In the CLASSIC movie, Karate Kid, Mr Miyagi gets Daniel-san to clean his cars under the pretense of teaching him karate (by the way, I’m talking here about the original film, not that horrible remake with Will Smith’s cocky kid where you want to punch and drown him after five minutes). The “you work, I teach” manoeuvre from Miyagi is a genius move in the history of child labour and one I wager we’ll not see the likes of again in our lifetime.
Anyway, after LIKE FOREVER Mr Miyagi finally reveals that the moves involved in cleaning the cars are (very loosely, let’s be honest) related to the karate moves that are going to enable him to put other children into hospital (GREAT life lessons like this are littered throughout the film).
I studied Wadō-ryū myself under the legendary sensei, Yoshitsugu Shinohara, and never once did he trick me into learning karate. He’d simply say, “when someone tries to punch you in the face, move your arm up to block it”. In retrospect I feel somewhat cheated that he didn’t instead have me installing blinds in his kitchenette. Anyway, he’s dead now, so… lesson learned.
Still here? Wow. Thanks.
So, what you’ve ‘probably’ guessed from all this is… when bringing in a team of experts such as Sponge NB to do your new business, don’t expect to just be told “if you do {THING} you will immediately get {RESULT}”. It’s not that we’re going to have you cleaning our cars or anything (probably) it’s just that - like Mr Miyagi - we believe that a longer process without pressure actually leads to better, stronger and more sustainable outcomes.
Now we could simply tell you to block the punch on Monday and then enter you into the All Valley Karate Championship Tournament on Tuesday, but - frankly - you will end up in hospital with at least a punctured spleen. Being told the basic premise of a process isn’t the same as understanding it, working on it and benefiting from it.
We’d rather have you cleaning cars (again - for clarity - this IS a metaphor) for a while (and in real terms that might mean creating bespoke creds, compiling a solid database, practicing pitches, etc) before punching you in the face (again METAPHOR).
Look, we’ve all had a lot of fun with this blog, but in a word: New Business.
(Sayonara).