Quick, what’s your personal brand? What is your business brand? Attendance at a networking event has likely taught you how to share your elevator speech — the what your business is, what your business does, and how you can help someone with your expertise. For many business owners, though it is about their personal or business brand.
How can you position your business and its brand? Here are some suggestions:
What makes you “you” and your business unique. Do you have colleagues that have said, “We come to you because of the XYZ you offer that we can’t find any where else?” If so, that is part of your brand!
How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors? Price? Service? Speed with which you deliver? Determine what it is that you want to use as your differentiator and promote that.
How will you communicate your brand/reputation to your potential business clients? Advertising? Your social media profiles? Testimonials from clients?
They say first impressions count, but ongoing impressions matter when it comes to business. Don’t you agree?
As you celebrate the holidays with friends and family, keep in the back of your mind, “the year is fast coming to a close.” Why should you be thinking that? Because you need to take time between now and the first of the new year to look back at how your business performed last year, what you want to change for the new year and how you will take steps to get there.
What can you do to plan for the end of 2013? Here are my tips:
Deep clean of your office. Gather up the records and business papers for 2013 and prepare to store them once your income taxes are filed. Start the new year with clean file drawers and a clean desk.
do you need new office equipment? There are many deep discounts this time of year and you could also have that item as a potential tax write off.
Review your service contracts. Do they need to be revamped, rewritten or your prices raised? Have you started offering new services for which you’re not being compensated? Now is the time to implement new pricing plans if necessary.
Prior to the start of 2014, take a day off from your everyday business tasks and begin planning for your 2014 successes! What can you do? Here are a few things to consider:
Seek out continuing education or certifications in your field. These may help you stand out from the competition.
Consider working with a business coach. It is helpful to have an “outside” source with whom you can run business ideas past and who will keep you accountable to the goals you’ve set.
If you’re going to start a new business in the new year, the time is now to lay the groundwork for that endeavor.
Take time to lay out your hopes, dreams and goals for the upcoming year.
What will you do to make 2014 the best year ever for your business?
Everyone is looking for the “Silver Bullet”, the easy way to “make it happen”. It does not exist. The answers you need may not be hard to implement, but they are not obvious. In fact, it is rare that you, (or anyone), can see them for themselves at all.
First we have the problem of “incorrect perspective”. What you “see” or “perceive” are the result of the filters of your “perception” displayed upon the monitor of your mind. These filters have been shaped by experience and information input throughout your life…, and most of that information is wrong.
We also have the problem of “limited perspective”. Yes, all information input is “limited”. Just as we see only a narrow portion of the light spectrum, and hear only a narrow portion of the frequency spectrum, so, we only “perceive” a narrow portion of the “knowledge and awareness” spectrum.
To expand your perception, you need a point of “external observation”, plus external input, and accountability. This is where a coach can benefit you most.
You will never find a great athlete, or singer, or actor, without also finding they have or have had a coach. In fact to maintain the ultra high level of performance demanded time after time, great athletes never exist outside of the direction of a great coach.
In life and business, a coach can be as simple as your “mate” or a friend, but they, like you, are limited in their perception, as are we all. A dedicated “coach” has focused his or her life’s attention upon the development of an “expanded range” of observation and perception, that enables them to provide salient direction to others.
When you receive the direction, you will often think… “this is so obvious”, and in many cases it is, but it was in fact hidden from view, hidden from your perception of the subject or object of focus.
The old saying remains true…, “if you want what you’ve got… keep doing the same things”.
But.., if you would like to grow, develop, or expand… may I suggest you consider getting a coach.
Rex Richard provides vision expanding and results engineered coaching programs specifically designed to help small to medium sized businesses to break through their barriers and experience renewed life, vitality, and expansion. He can be contacted via LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/in/rexrichard/
As a business owner and business leader I should be the one who does all of the talking, right? That’s my right as the one who’s gotten the business to where it is today and I am obviously the most knowledgeable. If you think that, you need to take a step back and rethink your leadership style and methods.
Do you work with a team? Have you grown your business to a point where you have hired staff? Do you stand up on a metaphorical pedestal and reign down orders and commands? Does your staff respond? Are they productive? Chances are they are not as productive or engaged as they could be. Change your leadership style and you may see productivity soar and employee engagement improve.
What can you do to be a better, more effective, leader? Listen more. It’s not always easy to step back and take the advice of others or to trust in their judgement but you just might be surprised if you give them a chance. Here are my tips for listening more, and better:
Ask employees or business partners for their input. If they make a suggestion that sounds “doable” take a chance, give them the reins and let them run with the project or suggestion they’ve made.
Even if a suggestion doesn’t quite go as planned or reap the results you’d hoped, it’s not the end of the world. You simply need to step back, regroup and start over. Remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Learn to let go. When you are just starting out as a business owner it’s natural to think you have to “do it all” but as you grow, you need to let loose of the control — even if it’s in small increments. You need to trust your instincts and know that you’ve hired the best people possible.
No entrepreneur can operate in a vacuum. Chances are you started your business because you have a particular area of expertise and have cornered the market on a niche at which you’re extremely skilled.
When you take a step back though, do you do all of the work yourself? Even tasks that you’re not good at like bookkeeping or marketing or sales? If you try to do it all, without relying on the strength of trusted partners, you will spread yourself too thin and your focus will be drawn away from your core competency.
What can you do to make certain you’re working toward success? Cultivate partnerships. Here are my suggestions:
Understand what you need in a business partnership and what skills that partner can bring to the table. As mentioned above: bookkeeping, tax preparation, marketing, etc.
Get to know your potential partner and talk with other clients with whom he or she works. You need to trust your business partner to have your best interest in mind when you collaborate so that you can concentrate on your business rather than second guessing and checking up on the partner you’re working with.
Communication is key. If you don’t have open lines of communication and aren’t setting up regular phone calls or texts or other types of check-ins, items could slide and you may not be aware of it until it’s too late. Make “communication with business partners” part of your weekly to-do list.
What can you do to enhance partnerships as a way to grow your business?
The end of the year is typically a time when business owners step back and slow down. I think it’s the best time of year to spend time planning for the new year ahead. Many individuals and entrepreneurs look at January 1 of any year as that magical time to put resolutions into place. If you wait until then and if your plans take time to bring to fruition, you may be missing out on valuable opportunities.
I take time on or around December 1 to look at what I did last year and then plan for next year. That way when January 1 rolls around I am armed with fresh ideas and a great way to kick off the new year.
Here are some of the steps I take to form my strategies:
Look at what worked. You need to have metrics in place to help you understand whether you’ve met goals you’ve set. Look at what didn’t work. If something didn’t work could it have simply been bad timing? Was it a strategy that just isn’t right for your industry? Was the execution of it just a bit “off”? Don’t completely discard an idea, it just might need to be on the back burner.
Look at ways to generate new leads and thereby generating more income. Again, what methods of lead generation are you applying currently that are working, what aren’t? Tweak them and have a new plan moving forward.
Look at your marketing plan. Analyze your results. Measure whether the effort is worth the money realized. Revamp if necessary.
When do you set your business resolutions? What works in your industry?
