How pretending is important at the start!

White lies can sometimes be a part of your marketing.

When I first started my business and attended local business networking events, people would always ask me what I thought were pointless questions, like ‘where is your office?’ and ‘how many staff do you have?’. Even 10 plus years later, I think these are pointless questions, as they have nothing to do with the quality of my work, the influence of my network, or the potential for collaboration with the person asking the questions.

At first, these questions scared me, made me feel like a fraud (I remember someone laughing in my face about what a small company I must be if I was using Dropbox rather than having a server in my office – that was back in 2005 and I think I got the last laugh there!).

Over time I learnt to answer those seemingly pointless questions in a way that empowered me to be able to talk about the world-changing work I was doing. Even today, people ask me questions like this, and whilst white lies are no longer recited, these questions have now become an indication for me as to whether people are the right people to collaborate with. Those who value old fashioned status symbols are not the same as those who bring innovation and creativity to collaborative opportunities.