The concept of working a 9-5 position isn’t ancient. You may not realize it, but it’s actually only a few generations old. While people in the 1500s certainly had trades and appointed positions, the work force looked very different prior to the Industrial Revolution.”The concept of going to a big dark building was so foreign [500] years ago. [But] in the last five to ten years, there has been a shift. Entrepreneurship is the future,” explains Clay Hebert, marketing and growth hack expert.
Prior to the turn of the century, the folks who approved or denied access to certain opportunities - otherwise known as gatekeepers - were the game changers. And although they still exist, Hebert believes they are a lot less relevant than they were in those days, stating, “All of the gatekeepers are gone. Except one. You are the last gatekeeper.” In this podcast, he explains his philosophy behind the quote, along with ways entrepreneurs and creatives can begin to rethink how they view gatekeepers.
Gatekeepers follow the standard rules and procedures that have been around for ages, which means that sometimes “[they] don’t have good taste”, he notes. In fact, J.K. Rowling’s first book in the Harry Potter series was cast aside by publishers and picked up by his daughter, who begged him for a sequel. Hebert came to this revelation after leaving his decade long position with consulting firm Accenture. “I worked with awesome, brilliant people, but they didn’t value entrepreneurship like I did,” he recounts.
In 2009, he studied under Seth Godin’s alternative MBA program and went on to help brands and individuals with digital marketing. After helping a friend hold a successful Kickstarter campaign for a film she was directing, he began to realize how gatekeepers were slowly going out of vogue. “In order to make her film, she needed to raise $30,000 for post production costs. But there were gatekeepers telling her no. With my help, she got past them and found another way.” The film went on to be shown at festivals and win awards, further cementing his idea that gatekeepers were a thing of the past.
Of course, some gatekeepers are useful. “I want to be sure that my pilot is trained and certified, and isn’t some hipster guy from Brooklyn that just randomly decided he wanted to fly a plane,” Hebert jokes. However, when it comes to more creative and entrepreneurial pursuits, he believes that people simply need to get out of their own way.
A big part of this is monitoring what you consume and becoming a gatekeeper for yourself. Whether it’s the latest vacation photos from an old high school friend on Facebook or the salacious headline in the paper, it’s important for entrepreneurs to keep a pulse on what they are “ingesting”. “99% of people don’t care about you or what you do. And that’s great news,” Hebert says, “Ignore them. so you can give value to the 1% that do care. That’s hard to do when you’re ingesting all of that noise.” He encourages entrepreneurs to subscribe to author Kevin Kelly’s concept of finding and nurturing 1000 true fans, while building from the ground up.
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