How am I Different?

I spend hours talking to my clients about one of the basics of Marketing: Differentiating. I ask how they are different than other people who seem to be doing the same stuff.

15 years ago when I started working as a consultant, I really didn't think very much about that for myself. My main focus at that time was setting up financial systems and processes for very small companies and I didn't have much competition in my market.

Now, as a business mentor I have plenty of competition. I started this blog as a way for you to all get to know me. I ramped up my social media marketing and published articles elsewhere as well. In all this flurry of activity, I've been following many other folks who market themselves under this or a similar label. As I've ready their advice and watched their approach, it's been hard for me to pin down exactly what it is about me that's different. I was, like my clients, in that moment, unable to see the forest for the trees.

When posting a comment on small biz on Linkedin, it came to me: I've come from a family of entrepreneurs. It's all I've really ever known!

Many professionals enter the world of consulting after leaving the corporate world. That, for the most part is my competition. I have in fact worked in the corporate world, as a GM, CFO, CEO, all on a contract basis. The "lure of the paycheck" has never really worked on me. It's taken me quite a long time and many conversations for me to realize because from childhood, my vision of the world was shaped by the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

My first business at around age 7 was to collect wildflowers and make miniature arrangements and sell them door to door in my neighborhood. I remember this clear as day, but honestly cannot explain it given my self proclaimed identity as an introvert. (Uh, until recently...)

My first "real job" at 17 was helping this woman, who had been away from her brownstone for 10 years, renting to grad students. I keept her cool and calm and sorted through 10 years of her life and organized a sale. It was exciting and I felt like I was using all my abilities. When I headed off to college late that Summer, it was confusing in comparison. It seemed to unfocused to me.

So here I am, all these years later, telling you a bit more about how I might be able to figure out your situation and help you along the sometimes rocky road of small business. I'm not matching it to a certain business model or "ideal". Instead, I'm finding a way for you to do what you want to do and have it support you. It's what I know, down to my bones.

Shall I be corny for a moment? Your dreams are my business. Bring them to me and let's see what we can do.

Not Your Mother's Career Counselor

www.imageabstraction.com

When, if ever did you go to your first Career Counselor? After High School? During a mid-life crisis? After college? Chances are, there has been someone along the way with some opinions about what your life's work should be. They might have given you tests or asked questions and in the end, they were looking for a box to put you and your skill set into.

"Life's Work" is now an outdated concept for many of us. There will be many times we change what we do, how we do it and who we do it for. My last post was about the lifestyle connected to different professions. That's one example of some of the points that don't get covered in some career counseling.

I like to start all my new folks out with this question: What do you want your perfect day to look and feel like?

It's a kind of reverse engineering. Instead of asking a series of questions about what you're good at, I'd rather know what you'd like to do, day to day. Because when it comes down to it, you may love the "idea" of doing something, but the collection of tasks that make up that job really don't interest you.

Are you a musician who loves to be on stage but hates to practice? Are you a musician who loves to play in their bedroom but hates the stage? Ok, so that's an easy one. I love textile design, went to school in my late 20's to study it. I got my degree from Parson's School of Design, went out and started looking for a job. I was told it was going to be tough and not much pay. I really thought I was ready. I was training with professionals in the field! Two days into my first job I felt like I was in hell. A kind of hell I didn't even know existed.

I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was seriously doubting my sanity. No one asked me if I could work with no direction in a sweatshop-like environment using a set of skills I never actually learned in school. Oh, and for pennies. I've taken what I learned at Parson's and have used it a million times over in other ways. I have no regrets, except perhaps taking a tour of a studio with one of my instructors.

That experience has really shaped the questions I ask as a small business consultant. It's about all the moments that make up your day. As they say, it's more about the journey than the destination. Put yourself back in the sandbox, as it were, and ask yourself.

Spouse AND Business Partner Part 3

You need to think about how you communicate in front of others

In Part 2, we talked about how you "identify" to those around you regarding your business relationship. Now I'm going to talk about how you speak in front of others. I bet you know where this is going...
How to keep your personal life out of your business life!

It's not possible. What is possible is to keep it out of the way you appear to others and how you manage tasks.

• Call each other by your first names instead of "honey" or any other endearment
• Be aware of the "tone of voice" you use, people around you are!
• Make sure that your personal relationship doesn't "trump" your business relationship
• Don't argue in front of the "kids". You'll have conflict, but speak as if you are speaking to anyone else in your company with the same level of respect.
• If things do get heated in a conversation, take it outside.
  

I have worked with many successful couples who work well together. The main key to success that I would derive from observing them is that their jobs were very separate. Little to no overlap in the jobs they performed. Each saw the others value and had respect for their partner's abilities.

Of course when you live with someone or are very close to them, the "other stuff" that is your life will not just automatically disappear because the work day starts. The part you can manage is how others see you and WHEN you deal with conflict.

But How do I Get There?

photo by Erica Marshall www.muddyboots.org

For business owners who are about to hire me, this is generally where they are. Let me give you a look inside our process...

Step 1 Where are you now?

• Take a full inventory of where exactly are you in your process.
• Pull out your original business plan (hoping you have one)
• Pull out your financial statements

Step 2 Clearly define where you think you want to go.

• Make a list of changes to your current offerings
• Define what elements have not worked for you as well of those that have
  
• What are the new services or products you want to offer.

That should keep you busy for a while! Yes, those who do not learn from the past, will be doomed to repeat it. Starting with NOW before moving to TOMORROW may seem like a "no-brainer" but in our excitement to move to the next level it can be quite easy to gloss over some essential points like:

• Did I ever reach my target audience?
• Why not? Was it not the right audience?
• Was my product not priced correctly?
• Did the market change?
• Was my cost structure flawed in some way?

Sometimes I see a product or service out there that is just slightly missing its mark. Is that you? Yes, even when someone is not my client, I do find myself asking some of these questions. I can think of clients from 15 years ago that I worked with at different times in their process. I would get them up and running and then 3 years down the line I'd step in again to help get them to that next place. That "middle place" of getting to where you want to go need not look like confusion to the outside world.

Every company goes through changes and needs to re evaluate. Do it fully informed, without assumptions. This will prove to be the most essential tool in getting you to that next level.

What's My Business Idea?

You just got laid off and you're thinking about starting your own business...

1. You don't know if working for yourself is something that fits your personality
2. You're not sure how feasible your business idea is.
3. You may not have a clear business idea.

We all think about possible businesses according to what we're naturally interested in. I'm not going to talk you out of that. That's a good way to go for one big reason: If you don't love what you do, you won't do it well.
I could tell you so many stories of people going to franchise conventions or googling trending sites to see what's hot right now. I'm sure that must work for some people, but chances are it's not going to work for you. What will work is if you look at all the possibilities of what is connected to all the things you love to do.
I'll pick one out of my hat: You love Pilates and are an instructor. You see a trend in healthcare. Start a business catering to healthcare professionals at your local hospital and clinics at lunchtime!
Okay, another one: You're a PR professional (and probably have so many contacts you don't even need to read this) and you decide to help other small businesses get their first press release out to the business journals, etc. You find a list of new businesses that have started up in your town/city in the past 6 months.

Both of the examples given above are things that you can do with little to no capital (will be covered more in depth tomorrow) and can grow in different directions. Either going too broad, or too narrow in your idea will be problematic. An example of too broad may be, "I want to teach Fitness." Too narrow may be "I want to teach fitness to woman aged 20-40 who live in my neighborhood." I'm not saying that either of these will not eventually end up being your reality, but if you want to start that business plan, you're going to need something that you can research the feasibility of.
Today, I just want you to think about these things:

• What am I good at?
• What do I love to do?
• What do other people compliment me on?
• When I get up in the morning, what would be the thing that I might most like to be doing?

On this last one, you can think more broadly, like are you a morning or night person, or I like to go to the computer first, or I hate being on the phone, etc.

These are the questions I give my clients. What it would mean to work with a "mentor" like me is that I can guide you through these steps quickly and perhaps hear and see things in your answers that you don't perceive yourself. Even if I only spend an hour a week on the phone with you, it can help clearly define what it is perhaps that you're really wanting to do and "cut out" to do.
Tomorrow I'll talk about this again from a product-based business.
Start dreaming!