This adorable Verizon commercial has been around for a while but I don’t really watch TV (I know, I’m a freak) so I only just recently caught it. I love it, not only because it’s funny (the exchange between the boy and dad at the end is priceless) but, for many of us that run our own business, it’s impossible not to recognize a bit of ourselves in Suzy.
Her father gives her the phone because he only sees a single purpose that relates to her business: the calculator. But she immediately sees much more potential and uses all of the resources available to build her business. Of course, the commercial takes it to the over-the-top level for comedic effect but the same general idea applied to all of us. Think of the origins of things like PayPal, eBay, blogs, Twitter, and mobile content. Where others saw cutesy tools to sell the occasional item, split the bill, keep an online diary, or chat with friends, we saw the tools to build our own little e-commerce empires and to market our businesses. We were able to look beyond the obvious purpose of the tool and see its full potential.
This is something that separates successful entrepreneurs and small business owners from the average person, otherwise everyone would be good at running their own business and history has shown that isn’t the case.
But my question for you is: Do you think this ability to think outside the box can be taught or it is something we are born with? In other words, would we have had these instincts as children like little Suzy or is it something we all learned in the school of life?
I also totally want a slide in my office.
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I think it may be a little bit of both. If you are encouraged to use that initiative and attitude early on, you’ll probably keep doing it in the future. If people discourage you from trying new things when you’re young, you likely won’t even think about doing it when you’re older.
There are always exceptions, of course. I do find it telling, though, how many people I know who are successful in ecommerce who also tried their hand at businesses when they were kids. Even the simple lemonade stand takes initiative and encouragement from adults. I had a couple little businesses when I was a kid, plus I also helped my parents sell stuff at various craft shows, so that kind of thing was ingrained early on as being a normal thing to do. I think it may have influenced how I approach work, too, since even my day job consists of temporary consulting/contract work and not a “regular” permananent type of job.