Recently, Heather Allard sent out a tweet that quoted me from the Money Map:
“As an entrepreneur, YOU get to create your life, your work day, your rules. #moneymap <– A to the MEN, Alexis! :)”
I RT’d her tweet and my Retweet went to LinkedIn (follow me?) where one of my lawyer colleagues sent me a comment that said:
“Alexis, the market place makes the rules.”
That gave me pause. Is it true that the marketplace makes the rules? If that is true, what does that mean for the freedom that I hold so dear and teach is not only possible, but integral to our ultimate fulfillment? I can see the validity in that statement AND I believe that you choose the marketplace. Your freedom comes from choosing to serve the marketplace that supports you living the life you want, your work day and your rules. There are billions of people to serve, choose the ones who love you as you love to be.
What do you think? Does the marketplace make the rules? And if so, does that mean you can’t make your own?
6 Comments
I think it’s just like a lawyer to say that the marketplace makes the rules. I can tell you right now that clients of mine have told me point blank that I drive my own market by igniting in them desire for my services. I’ve spent a lot of time really understanding and listening to whom it is I want to serve, and I think that’s what you’re speaking to here.
The market place makes the rules to SOME extent, in that we all operate in an environment not a vacuum. But there are many “marketplaces” to choose from (or invent by choosing to do things differently).
I’ve been an entrepreneur since 1989 because I’ve never liked following the conventional wisdom (aka “rules”) and I’ve managed to survive very well thank you 🙂
If the marketplace made the rules than every business in a particular market would look exactly the same – there would be no room for creativity and/or innovation. In my opinion the only thing that the marketplace dictates is the demand/need for service/product everything else is up to the provider!
Well…how about both/and? The marketplace may drive things, but “the marketplace” is fluid and malleable. Most people don’t know what they want until a thought leader suggests it to them. It seems to me that entrepreneurs are in prime position to plant and nurture the seeds of their vision and harness the power of their audience (aka “the marketplace”) to make that vision grow. Entrepreneurs are consumers, too, so we actually ARE the marketplace, voting with our dollars and our mindshare.
I think the marketplace making the rules has left lots of customers unfulfilled and the people who could best serve them are afraid to step into the game.
I see the marketplace as a container for us to bring our best and serve those who need us.
Like Rebecca and Debra said, when you love and understand the needs of “your” marketplace and give them the option to expand with you, those are the “rules” that really matter.
While the old paradigm of the market place makes the rules…We must always remember that WE ARE THE MARKETPLACE. Where and how each soul spends their transferable energy of cash, buck, yen, euro, and pound matters. As we join together in community taking a conscious look at where and how goods and services are provided and under what conditions whether it be child or slave labor creation of the good or pesticide infected food IT MATTERS how we spend. It is forver OUR CHOICE. Let there me no mis-perception about that. As a group we have a large voice as a market. The USA is the top of the food chain in this regard. From here so goes the world.