Ask IttyBiz: When Others Rain on Your Home Business Parade
Somebody I know who has a highly cool blog and home business in-the-making emailed me with a totally heartbreaking question. They emailed in response to When Your Loved Ones Want You To Fail. I thought the question (and hopefully answer) would help you guys, and the sender graciously allowed me to use the question anonymously in Ask IttyBiz.
“In short: it’s not about my little blog, it’s about the home business. You wrote a post about it - how to deal with uncooperative “loved ones”. But it is SO hard. I need help from people, b/c it’s a new biz, but sometimes it feels like strangers are a lot more helpful than friends are. Some people, whom I considered as friends, tend to disappear as soon as I ask them for something, even though I would have helped them if they had asked me for help.
My business partner tells me not to take it personally. That a big part of starting any biz is to receive a lot of “no’s” from people whom you expected a “yes”. My spouse tells me not to take it personally. To just re-categorize these people as “acquaintances” and move on. But I DO take it personally. How do you deal with it? Do you just re-categorize and move on? Do you remove these people from your life? How do you avoid feeling disappointed and hurt?”
My woefully inadequate answer:
“Oh, you poor thing. That sucks. It sucks rocks. I have been there. (To a degree I’m still there but I’m making enough money that I can console myself somewhat.)
My story, if it helps at all, is this one. Both of my parents (long divorced and hate each other) have always known I’d do great. No problem there. Total and unlimited source of support. My husbands (I’m on number 2), not as much. Jamie’s great now but there were times in the beginning when he thought I was totally mental. My in-laws were BRUTAL. And my friends? Don’t even get me started. I had to fire my friends and get new ones.
Here’s my theory:
The world of human relationships operates on a pecking order principal. Like dogs in packs. Somebody’s on top, somebody’s next, and so on. Except we’re more complex than dogs, so we have dozens and hundreds and thousands of arenas in which we subconsciously compete.
(The media example is where one sister is the “pretty” one and the other is the “smart” one. When one of the sisters upsets the balance of who is pretty and who is smart, you’ve got a shit storm on your hands.)
Both of my husbands, and both of their sets of parents, have deep down operated with the mindset that the man makes the real money. Yes, the woman is expected to contribute financially, but the man is the real earner. The thing is, I have a skill that pays me three figures an hour in some cases. You just can’t make that kind of money where I live. It throws people off and people hate what they don’t know. It fucks them up.
The real truth of the matter is that the vast majority of the people on this planet are incredibly cynical. In your case (or my case, or the case of pretty much any IttyBiz owner) is that they very strongly think you will fail. They probably don’t WANT you to fail, but deep down, they think you will.
What does that do to them? It makes THEM look like an idiot if they “went along with it”. If they were involved in the process, they were involved in a FAILING process. That is bad for their ego, so they don’t bother.
The what-to-do-about-it part of the email:
If they’re really unhelpful, recategorize as acquaintances and never do them a favor again. If asked why, your answer is that you’re too busy with your business.
If they’re only mildly uncooperative, just don’t ask for help.
Especially when it comes to online biz, they don’t get it. They think of it as a slightly dirtier version of Amway.
As far as how I dealt with the hurt, frankly, I wasn’t hurt. I took the abject failure route through life, so everyone thought I was a complete fuck up. Dropped out of high school, married someone inappropriate, pregnant by 17. If I worked at McDonald’s people would have been impressed. It was no real surprise that they thought I’d fuck this up too. I just don’t talk to them about it any more. I’m also buying a Mercedes to shut them all up (no joke), but that’s just the revenge talking.
Get as much as you can out of your online peeps, and don’t discuss a damn word about your biz with offline peeps unless they ask. If they ask, your answer is, “It’s going great!” You may substitute “awesome” or “never better” if you wish.
Put in 20 hour days if you have to but do not put yourself in the position where you could get hurt any more than absolutely necessary. Sometimes it’s necessary. Most times it isn’t. It’s exhausting and scary and you’ll think you’ll never sleep again, but it’s worth it in the end.”
Do you guys have any advice?
If you’ve got any advice or commiseration to share, bring it on! If you don’t want to identify yourself, just go with “Anonymous” in the comments so you don’t have to publicly mention that your wife was a total bitch and wouldn’t help you with a damn thing.















