Jeff Harrison (Swingpoint Media) opens a short Local Voice video with a personal anecdote: a stranger offered him a ride, immediately proposing a solution to an assumed problem. He uses the story to warn business owners against rushing to offer solutions (the “when you’re a hammer” mindset) before understanding the real need; instead he advocates asking questions and counseling to discover the true condition.
And all of a sudden, it struck me as, like most of us as business owners, we do that. Hey, my name is Jeff Harrison with Swingpoint Media, and I own a company, or excuse me, I own a company called Swingpoint Media, and welcome to the Local Voice. Today, this struck me as something that, hey, I'm guilty of. And I want you to ask yourself, are you guilty of this? A friend of mine, Andrew, he has a saying. He says, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now back to the gentleman who stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. He had a solution to what he thought was my problem. I was walking, so he asked me if he could give me a ride. Well, a lot of times we have a solution. And anytime we see someone who looks like they have the problem we can solve. What do we do? We immediately use the hammer and say, hey, I've got a solution. Get on the back. We. Whatever. Instead of what, what. I'll call counseling, finding out what their condition is. Maybe they don't want to ride. Maybe I didn't want to ride.
