Blog
Regardless of your industry, every business owner has faced the same challenge – balancing working “in” the business and “on” the business. Our top priority is caring for the customer, ensuring their experience with your company is stellar, and that you do whatever it takes to meet and exceed their hopes for a great result. As business owners, when we are serving our top clients, we are proud that we can put our talents and experience to good use by solving their issues and meeting their needs.
We serve, we get paid, we feel great. End of story? Not quite.
Read more: Best Practices Involve Keeping a Watchful Eye on Financials
It’s rare to encounter a business owner who becomes excited at the prospect of setting aside several hours to build a strategic plan. Yet, for many small businesses, this is the very activity that can make the difference between “just scraping by” and setting your growth goals into motion.
If you’re a product creator, it’s not surprising that you may have considered exporting your goods outside of the U.S. But for those of us who provide business services that can be delivered virtually, did you know you can export that as well? You can!
You don’t have to have something physical to pack up and mail - you can sell many things abroad that can be considered an export.
This is fabulous news for trainers, information technology, marketing and advertising agencies, graphic and web designers, coaches, and consultants to name a few.
After working with great clients here in the USA, I decided to explore a new growth strategy and export my coaching services to a similar target audience abroad.
Read more: Did You Know You Can Export Your Business Services?
Why and how did I arrive at becoming not only a coach / consultant but also a business owner? As always, the story is never a straight line. I was recalling my journey with a friend recently and we saw many connections between my past corporate career and my role in the business world today.
In my corporate beginnings, I started in customer service, listening to customer complaints and requests and giving them the information they sought in a calm and friendly manner. Diverse opportunities soon came my way as my fluency in Spanish and English enabled me to move around within the company.
Read more: How a Corporate Career Began My Journey to Business Ownership
Ask any entrepreneur about how their company began and you will hear the passion in their voice as they tell you their business’ origin story. Here is an entity you created on your own: from ideation to developing a vision and mission, to proof of concept.
And if you dedicate yourself to developing your company, it won’t be long until you find yourself so busy, that you begin to worry something might fall through the cracks. You can’t afford to disappoint a customer, so the workload has taken over your life.
As much as the business was all yours, it’s time to plan on building a team. Some business owners have a hard time giving up control, convinced they’re the only one who can make it work. That’s a dangerous thought. Soon you find yourself missing out on a full night’s sleep. You’re hurriedly eating meals over the computer. And sadly, your family doesn’t get as much attention from you as they need.
Read more: How Do You Know When It's Time To Transition From Solo Entrepreneur To Building A Team?
The business journey is often a messy one. Just when you onboard new clients, some employees are giving you a headache – or the other way around. Many business owners are suffering from overwork and overwhelm by multiple problems flying at them at once.
- Some owners have trouble delegating or outsourcing. They waste time and feel “busy” because they’re doing it all themselves.
- Some owners don’t document a repeatable process. They can’t ever manage their time because they’re reinventing the wheel.
- You lose a big client and stress about replacing the revenue.
- You gain a new client – a demanding and difficult one. Now the stress piles on!
And just when someone suggests that working with a business coach or consultant might be in order, your initial reaction is that it would be a mistake. Business coaches will give you tasks and hold you accountable; your workload has already maxed you out, so why on earth would you eke out even more time for meetings and sign up for more to-do’s?
Read more: I’m Overwhelmed In My Business –Won’t A Business Coach Give Me Even More To Do?
For anyone who finds selling an awkward process, it may help you to know that the act of “selling” really involves two counterbalancing pieces. Successful selling comes from recognizing the natural rhythm between buyer and seller. Your buying and selling process happens concurrently: you’re selling to a prospect at the same time that your client is buying. When you’re communicating the value and benefits of your service, your aim is to do so in a way that gives them the chance to hear you and gain a natural understanding.
Team meetings, LinkedIn updates, phone calls and text messages, networking conversations, and the constant flow of emails brings us ideas, information, and ceaseless communication at lightening speed all day, every day. It seems we are constantly bombarded with ideas. We can no longer take the time to read everything coming our way, so we skim. It appears to take far longer to evaluate whether a new idea fits our business model, is aligned with our brand, and helps us move closer to our mission and vision.
So how can a business that’s focused on growth slow down enough to evaluate the influx of possibilities? How can we decide which ideas deserve further attention and how do we use that new knowledge to make important decisions?