confused. He turned, resumed hiking, and called to me over his shoulder: “Tell them you have a plan!”

There were countless times on the Pacific Crest Trail when my plans didn’t evolve as I expected. Once I hitchhiked into a small town to resupply, only to find the lone grocery store out of business. Several times the trail was rerouted due to forest fires.

There were times when I got lost, when I had to replace damaged gear with poor substitutes, and when I was forced to change my resupply strategy on the fly. However, despite all these bumps in the road, I still reached the Canadian border.

Being an excellent business leader is much the same: you plan, adjust, plan, and adjust again as often as needed. Leaders who establish detailed plans and refuse to adapt to changing circumstances soon find themselves miles behind their competitors.

Those who keep their eyes firmly fixed on their major goals yet remain flexible to adapt ultimately have a much smoother journey, and win in the end.

Lesson 3: Embrace the risk with the adventure.

Later that summer I found myself in town resupplying when I learned of a huge incoming snowstorm. I stayed the night, but after 24 hours of monitoring the weather with other hikers I’d had enough and was ready to hike north despite the storm.

I knew that hypothermia was a possible danger, so I rallied a group of other hikers and we committed to sticking together through the storm. By early afternoon we were sitting on a bench outside the hostel, waiting for our shuttle back to the trail.

Then, just minutes before the shuttle was to leave, my companions suddenly decided to hitchhike around the storm instead.

In a fit of disappointment and frustration, I called my wife. She listened patiently, and then said something that hit me like a punch in the gut: “Honey, you tend to want all of the adventure with none of the risk.”

Immediate denial gave way to anger and then to a sad epiphany, all in just a few painful seconds of silence on the phone. She was right.

Through a million small choices over the past 30 years I’d become someone who desperately tried to portray the image of a “live on the edge” risk-taker while simultaneously working diligently to manage risk out of my life. I made up my mind to take the risk and head directly into the storm by myself.

What I learned that day was a life of adventure requires embracing risk. To use business terminology, if you truly want success for your business it cannot happen without embracing risk as you ride the crazy roller-coaster of growing your own company.

On the Pacific Crest Trail embracing risk meant hiking into that snowstorm alone betting that I’d run into other hikers with whom I could join up. It meant fording rivers bitter cold with snowmelt, emerging on the other side wet up to my stomach and unable to feel my feet.

It meant hiking into the desert not completely sure I had enough water. It meant seeing mountain lion tracks, shrugging my shoulders, and pressing on.

As business leaders the risks we must embrace in growing our companies are less dramatic, but they are no less real, no less scary, and no less impactful. But, as my hiker self would tell my professional self, you must either embrace the risks as a synergistic part of your entrepreneurial adventure or pack up right now and go home.

It’s a daunting journey, but those who can do it are in for a far more rewarding adventure than a 2,658-mile hike could ever be!

 

Contact: Joel Swanson is the founder of Twin Cities firm Swanson Insight and a Certified EOS Implementer, who helps companies use the Entrepreneurial Operating System with the goal of becoming best in class: 612.836.3656; joel@swansoninsight.com; www.swansoninsight.com