If I could describe the progress of my small business to you in one sentence, that title would be it.

Moving at adequate speed (and with appropriate force).

In other words, I’m progressing in a way that doesn’t at all conform to what social media evangelists and preachy speakers on pricey conference stages will tell you about what you SHOULD be doing and achieving in your small business…

Smashing it.

Crushing it.

Skyrocketing it (cheers, AI, for that interstellar gem).

If I were a cynical soul, I’d tell you that the reason these things are preached and rammed down our throats is because the people spouting them want to either justify something to themselves, or to prove to outside eyes and ears that they’re doing well. It’s a validation thing, and it’s human – if not a bit needy. If I were even more cynical – which, of course, I am – I’d suggest they’re also probably advocating such alarming rates of ambition because they’ve got something to sell you that will help you achieve the same level of violently speedy success as they have allegedly achieved for themselves.

That second cynicism is totally fair, by the way. I mean, if you have something to sell, of course you’ll extol its virtues and showcase yourself to be living proof of its promise, but that first claim I made… well, they doth protest a tad too much, in my opinion.

Now, none of this is to say that you shouldn’t try hard, work hard, or push for any kind of excellence in your pursuit of success (money, power, National Treasure status, etc), because in life we should all have ambition to achieve those things to some extent – and god knows we deserve it (running your own business is HARD). But what I mean by my stance is that nobody should ever feel forced into following or living up to bandwagon mantras just because they’re being screamed in your face to the point where you’re almost ridiculed for not sharing such intense ambition.

“10x your business!” (what does that even mean, really…)

“Step into your power!” (they’ve blatantly nicked that from that fucking fun-sponge Elsa in Frozen, so that one can get in the bin)

“Build your empire!” (Okay so I hear ’empire’, I think ‘dictator’ – just me?)

By all means set big goals and have big dreams, but don’t forget that if you don’t achieve them, you’ll one day be forced to walk around down here with all us little people again.

Here’s a question…

What does a crop of courgettes have in common with a copywriting business?

Answer:

I have no desire to grow one.

The shunning of business growth may seem like a strange belief for a business owner to hold, but seeing as I’ve just compared that same business to “the immature fruit of a vegetable marrow” (thank you, Wikipedia, for the overly elaborate definition of courgette), nobody’s ever going to accuse me of rational thinking. Stay with me, though…

I’ve been running my copywriting business for over a decade, so for context, I’m not saying I don’t enjoy success, or that I’m deeply put out when my profits at the point of taxation are higher than they were the year before. It should go without saying that those things are to be enjoyed (if not always expected) by a business owner – and I’m certainly no exception. But when I hear or read about business growth in this day and age, it completely pisses me off, if I’m honest. Social media platforms and influencer stages are flooded with insistent language that we shouldn’t simply be growing and progressing as in ‘moving healthily in a positive direction’, but that we should be almost aggressively smashing the shit out of stuff along the way. I don’t want to do that – and I’ve been ridiculed and patronised in posts and conversations where I’ve made that claim in the past. All the more reason for me to speak – or write – in greater depth for those who might share my view.

I of course often challenge myself to progress – in life, as well as in my small business – but growth for me is something natural. It means that things are organically better each day than they were the day before – thanks to care, maintenance, and a healthy dose of the sun shining down on us (never forget that we’re all always at the mercy of fate and luck). To the loudmouths of LinkedIn in particular, however, growth is all about rapidly hacking, excessively scaling, and generally doing other unnecessarily epic things that require you to “STOP PLAYING SMALL!”, or whatever.

A small business, playing small. Who’d have fucking thought.

Any time I hear or read those phrases imploring us to “Scale Up”, “Level Up” or “Smash It” in business, I feel that they should appear in sound effect bubbles, like in the retro Batman comics.

“KAPOW your next launch!”

“SPLAT your way to six figures!”

“THWACK your customers in the face as the expert in your industry!”

(All legitimate ‘bat fight’ words, right there, in case you’re interested. I lost days researching that.)

I’ll freely admit that even before these gurus sprouted up to bulldoze others into business growth by charging them the earth to show them ‘how’, I’ve always been a lazy sod who can’t be arsed ‘growing’ anyway, because the very word implies that I’m going to need tools, patience, skill… and a willingness to get covered in crap at some point.

Lazy? Yes. But level-headed? Certainly.

As a small business owner, I’m happy to play small for as long as it continues to make a big impact – for my clients, for my loved ones, and for my own sense of wellbeing in a lovely little life that I’ve built. I’ve worked hard enough to grow the fruits of my labour as it is, so excuse me whilst I sit back for a little while and enjoy them in a Sangria in the sunshine.

Don’t worry, I won’t put courgettes in it.