My Yellow Brick Business Road: A Happy Thanksgiving Tale

I rarely was happier during my corporate days than when I was traveling on trend shopping trips to Paris and other European cities - Florence, London, Milan, Dusseldorf.

The photo at the top of this post is the most famous lingerie store in Paris, Sabbia Rose.

Each item in the store is individually designed and hand made - a work of art!

Those trips were hectic, exhausting, but so exhilarating because they got my creative, strategic, cultural juices flowing.

But then, as my disillusionment with corporate life grew, and my interest in climbing a meaningless ladder waned, I took my big leap into entrepreneurship.

I've written before about my journey from Paycheck Prison to Product WYZE before but on this very special Thanksgiving, I wanted to share something a bit personal to all those who are facing a new career and life chapter.

This past year, I found myself yearning for change.

I loved my business and my clients but...

I deeply missed working on product development.

I did a lot of soul searching.

I talked about this yearning with lots of people (thank goodness for my Master Mind buddy and my Vistage Chair).

The harder I tried to see what I wanted to do, the more elusive the path became.

Perhaps you can relate if you are considering a career and/or life change of your own.

I had a very deep sense of what I wanted to build my new business offer around.

I knew there would be great benefit to business owners and service firms.

However, it would require showing them a different way of looking and structuring their business offerings.

It was a departure from the typical.

And when you invite people into a changed model, you are not fulfilling demand.

You are creating demand.

We didn't know we needed the iPhone until Steve Jobs created that demand, did we?

He believed deep down that we all wanted technology to be beautiful and in our pocket.

He created demand.

My colleague Nicholas Cole says:

"Expertise is the enemy of fresh thinking."

Once I faced that I had come to the end of one path in my business (It was something I didn't want to face because that meant I had to CHANGE),

my new 🛣️ Yellow Brick Business Road emerged.

Over the next weeks, my new brand, my new offers to help service-based business owners Productize and Package their services into new and different revenue streams became clear.

I attracted the perfect Marketing Strategist to work with me in executing these ideas.

I took a calculated risk because I knew I was working in my Zone of Genius.

I have always loved and been good at product development.

I have always loved and been effective at blending creativity with strategy with implementation.

In my former career, the ideas turned into prototypes of new intimate apparel products;

the prototypes turned into wear testing;

the wear testing turned into the production line;

the production line turned into shipping;

the shipping turned into sales in top department stores.

Today, I take all of these principles and apply them to a new arena - the service sector - with new kinds of products - digital ones.

I get to work in my Zone of Genius, help other business owners, and they get to help their clients in new and better ways.

For this I am very thankful on this Thanksgiving Day.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday and hope that you too will feel the joy and fulfillment in working with your purpose and in your Zone of Genius.

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Nancy Fox is the CEO of Product WYZE™️, guiding consulting & fractional exec firms to grow and scale by developing recurring revenue & subscription productized services - signature systems, playbooks, courses, books, webinars , and paid newsletters. You're invited! Come learn how to create, launch, and grow a successful subscription-based offer to add to your growing ready-to-scale fractional or advisory business. The Product WYZE Subscription Success Bootcamp is FREE and starting soon.