Growing small business and having your small business running successfully have many components.  Yet, without an underlying vision to guide you to creating the freedom and abundance you desire, you may consume more time and energy than you should. 

After all, would you rather reach your goals and your vision of the future sooner or later?  The choice is yours.  Small business growth is a choice. The little secret of owning your own business is that the very thing we created to give us greater freedom and abundance has put us into bondage.  We have given very real meaning to the phrase, “life is a do it to yourself proposition.“ 

And, if we don’t change we will reach our goals and vision later rather than sooner.  Why is this important?  We can always spend more money.  But we can’t spend more time. 

Yes, time management work is important but think about this.  We create something that is our identity and yet we are unhappy.   In fact, I work with successful business owners who hate their jobs.  Sounds weird but it is true. 

How do we get on the right track to freedom and abundance?  The key is to start focusing on the present and the future.  Use the past as a school to learn from.  Otherwise, put the past in the trunk.  After all, we can’t change the past. 

To get started on the road to success you desire you must incorporate the following:

1.  Change your thinking

2.  This will change your habits

3.  In turn this will change your activity

4.  Changing your activity will change your results

5.  And changing your results will change your life.

 Start with a small changes in your thinking and be committed to them.  Incorporate them today.  Then do some more.  You can build confidence with the small ones and when you do it will allow you to take on the bigger ones and move to the business and life you desire.  This is your performance strategy the small business growth and the personal growth you desire.

You now have your vision.  You are clear as to what you must do.  Yet, do you have commitment?  Most people will state that they do.  Yet, the truth is most don’t.  At the sign of the first difficulty or set back they will quit. 

Successful small business is about commitment.  It is about commitment to the actions that will help you achieve your vision of the successful business and life.  Here’s the tricky part.  Very often we confuse commitment with involvement.  How many times do we hear someone talk about change yet see nothing happen.  That’s involvement.  It doesn’t work. 

COMMITMENT IS THE KEY!

To grow small business and to have your small business successful you must have commitment.  Very often a small business coaching or business life coaching can add emphasis to your commitment and ultimately increase your odds of success. 

Here’s where small business coaching can help.   Logically, your vision and plan makes sense.  Logic is half the solution.  The second half of the solution, and more often than not the most difficult, is the emotional component. 

Coaching success is about taking that 18 inch highway from the head to the heart and keeping it as clear as possible.  For without clarity, you can’t be committed. 

To Increase Your Opportunity To Be In The Winner’s Circle:

1.  Be clear. 

2.  Be committed. 

3.  Get someone to help you with the clarity and to hold you accountable for the commitment. 

Self-accountability usually doesn’t work.  When you hold yourself accountable to others, whether it be a small business coach, employees or someone else,  you have taken on a performance strategy that can create a successful small business.

When you are the lead dog in your business and life you are more often than not living by design.  How do you become the lead dog in your business and life? 

Step 1–You must take action.  Sounds simple yet we can come up with all the excuses in the world to not take action. 

Step 2–And, the only way to take new action to have your small business successful is to become committed to a new vision of your future. 

Without a clear vision of the future you want, you will be a wandering generality.  You may bump into success and happiness temporarily only to have them disappear a short time later. 

Think about this.  Once the future is finished in your mind, then the present becomes absolutely clear.  You know exactly what you need to do.  Therefore, the first step is to get a clear picture of what you want your small business and life to look like. 

See your small business successful.  Envision what your small business running successfully will look like.  Another good step would be to commit it to paper.  Regardless, to be the entrepreneur successful in business and life you must change your thinking. 

And, as long as you learn the discipline of changing your thinking you will be the lead dog and you will have a small business successful for you, your customers and your life.

Very often I hear this question.  How can I have success or bring more success into my business and life? 

There are literally an infinite number of paths one can take to achieve the success they want personally and in growing small business. 

But there is one step to having a successful small business that you must take.

You must come to the edge and…….

What do you think is next?  What do you have to do when you come to the edge?

To grow a small business you must know the next step.  When you do, you can choose the pathway to the success you desire. 

It is a step you can take yourself.  But, more often than not, it is taken with the help of others.  It could be an associate, friend, small business coach or business advisor. 

To have a successful business you must come to the edge and…..

When most people come to the edge they pull back and say, “I can’t get much closer or I will fall.”

Fear sets in.  As a result things stay the same.  The success and freedom they desire eludes them.  Their frustration mounts. 

The answer to be successful is to find the right person to be with you when you come to the edge.  The right person will be there to push you over the edge. 

And at the very moment they push you off the edge you will become more and strive for the success you desire because you will have to learn how to fly.

Learn how to fly and you will be successful.

Are You Frustrated by a lack of success?  Do you feel stuck or overwhelmed. 

A common obstacle to success is to cut corners.

Don’t cut corners.  Reading one chapter in a book on a topic won’t give you the education to move ahead. 

Most people will underestimate the time it takes to achieve something of value.

Think about this.

1.  Cutting corners is a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline.

2.  But if you are willing to follow through you can achieve a breakthrough.

3.  The best way to set standards for yourself to succeed is to require accountability.

And here is the KEY.

Accountability must come from the outside.  It can be a small business coach, business advisor or a good associate. 

Accountability from the inside is like do it yourself heart surgery. It is not successful.  Even worse, very often it is fatal.

With outside accountability you will head in the right direction.   Successful small business has outside accountability.

And you have outside accountability you will develop the winning self-discipline to have small business growth and the success you desire now and in the future.

You have identified your target market.  And, you have some thoughts on how to reach them.  These are great first steps.  Now you are ready to create some brochures, fliers, an email campaign, etc.  Good!

There are other resources including many small business courses and small business books that can help.  Successful small business is not just about owning your own business.  It’s about creating accountability, a performance strategy,  to take the success actions needed.  Very often, small business coaching, because small businesses for the most part lack a board of directors, can provide the accountability and help accelerate the success process.

But before you get into the creative part you must have a powerfully crafted message.  You can have beautiful materials that don’t deliver what you want because the message is not strong.  A successful performance strategy for marketing and sales will have a message crafted with impact.

1.  Identify the customer or client’s pain, want or need.

2.  Show how your product or the service is the solution to their pain want or need.

3.  Let them know about the benefit of using your product or service as the solution.  For example, faster delivery times, fewer break downs, more personal service, saving money, etc.

A powerful message will incorporate these three points and will state, restate it and state it again.

And, a great way to do this is to tell stories.  Every one loves a story.  We can get the facts almost anywhere.  A story about your product or service marries logic and emotion and adds credibility.   Doing this is a key to small business growth.

As has been said many times, facts tell, stories sell.  Tell your story.  That is your marketing campaign.  Successful small business tells a good story.  And, when you tell it well and when you follow the formula above it can lead you to greater sales.

Owning your own business is a challenge.  And one of the greatest challenges is to have a marketing and sales performance strategy.  The biggest challenge once you have decided on what you are going to do is to execute it faithfully.

Successful small business is about executing the fundamentals.  Remember, most small businesses fail not from lack of ideas but from lack of discipline.  Lack of discipline creates a lack of action. 

Small business coaching, small business courses or small business books and small business ebooks can help create structure and accountability to take the action for success.  Or there are audio courses that can help

Not only does action cure fear.  It will bring success.  You must act on your plan.  In putting together a plan there are a couple of steps that can help you.

1.  Have a database of your existing customers and/or create one of the ones you want to have.

2.  Identify target markets within your existing customers or within the customer base you want to have.

3.  Identify their wants and needs.

4.  Identify how you are going to solve their wants and needs.

This will get you started on a successful performance strategy for marketing and sales.  In the next post we will get into the key to a successful marketing and sales performance strategy.  Start creating and working on the four areas listed and you will be on your way to having a small business running successfully.

If you are wondering where your next sale, job or client is coming from that is not a good feeling.  If it is continual it is even worse.   Owning your own business can have many challenges including the fear of not knowing or having a grasp on our sales and how to get sales.  These are a few of the things that can keep us up at nights and put our stomachs in knots.  

How do you move beyond this stage?  You must have a marketing performance strategy.  Quite simply you must have a plan for action.  Then you must execute the plan.  And, here’s the key.  You must execute it consistently.  This is where most people fall short.  They don’t execute the plan.  

1.  The first step to successful small business is having a performance strategy for  marketing.

2.  The second step to business success is then executing it.  

There is nothing fancy here.  To get off this treadmill of uncertainty you must take action.  Action cures fear.     

Put together an action plan for marketing your business.  Go out and start performing it every day. 

Start with some small things to build your confidence.  When you do you can work up to the bigger ones.  Then you will have your small business running with a plan and in turn you will have greater confidence and peace of mind.