Do your friends, family and your employees shy away from you? Is it hard for you to have a conversation with a staff member without them thinking, “what did I do wrong this time?” Do you have a toxic personality? It’s not a question many people want to ask themselves.
Do you have a propensity for toxic perfectionism? They go hand in hand. Perfection is certainly not a horrible trait, but taken to extremes can be detrimental to your health and the health of your business and relationships.
I’m not saying you want to put out shoddy goods or services, but you do sometimes need to adopt an attitude of, “this is good enough.” This is especially true if you’re seeking happiness and satisfaction in your business and your life.
If you have recognized that you have a perfectly toxic syndrome, what can you do to break it? Well, to take a step back… you need to recognize it in yourself before you can address it.
Do you have a toxic personality?
Are you competent and experienced but believe that is more crucial to success than perfection? As an entrepreneur, you can easily drive away staff and vendors if you’re striving to continually be perfect rather than competent. Competency may not be the only factor to your success but if you’re striving for only perfection that certainly holds you back. Instill confidence in your team through your actions, not through unreasonable demands for perfection.
If you don’t have all the answers and if you can’t see all the potential ways for success and failure, does that mean you don’t do anything? You don’t have to know everything — life and business are trial and error. Just because you write the paycheck doesn’t mean you need to have all the answers. It’s all right to say, “I’m not sure, let me find out.”
Do you believe that only perfect people can be business successes? That is a lot of pressure to place on yourself and those around you. Don’t let a toxic personality and a toxic drive for perfection stop you from achieving your goals and growing your team. Success means you may stumble along the way and that’s all right!
Do you have any limiting beliefs that are holding you back from success? How have you overcome them or are you still struggling to rid yourself of the perfectionism trap?
Do you ever feel like no matter what you’re doing, you’re just not moving the needle to keep your business growing? You may have heard dieters say they have “plateaued” in their weight loss efforts and that means that no matter what they try, they just can’t lose those pounds. If you’re feeling the same with your business, Rex Richard has 3 tips to move your business forward.
If you know you’re not in a business slow period — like a swimming pool contractor who naturally slows down in December in Northern New York — then it might just take a couple of tweaks to get you moving again.
How can an entrepreneur know whether the business has peaked and why? What steps can you take if you know you can go higher, but you just don’t know how to get around that roadblock?
Here are tips for breaking free of those plateaus:
3 Tips To Move Your Business Forward
What is your vision and has it changed? If it’s not as clear as it was, then you want to pivot. If your original vision changed, but you haven’t changed your marketing strategies or other growth metrics, now is the time to do that.
Are you networking and continually connecting? I know the pandemic put a stop to in person networking events, and some are still slow to resume, but you can do zooms, pick up the phone and have a socially distanced meeting if you’re not comfortable in public. You need to spend part of your day — every day — marketing.
Is your marketing message selling you and your services? Is your marketing messaging pointed at helping a potential client fix a specific pain point? Is your marketing so clever that a potential customer scratches his head and asks, “is this really something I need or that would help me?” then you’re being too clever. Be succinct. Be clear.
If the pandemic taught business owners anything it’s that much of their work can be done remotely and their staff — many of them — would prefer to continue working from home. At first, remote work was such a foreign concept that it sent employers and workers into a tailspin. If you wonder how to make remote work viable, we can help.
Employers wondered… will the work get done? Will the staff be productive or will they be taking afternoons off?
Employees wondered… where will i work? How can I get work done when I am at home? How will I draw a line between work hours and home hours when my employer knows I have everything at my fingertips to keep me engaged?
How To Make Remote Work Viable
The hybrid workplace has become more commonplace with employees choosing to come in a day or two a week and WFH the other days. This seems to give the employer peace of mind that the work is getting done. This situation also seems to suit the employee who relishes in person interaction and watercooler talk. Being in front of the boss is also a great way to stay front of mind when you’re trying to move up the company ladder.
If you’re still struggling with remote work, here are our tips:
Have a clearly defined workspace. Even if you’re on the kitchen table, claim it and work from there. At the end of the day, pick up, pack up, and transition yourself into home – even though you don’t have a commute.
Draw a line in the sand that your work hours are from X to Y and you’re not going to be on call 24/7
Make sure your family understands that you’re still working even though you’re home. They need to understand the importance of that.
Don’t give in to the impulse to clean the house, wash the dishes, mow the lawn or run errands. If you want to do those chores, do them before work, during your lunch or after work. Treat your workday as a workday.
Attend meetings. Get involved in zoom chats with fellow employees and staff. Stay front of mind by contributing to conversations.
Know whether your ideal workday involves staying home all day, every day. If not, let your employer know. Conversely, if you know you don’t want to be in the office full time, then talk with your employer and see what can be worked out.
This is still a strange new world in many ways and you may still be navigating it. Give us a call and talk with Rex Richard if you’re struggling to keep your business afloat in the new work from home world or about any business concerns you may have.
If you’re not an extrovert you can’t be a successful business person. What? Do you need to be extroverted to be an entrepreneur? You don’t. While you do need to be able to network, shake hands, host virtual get-togethers and talk on the phone, you can be an introvert or an ambivert and be successful!
Introverts can be great entrepreneurs, but their business style is different than the style an extrovert exhibit. The world goes around because of all the different personalities. In fact, a client of yours may work with you because you’re an extrovert or vice versa. Your personality may just mesh or clash and it could be because you’re an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert.
Do You Need To Be Extroverted To Be An Entrepreneur?
What are some of the benefits that extroverted entrepreneurs have?
Casting a wider networking net just because they are more likely found outside of the office, rather than sitting in the office.
Extroverts are also more likely to strike up a conversation in line with a stranger and that could lead to business conversations.
They more regularly interact with their teams.
They might be more charismatic than introverts because they are the life of the party.
What do introverts contribute to the business world?
They are focused.
The relationships they build are constructed over the long term.
They may be more niched and this could enhance their expertise.
They may be better listeners and ask more probing questions.
Build your team and fill it with xtroverts and introverts. Find team members who complement and contrast with you.
It is rare to find an entrepreneur who is 100% introvert or 100% extrovert — just as it’s rare for any person to be completely one personality or another. Everyone is nuanced and everyone brings strengths to the business table.
Are you an extrovert or an introvert or both? Knowing what you are will help you find people with whom to work that will help your business thrive.
We’re getting ready to say goodbye to 2021. Did you accomplish what you wanted to? Did you even have goals written down or did you float through the year hoping something would happen that would propel you and your business to higher levels? Don’t leave another year to chance. Don’t let another year pass with you wondering, “what did I even do?” We have insight into how to grow in business & in life in 2022.
Business and life go hand in hand. There may not be a true work/life balance because if you’re home that’s your balance, if you’re at work, that’s where your balance/focus is. That’s natural and normal. What you want is the work/life blend that works for you and your goals.
Ask yourself, have you gone as high, fast and far as you could have in 2021? Do you want to go higher, faster and farther in 2022? You need to push yourself. If you think you did push yourself, but still didn’t get done what you want to get done, you need to push yourself a little harder.
What is your peak? When will you know that you have “arrived”? It’s different for everyone and only you will know when it’s happened for you. But you do need to set a goal and strive toward it.
How To Grow In Business & Life In 2022
You don’t plan to give up do you? Just because you didn’t get done in 2021 what you wanted to doesn’t mean you can’t try to get done what you want to in 2022. Don’t pass up reaching for that brass ring!
Strive. Push yourself. Get out of your comfort zone. Achieve your dream!
How can you do that? Here are strategies that Rex Richard shares with his coaching clients:
Perspective matters. There are times that you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders and you just don’t think you can keep holding it up. I get it. Step back. Breathe. Reach out to a friend, colleague, coach or trusted family member and talk about what’s weighing you down and see if they have a new persepctive for you.
Dreams matter. When you dream you can do anything, right? There is no reason you can’t write down a BIG dream for 2022. It’s your dream. No one can take that away from you, but you need to be willing to declare it and claim it and work toward it.
Attitude matters. Positive attracts positive. Negative attracts negative. The emotions you put out into the world, are the emotions you will attract. Surround yourself with positive people. This doesn’t mean you sweep troubles under the rug. It means that a trouble can be addressed and it doesn’t need to rob you of your positivity.
how will you seize the year and make 2022 the best you’ve experienced?
There’s no getting around it. A blog is not a fad. Your business blog is not going away, nor should it. If you have a business blog and haven’t been working on it, you need to make that a top priority this year. Why? Remember when Facebook shut down and no one could communicate with friends and family? Well, many business owners couldn’t connect with clients. If you had a blog and an email list, you would have been all right with the shutdown. Were you? You need a blog and we have tips to help boost your business blogging efforts.
Some of these tips may seem basic, but if you’re new to blogging or if you have a blog, but don’t write posts, you may need this reminder to motivate you. If you don’t have a blog and know you need one reach out to Rex Richard and his team to discuss a blogging strategy to help market your business to its greatest heights.
How To Boost Your Business Blog
Make sure your content is of the highest quality. If you have typos and grammatical errors, a potential client may think you’re sloppy in the other services your business offers.
Write content your audience/potential customer wants to read. Teach them something. Solve a problem. Show your expertise and how you should be their go-to person.
Make an editorial calendar. This document is worth the time you put into it and will make content creation easier than you’d originally imagined. An editorial calendar will also take away the fear of the blank screen and the thought of, “what am I going to write?” Your calendar lays it all out.
Make the content readable. Use subheads. Bullet points. Numbered lists. Many blog readers will consume your content on their phone or tablet and subheads and lists make it easier.
Use SEO best practices. You don’t need to be an SEO expert, but you should know what your business should be using as its search engine optimization keywords and key phrases. If you don’t know what keywords to use, reach out to Rex and his team for an SEO audit. SEO will help your blog and your business show up in a Google search.
Use video or audio. If you don’t want to write, make a video. Record an audio. Keep in mind though if you just embed a video or an audio on your site without any text, it will not be searchable. Write content to go along with the video or audio. You may want to consider hiring a transcription service to transcribe the audio – this is ideal for those individuals who don’t want to listen to audio or watch a video.
Share your blog post on social media. I know I said that social media is not quite your friend, but if you’re on social media with your business and you’re writing new content you want people to know about it, find it and read it, right? To do that you should share that content on social media. Add a bit of a teaser content on social with a link to “read more.” Your ultimate goal is to get people to your blog.
If you need expert assistance starting or reviving your blog, reach out to us, and let’s strategize content marketing to grow your business in 2022. Rex Richard – Founder and CEO, Peak Dynamics LLC Innovator, WordPress and Multisite “Niche Market Master”, Writer, Speaker, Trainer, Business Coach, Serial Entrepreneur.
