Nobody Asked You To Move Yet

I have no idea how many blogs there are, and if you google it, you get a pretty big range of answers and no agreement.

Let's just say that it is well into the 70 million plus range and there are those who say the number doubles every six months.

Maybe they ought to put up another clock in Times Square to count how many are created every minute? There's probably room right under the one that calculates the national debt.

Anyway, as one of the scores of millions, I am always looking for advice and ideas on how to make the blog more interesting and dare I say it, fun. Needing all the help I can get, a colleague recently turned me on to a site called Copyblogger.com. It hasn't helped with my spelling maladies much, but it has made for some interesting reading.

In a recent edition I came across a blog called IttyBiz written by a gal named Naomi Dunford. She has a wonderful writing style that gives the reader a real feel for her personality and makes you say to yourself "she is one sharp cookie and probably lots of fun to be with" and I have no doubt that both are true.

Naomi's blog is focused on "Marketing for Businesses without Marketing Departments." Nice tag line, yes?

In any case, she recently had a guest post which she introduced by saying "This is one of the best posts I’ve ever read on getting what you want." Who can't relate to that, so immediately I wanted to read it.

The post was authored by a fellow named Chris Anthony who describes himself as a "delight specialist" who helps small businesses to "turn their audiences into insane, raving fans" and bore the headline: Crossing the Red Line.

Whether you agree or not you can judge for yourself. For me, I'm with Naomi.

One of the thoughts that came to mind after reading the post, after I got past the fact that so much of what Chris had to say applied to me, was how it reminded me of an issue that I have heard come up many times when I talk with ExecuNet members.

It comes up not so much because people are reluctant to ask for what they want, but because they are so focused on what they want that they don't realize that the constraint they have imposed on themselves could well result in missed opportunities.

Most often this comes up when someone wants to make a career change but is strongly rooted to a given geography and as a result simply ignore opportunities for which would be a good fit but walk away when they discover the location is somewhere they don't want to be.

Indeed, the phrase often goes something like "There is no way I'd move to East Gabrew."

An understandable feeling for sure, but I also try to diplomatically point out that no one has asked you to move anywhere yet.

What they have missed is to not realize that whoever it is that has the opening in East Gabrew may well have a similar need in the location they do want and by their failure to reach out, they will never know what they might have missed.

Point being, and what I try to convey is that once you have the chance to start a dialogue lots of things can and do change, and that includes things like titles, responsibilities, compensation and yes, LOCATION. This is especially true in today's environment where cost is critical and communication so much easier.

Bottom line: Most of us don't make the effort because we're afraid to cross the "red line" for fear of people being offended because we have wasted their time or they will think we are just jerking them around or whatever.

There is never any harm in listening, it's a free country, you can always say no.

And a fellow named Dave Harmon may have helped to sum it up best when he posted his comment on the original post and shared this wonderful line from his father-in-law:

"What are they gonna do, take away your birthday?"