Stay Focused

Most sole proprietors are wearing many hats as business owners.  I've mentioned that before.  One thing that I keep noticing as a business coach is that when wearing those hats, it's hard to focus.  How do you keep your eye on the target and not get lost in all that one must do to keep the company growing.  This is a good and very important question.

I was speaking with a prospective client about what she was doing to grow her business and market her business.  She had a brain full of ideas and as she was telling me about them, she just kept going and going and was all over the place.  One of the pitfalls of building your business is trying everything.  That's when you need to stop and really focus on what is your target customer, or focus on one (or two) marketing strategy(ies). 

Keep a list of those ideas.  They will come in handy at some point, keep a notebook full of those ideas.  But don't feel like you have to do them all right now.  Get yourself focused and it will pay off.  You will feel less overwhelmed and there will be more power and clarity in your actions.

Finding a business partner

What do I mean by finding a business partner?  Well, yesterday when speaking to a jewelry designer, she was telling me about the PR/Marketing person she is working with.  How she was speaking about this person was as if she was her business partner.  Basically, what she was getting at was being a creative person, designing jewelry, she didn't really know the first thing about how to market or brand herself or how to create a buzz around her business.  She talks to and relates to this PR/Marketing person as her business partner, because she's filling in all the missing pieces to the business.

When you are starting a business, you want to surround yourself with people who are not like yourself with whom to create and generate your business.  It could be you have a business coach, or you have a marketing person, or you use your accountant in a way that is beyond general book keeping - sort of like a CFO.  The main thing about it is, you want to have your company be well rounded, and for most of us, we can't do that alone.  So, even if you are not looking to split your company in half and take on a business partner in that sense, you do want to relate to the people you have by your side as your business partners.

You're starting a company...Now what?

In my experience as a business consultant working with entrepreneurs who are in the beginning stages of starting up their new company, at some point in time you've asked yourself the question, "I'm starting a company, now what?"

You are the everybody of the company. The CEO and President, Sales & Marketing, and CFO all rolled into one. Often it is hard to manage all of those hats. You can't do everything all at the same time. One must purposely switch your hats during the day. How do you do this? Well, using a tool like Outlook, you have to block out chunks of time in the day to work on those specific areas.

I'm working with a chiropractor right now, and today she said, I want the marketing part of my business to just operate on its own, I really don't want to have to do that one day. Yes, we all want to run a business that is 100% referral or word of mouth based, and the chances of that happening are very slim. One must always be marketing your business. But that is the topic of another blog...this one is about how to manage all of the different hats you wear and how to do that is to block out times in the day when you will be working on CEO stuff, or CFO items, or Marketing, etc. Then, when those times come up in your calendar. You must switch gears and get in action on those items that require that attention. If you don't do this, critical actions one must take to have a business thrive will fall through the cracks and not get acted upon.

If you are the everything of the company, there are probably some roles that you are less interested in or skilled at. For now, you must be accountable for working on those areas as much as you would the areas you are interested in. As your company grows, those areas you feel are not your strengths and are your least favorite, that is the area where you would make your first hire. Let someone else do the thing you like the least (just make sure they are well suited for it).

So, as you are working on the growth of your company, make sure that you schedule your time for all of the hats because for now, you are the one and only.

More Time Please

People are always needing more time. No one has enough. We wish for more time and blame what we haven't done on not having enough time. The problem is we will never have more. As far as I know we will never have longer days and we will never have more than 24 hours in a day.

Managing time isn't so much about managing time - because you can't really do that - manage time. What you can do, however, is manage in time all of what you have to do. I've been working with one client for several months now and she went from feeling completely chaotic in managing all of the projects she needed to get done - to the point where almost none of it was getting done and she was completely exhausted all of the time - to now, where she is managing the projects in her day at specific times of the day rather than trying to do it all - all day long. She is being productive and completing those projects that were looming over her head as these huge things to do where she just couldn't see how to get it all done!

See for most of us, we live in a fantasy that we will be able to complete that endless to do list by the end of the day, end of the week or by the end of the month, etc. First you must get on paper that endless mental to do list. The endlessness of the mental list is what creates overwhelm in our lives. The overwhelm is what keeps us from taking action, when we are overwhelmed we often don't know where to start. Start with getting the list on paper. There is a finite amount of things to do. You can apply this to any area of your life -- projects, work, family life, etc. Next you would want to look at the list of things to do and look to see if you need to take any action before you can complete any of the items. For instance, if on your "to do" list is read a particular book, or paint the study, you may need to either buy the book or buy the paint. Even those "to dos" need to go on the "to do" list.

The next step - and this is freeing and confronting all at the same time -- is getting it all in your calendar as action items at specific times. If you don't put what there is to do in your calendar at a specific time on a specific day, then the chances of that happening will be slim, or will happen by chance but not because you planned on it.

Start getting your life in your calendar and then begin doing what is in your calendar. You'll be amazed at how much you accomplish and how the overwhelm disappears.

The Marketing Guru

Met with marketing guru, Pamela Holmes with BigHeadGirl.com this morning. She is phenomenal in marketing others and has a creative mind that any entrepreneur would love to be able to get their hands on. As great as Pamela is in getting others to move their businesses to the next level, she was having trouble looking at what was next to move all of her projects to the next level.

Sometimes it just takes someone outside of your self to see what is next or where you need to go. In this case it was me, giving her a gentle push in a few different directions to get her building again. I took her strengths and pushed using her strengths rather than telling her to do something that wasn't already natural for her to do.

The point is, sometimes you need to look outside of your self, get a second opinion on those thoughts and ideas, get a gentle push so that you can move forward.