By Paul-Anthony Surdi, CEO of Body Art & Soul Tattoos.
As the CEO of a training program for aspiring tattoo artists, I recently crossed over into fake-Instagram-account status, meaning people who don’t like our company created fake Instagram accounts pretending to be me. My co-founder and I received threats, defamation, slander and now, recently, character assassinations through fake social media accounts. While some of it is laughable, it’s also disturbing. In fact, not only were my co-founder and I under constant attack in 2017; most of my staff artists were cyberbullied, taunted and even threatened across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
What was the end result? We used the critics’ energy to fuel our geographic expansion by 50 percent and built an indestructible, unified identity that is taking us to new heights in 2018. Here’s my advice from the battlefield on how to turn hate into company expansion.
Embrace the Criticism
If you are being cyberbullied and enduring public character assassinations, congratulations. You’re doing something worth criticizing! This might not be your first thought when being smeared publicly. Yet if you know in your heart of hearts that your haters are reacting to your success and it scares them, then you can embrace it publicly with your team.
You are moving past being ignored and/or laughed at, and now you’re only one step away from winning. Be proud and use this opportunity to take your leadership, team and company to new heights.
Show Contrast
Receiving criticism gives you the ideal opportunity to illustrate just how unique and wonderful your people are for providing value to your clients and customers, even in the face of fearful competitors who attack you for being different.
Highlight the value and cultural differences between your team and your critics.
In our case, our critics consist of mostly straight, white, male tattoo artists over forty who don’t believe the tattoo industry should be open to everyone. Our staff and artists are 80 percent women and minorities under 40 who do believe anyone with passion, talent and desire deserve an opportunity. This contrast couldn’t be starker. Find ways to highlight the contrast between your team and your critics, so your team can embrace their identity as the good guys in a battle worth winning.
Open the Vents
Being cyberbullied directly or indirectly takes a toll on people emotionally. You can not deny the impact, so encourage people to openly share the pain of their experiences. I can assure you that if people have been directly targeted, they need to talk about it right away, and it’s better that they share their experiences with you.
Provide a time and a place for everyone to come together and share their experiences, feelings and frustrations. As long as you are there to guide the process and help bring them back to the value they provide to the world, this can be the shared emotional experience that brings your team closer than ever.
Aim to Improve
Critics may actually show you opportunities for improvement in your business that need to be addressed. Is your marketing message flawed? Are their holes in your product delivery? Is your customer service overworked and understaffed? Whatever they are throwing at you, look for the diamonds.
For us, we realized that our internal growth language was too aggressive once it made it into our marketing message. Our growth did not require us to take business away from others, yet we saw how that misunderstanding could occur. As a result, we changed our tone both internally and externally.
Unify and Fortify
Once you embrace the hate, show contrast, open the vents and uncover improvements, it is time for you to lead from the front by highlighting everything your team has gained from this shared experience. Double down on your commitment to providing value to your clients and customers.
If you’ve navigated this road with honesty, openness and a desire to improve, you’ll create a stronger, more unified team. Even if the hate dissipates rather quickly, keep coming back to the contrasts between your team and the critics. Keep coming back to their shared experience. Keep coming back to the improvements they made and how they endured. Use the entire experience to unify them and strengthen your position in the market.
If you know in your heart that what you are doing helps people and makes a difference, then use the disruptive energy of fearful critics as fuel to take everything and everyone to the next level.
Paul-Anthony Surdi is the CEO of Body Art & Soul Tattoos and The Academy of Responsible Tattooing.