How Does Your Business Make Money?

Over the past several blogs we’ve been talking about why you started your business. For many the reasons have been very heartwarming. They wanted to have an impact on people, including their families. They wanted to share their passions and talents with others. They wanted to be in charge of their own destiny.

But along with that came the fact that in order to be successful, there had to be a financial component. The harsh reality however is that you can have the BEST widget or service in the world, but if people don’t know it exists, or if people haven’t had the opportunity to get to know you (the old know, like and trust philosophy), you’re not really in business — you have a hobby.

So, what do we do? You started your business for a very good reason. You gave it your all. Yup. The doors are open, you have a website (does anyone see it?), an email address through gmail or yahoo (how professional is that), and you’re ready to rock the business world. Unfortunately, I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon.

Especially for those of you that really had a passion and wanted to be successful, you have to put in the time, talent and even money to get to a level where you can step back and say, I’ve made it up the ramp and am better than I was before. How do you do that? You have to not only know what you want to do, you need to know who you want to work with, why, and do they want what you have to offer?

That’s done through a number of ways — one of the easiest is by doing some recon. A survey, talking with people one on one, listening to people on Facebook and LinkedIn. What do other people in the same industry have to say? Who are their customers? How does all of that feel to you? Does it resonate with you? Is it something that you really want to do?

This is the first step in being both a responsible business owner and filling the passion that you created originally. There is so much more work to do, but it takes time and you need to know whether you can/will be successful and if what you want to do is what people want. So, let’s get started. If you want to create a survey, there are several places online that can help. SurveyMonkey is one and I just found another one here: create and analyze surveys, for free.

I’d love to hear more from you on what it is you need to get your business rocking, and how the survey turned out. Let me know at nancy@success4biz.biz and we’ll start building that necessary relationship! And as a thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas, you can find a couple of worksheets on my website that are meant to help you. One is a SMART goal form and the other is helping to form your mission and vision statements. Head on over to Business Success Unlimited - Business Leadership Coaching, Executive Coaching, Educational Consulting to pick up your gifts. There is no opt-in needed. It is simply a thank you and hopefully you’ll check out some of the other things on the site and consider becoming part of the “family”.

Until then, soar higher!