Words That Work

Not long after we were married I came home after a long day and went to turn on some music and the stereo was missing.  Honey?  What happened to the stereo?  I rented it, was the reply.  My husband and I started our businesses at the same time — his company rented equipment for business meetings.  I did productions that were shown at meetings.  He had an opportunity to make $100 renting a stereo, but there were none in the warehouse — so we did without music for a couple days!  Where I was all about furnishing our offices and looking like a prosperous business right away, I learned a really valuable lesson from my husband’s philosophy.  Make money when you can, and don’t spend a dime unless it will increase your income. Looking good is overrated.  Your customers will be much more impressed when you consistently give them what they need to look good.

I don’t mean to simplify this — business is a constant stream of decisions about where to spend your time, your money, and your personal attention — and it seems like there’s never enough of any of those.  How well you make those decisions determines how well you do.  Sometimes what will help to make these decisions is remembering that, even if you are a solopreneur,  you are the CEO first, and a worker in your business second. Step back.  Don’t get too mired in the minutiae.  Find good people to work for you on a contract basis until you can hire someone.  Surround yourself with an “executive team” of advisors — reliable experienced professionals and mentors, paid or not, who will be able to give you the wisdom of their own experience.  Have a plan.

And one final thought — no matter how brilliant, timely, creative and attractive your enterprise is, it is the rare startup that begins to thrive right away.  Give it time — allow your business the time it needs to grow. That might mean keeping another job while you build it.  Or changing your lifestyle for awhile.  It took a full five years before my first business had a consistent flow of referrals and income and it take grit to keep working at it when the business is not succeeding the way you imagine.  Hold onto your vision, nurture it, spend time dreaming about the next steps and you will be delighted to wake up one day and realize — OMG, I’m doing it!  Namaste — the spirit in me salutes the spirit in you.

Maggie Anderson Words That Work   www.maggieanderson.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 18th, 2009 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.