“Nothing good happens here!” Try success lists

Part of being Idea Friendly is to Gather Your Crowd. It’s not arm-twisting or “volun-telling” other people.

You put your idea out there, and you let it attract people to you.

One easy way: show progress.

Deb used to keep a list of every new business that opened in Webster City, Iowa. Then when someone complained, “There’s no new businesses in our town!” Deb could hit them with the list.

Carol Peterson from Milnor, North Dakota, has kept a huge list of all progress from new businesses to public improvements for 12 years now. She gave me permission to share it with you:

Here’s why success lists work:

We can learn from what worked before. (My friend Rob Hatch calls that “success frames” and he’s writing a book on it.)

You replace the nebulous “nothing good” mindset with specific things to point to and examples you can build on.

Everyone likes to be part of something that is working. That makes a success list a great tool to Gather Your Crowd.

What’s on the list of great things in your community over the last 12 months?

Keep shaping the future of your town,

Becky

Ready to make your town more Idea Friendly? Two ways we can help:

Done with you – our Idea Friendly Intensive Action Package brings us to your town in person twice and we give you coaching in between.

Do it yourself – the Idea Friendly Toolkit with short action-packed video/audio tutorials, a simple to follow guide and a year of unlimited streaming of videos and audios to answer all your other questions.