Collecting Autographs

When I was growing up I was never really into stamps. loved the footy. I played it at school, played it after school and played it on the weekend. I even was lucky enough that my Dad took me to watch my beloved Geelong Cats when they played at home. We used to get there early and I would get all the autographs of the opposition players as they hopped off the team bus. And, I’d run out onto the ground after the game to snaffle the Cats player’s moniker too.

I was really proud of my autograph book. It included some TV personalities, some of my favorite footy players and even the captain of the Australian cricket team at the time, Greg Chappell.

Image: Wikipedia

Collecting Selfies

I don’t collect autographs anymore. Recently, I heard Gary Vaynerchuk say that the selfie has replaced the autograph. Instead of a squiggle on a page being the memento of meeting your hero, today we all carry smartphones and we can snap a photo instead. Even better, we can then brag about it to the rest of the world by posting it on Facebook.

I was thinking about collecting the other day and my immediate response was that it was for hobbyists and kids. Then, my second thought was that I’m collecting things every single day to grow my business.

Collecting Ideas

In my strength finders test, my top strength is being strategic. And, in second place is ideation. And, that’s what I collect today… ideas. There are a number of ways that I collect ideas:

• I used to have a filing cabinet of newspaper clippings. Now, I read the news on the ABC website and capture the important ideas and trends in my Evernote account. Some of these then become my blog posts.
• I read a lot of books and take notes.
• Some of the books I read become Book Rapper issues, which is to me is a collection of ideas.
• I also have a collection of notebooks, now more than 20, where I have jotted down, scribbled and scratched a wide range of ideas over the past decade.

[Tweet “What are you collecting to grow your business? #businessgrowth”]

The Gentle Art of Business Collections

For me, collecting ideas is a crucial part of building and growing my business. And, my question for you is:

What are you collecting to grow your business?

The answer to this question might be more obvious than you think. Here are some examples:

• For me it’s ideas.
• If you’re into stamps then collecting could be your entire business. The same applies to coins, antiques, cars, property, art and sporting memorabilia.
• If you’re a born networker or sales guru it might be that you collect people. Not literally, it’s not like you’re putting them in your stamp album. It’s more like you naturally meet people and grow relationships with them. You might collect people in a database, as business partners or as clients.
• If you’re a businessperson in the true sense of the word you might collect businesses. In other words, you might create and manage several of them.
• Perhaps you’re a product expert who creates products.
• Or, a perhaps you’re a content expert who collect and curate online articles as part of your LinkedIn or Twitter social media strategy.
• Another good thing to collect in business is money. Hopefully you’re doing some of this because that really is the point of being in business.

QUESTION: What is your business collection?