The Wake-Up Call Small Caribbean Businesses Needed!
- Writer for DDI on Medium
- Apr 14
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Here’s a Caribbean perspective: it's been pretty obvious for a while now—90% of local business owners are dependent on making money through every other channel except what WE bring to the table.
The push to sell other people’s products—confidently called “a new reality of business”—is a repackaged take on an old system: Don’t productize your services and sell them. Sell our products instead. Don't create your own tools or be a resource; use our tools and look to us for how things are done.
Where does agency over your security, or your ability to decide whether or not you and your family will eat tomorrow, go when you’re no longer able to do that? What authority can you truly have when you're forbidden to think?
Being at the mercy of something you can’t control is the oldest trick in the book—and now, everyone can feel the legacy of this colonial dependency.
BLESSED IS THE SMALL BUSINESS THAT HAS ITS OWN IP
Is there a specific problem you're passionate about solving?
What are the various problems that comprise being in that situation?
I’ve seen local service providers begging for reviews, and I’ve heard influencers pleading with listeners for reviews. I’ve also seen 1-man shows become inconsistent, putting out reviews because “people just don’t want to give reviews.” But “Most businesses in Trinidad and Tobago don’t ask you for a review,” because it's an afterthought. The client was never prepared to give any, and they don't know what to talk about because the owner of the business doesn't know where the transformation is for the client.
It took 8 years for me to feel ready to document and productize The One-Page Project review method™, but it’s incredibly empowering and addictive, building something from scratch and creating something that works! I have never had a problem getting meaningful reviews for The One-Page Project™. It's for a specific type of client, it's requested of the client at the right time in the project, and there is no fuzziness about what they're expected to remark about.
If I choose, I could sell it as a digital product. But just like The BrandConductor design interview™, I’m betting on time that its value will grow through my work. Maybe then a digital product would be a real option for me...Maybe.
For now, it's better as part of my core services (according to the scope of the client's project).
When you have IP like that, life keeps moving forward for your services regardless of the ebb and flow of the world's economy.
Here it from the horse's mouth:
Many small service businesses in Trinidad and Tobago are run by people who aren’t free to do things like this because they exist to dance to the beat of culture.
Are you prepared to finally think for yourself, to side-step the pervading false sense of independence you’ve been fed all these years, and gain real independence and confidence through developing your core services?
Now, this isn't the same as putting ideas out as work. Ideas can be stolen if they aren't productized, trademarked, and sold as yours.
Can you think of an idea you might already have the framework for? What personal experiences can you tap into to help someone like you self-identify with it as something for them? Bonus points if you've been paid before to apply this to a problem someone had.
This is what resilience looks like for people like us. 100% control over how value is generated.
Have you ever considered what resilience looks like for you?
Shake Your Cock N Bull Graphic Designs, my free Facebook group is exclusively for local founders who want to give their most secrete fears about being online a good shaking, so they can venture online with confidence!
