No offence, but ...

Ah criticism. Does anyone really know how to take it? We’ve all experienced personal criticism. It can be disguised as ‘advice’ (“I’m only telling you for your own good!”). Alternatively, it can take the form of just plain old nastiness. When it’s directed at your business however, how do you take it? There’s nothing like some ‘well-meaning’ comments to bring forth a raging torrent of insecurities. After all, it’s not about you – or is it? At the risk of over-analysing what could have been innocent remarks, here are a couple of my ‘favourite’ comments that have been kindly imparted by visitors to the shop.

“This is a lovely shop but I hope you don’t mind me saying that I think the name sounds cheap. You may want to think about changing it?”

Hmm. Not sure how to respond to that one. In the minute or so that followed, my thoughts were: ‘Really? That hadn’t really occurred to me. Does it really sound cheap? Do other people think that too?’ Before common sense prevailed and I reined in my brain before it had gone through a complete name change, logo re-design and corporate colour change. (It tends to run away from me sometimes, does the old grey matter) I calmly told myself that’s ok if she thinks like that, she’s entitled to her opinion and really, I’ve had more positive than negative comments from people. And anyway, too late!

Here’s another goodie, uttered a couple of months after opening doors, and just after our first PR win with an article in the Sunday Herald-Sun.

“So how’s business going?”
(Me): “Pretty good actually.”
“Oh really? I’m surprised.”

I must confess that I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that one so I just left it.

Call me naïve, but I still prefer to think that comments like these are delivered not from malice but instead from a lack of tact. Big difference. As a fledgling business owner and sole operator however, there can be days when comments like these are harder to shrug off than others. That’s when some great advice from a dear friend of mine, also a business owner, has proved invaluable. She once told me to get into the habit of keeping a diary where I would write at least one good thing that happened during the day, and flick through this when I need a pep-up or some steering back on track.

Now that’s the kind of advice that’s always welcome.