There’s an old short story by HG Wells (that, until 5 minutes ago, I - and everyone I told about it - thought was written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez) that I think about often. It’s one of those old pieces of literature, poems, song lyrics that just sticks with you.
The last time I read this story was over two decades ago, yet I think about it almost once a week.
It’s called The Country Of The Blind.
It tells the story of a man who comes across an ancient village full of people who are blind.
"A man," one said, in hardly recognisable Spanish. "A man it is--a man or a spirit--coming down from the rocks."
But Nunez advanced with the confident steps of a youth who enters upon life. All the old stories of the lost valley and the Country of the Blind had come back to his mind, and through his thoughts ran this old proverb, as if it were a refrain:--
"In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King."
"In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King."
He thinks, because he has vision and everyone around him is blind, that he will be the master of this new place.
Instead, he finds that the entire society of the blind people has been reoriented around having a lack of vision.
One example is that, instead of working during the day when it’s hot, all the people work at night. The lack of light doesn’t bother them - they can’t see anyway - and it’s much cooler at night, which makes it easier to work, especially in a hot place like South America.
Nunez, however, isn’t accustomed to working at night. He needs to see things in order to do them well - while these people who have never seen anything in their life have created shortcuts to perform their work effectively. He tries to work during the day - but because of the heat, he’s not as efficient as the people working at night.
This thing that he thought would be a massive advantage has turned out to be a massive disadvantage.
I think about this story often, because I think it’s something that we all come across in our lives if you’ve lived long enough. At least I have.
You go from one field that is more “prestigious” to another field - and you think that, because you were able to do well in that former field, you should be able to do even better in this new one.
But, just like Nunez, we often find ourselves in the society of the blind: a place oriented around rules that we didn’t know existed: a funhouse world where the things that made us good at our former fields now make us bad at our new ones.
This is my first post in almost three weeks. I told you there would be a slowdown - I didn’t realize at the time that it would be this slow. I’d like to apologize for that.
Most of my energy has been in this new project I mentioned. This post is a bit of an update on how my project has been going, with some larger thoughts tied in.
I’ve been putting so much energy into it because I’ve been spinning my wheels a bit, trying to figure out an effective approach to reach out to my targets.
The reason is because the people I’m reaching out to aren’t the Fortune 500 enterprise clients that I’m used to reaching out to - but smaller, more boutique firms. Most of them probably do less than $5M a year.
I thought, “hey, I can get a meeting with an SVP at a company that does $5B a year, this should be cake.”
But it’s not just that the outreach is different (the lack of earnings calls being one), it’s the entire philosophy of outreach that has to change. Most of my principles of reaching out to prospects is built around the mindset of an SVP: they’re busy, they don’t believe in bullshit - get to the point and build a strong business case.
A marketing coordinator at an interior design firm, though? They probably love the bullshit. And - because my focus in cold emailing has been on getting to those SVPs - I think those muscles are weak. The same way Nunez’s non-vision senses were weak.
So, what does one do in these situations?
A lot of it is built on necessity, of course. If you’re like Nunez, and you have to make it work - you’ll find a way (as I said, it’s been two decades since I read the story, that’s probably not what happens). But, there are a lot of other times that you simply don’t have to.
It’s not like I need the revenue from it to survive - it’s actually probably a drag on my earnings. But I would be a pretty weak-kneed founder if I abandoned my new project after three weeks. I also think there’s massive potential in it, and I have been making progress. But I could also be an idiot who’s wasting my time on a project that would never be successful.
All of that is secondary though: this Substack isn’t about me but about you. How does one adapt in these situations?
I think the answer is to serve yourself up some humble pie. That’s usually the best solution to any problem you have.
Realize that you’re not as good as you think you are, and try to earnestly learn about the new field you’re diving into.
The humility, though, is paramount.
To use this situation as an example… because it is the catalyst for the conversation:
It’s very easy to be condescending to the types of emails that one sends to low dollar businesses. One can say, “oh, these people are morons, I just need to flood my emails with GIFs, emojis and catch-phrases and these idiots will eat it up.”
But there’s an art and science to crafting those types of emails too. Writing a cold email like that is like spilling a can of paint on a piece of canvas and calling it a Jackson Pollock.
Just because you don’t understand the rules of the game, doesn’t mean there aren’t any rules. And people who are well-versed in the game can easily spot people who aren’t playing by those rules.
No matter the field, there are people who are good at it, and people who are bad at it. The people who are good at it are good because of a specific skill set that they have honed. If you’re an outsider, it’s easy to look down on those people, but that’s dismissing the incredible amount of work and practice that they have put in to become great at it.
Sure, there’s no real detriment to that in ordinary life. For example, I find myself defending the Kardashians as marketing geniuses… but if you think they’re idiots, that doesn’t really effect you.
But, if you find yourself as a social media manager for an eCommerce brand, you better start studying them quickly. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself like someone who can see in the land of the blind.