Following Your Own Business Path

One of the most difficult things as a new or growing business owner, is to know the right thing to do.

I know that I have been overwhelmed so many times studying marketing, sales, business systems, online and offline approaches, and any shiny object that comes across my field of view while building my businesses.

I can finally say for the first time in many years, that I have a found a decision-making process that I no longer have to worry about what decision to make or what’s the right thing to do. I had a massive internal shift in how I view business, leadership, and certainly life over the past month.

It has to do with having learned how to operate from a mind state of clarity and flow (instead of using traditional goal/commitment-based approaches), which some cool and geeky researchers might call the optimal state of performance aka flow.

We all have our own decision making process whether we are aware of it or not. Sometimes it seems to guide us well, and other times maybe not so well.

I feel as if I have come to a place of higher certainty than ever before in my decision-making process, and the true test is every day.

Every day that we make decisions, choices and take action to make a difference in the world through our businesses or on our professional path.

So, What’s the Right Decision to Make?

I think most all business owners can relate to some of the following questions (just a few examples):

• What are the right strategy to find clients? How long should I use them for, before ditching them?
• How do I best market my product?
• Should I borrow (more) money or just quit and get a job?
• When is the right time to hire a bookkeeper?
• How should we track numbers? What system should we use?
• When do I make the leap and hire my first employee, or salesperson?
• Do I need a website, a business card, or have my branding done first? Or do I get some clients or sales in the door first?
• Should I go all in or moonlight (or bootstrap) and build my business slowly?

All these types of questions are constantly running through the head of a business owner when starting out or in a growth phase.

Here’s the short answer (which you have probably heard before):

There is no right time. There is no magic formula.

The right time is when you do it. The right decision is the one you make now. The right decisions are the ones you make again, and again.

The success is in the doing, and that comes from lot of feedback/failure and trying to see what’s a fit for you and your business.

So Many Strategies, So Little Time

There are lots of great business strategies and methods out there. None of them just work.

None of them are right.

The right ones are the ones you apply that work for you at a given time.

Don’t ever believe something just works. It only works if it is a fit for you.

So in the spirit of helping those business owners who might be in a current state of overwhelm trying to figure out what works, or might even be trying to copy someone else’s path to success, I was inspired to share this amazing piece by friend and fellow coach Stacy Nelson.

Although this piece by Stacy is directed towards coaches, I think it applies to anyone who’s new or still growing in their business, but is getting lost in all the business methods and strategies out there, or playing the deadly comparison game with those that seem more successful.

Enjoy.

How about the ‘ONE’?

By Stacy Nelson

Breathe…

For those coaches in the room getting distracted by big business visioning and filling your practice and six figure awesomeness and doing all the yummy dream-life stuff, STOP…

Don’t lose yourself in the bigness of your own potential.

Take a breath.

My Facebook stream is filled with coaches and everyday what I see are the messages, of who to do x-y-z with an easy 1-2-3 approach to healing your pain. This isn’t a judgement on who they are or the businesses they are creating. But I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that it makes me sick to my stomach and fills me with anxiety when I read through all the ‘more is better’ posts.

Because really… I’m in coaching to help people TRANSFORM. What an ass-wipe I would be if I assumed that everyone transformed in the same way right? To tell you that YOUR path to success looks just like MINE. 

I was talking to a couple of past group clients recently and I loved their stories.

One is making steady progress in her business, paying off all of her massive debt which accumulated when she bought into some of these expensive coaching programs and found their techniques to be out of alignment with her. We worked together to rid her of the confines of the traditional coach-as-internet marketer and built her business based on the things that lit her up, like sitting down for a cup of tea with a potential client and having a real face to face conversation.

Another went from not being able to charge at all, bartering or discounting her prices so much she might as well have, to filling up her practice with paying clients and creating her own local meet up filled with potential clients.

Another beauty is about to launch her book, concentrating on being the writer she has always been and allowing that to help her create conversations.

Another has decided that she doesn’t care for 1:1 coaching at all and has started creating and filling quarterly retreats in exotic locations instead.

Each of them did it by slowing down and really tapping into their own genius. But here’s the best part for me to hear… each of them FEELS more powerful and more calm. The striving to be carbon copies of all the people on our Facebook stream is GONE.

There is an ease and grace with which they each approach their business. They are different business owners from when they started with me. That makes my toes tingle, to know that they are free of the formulas.

AND they all started by slowing down enough to concentrate on what they most wanted to create. By relaxing their grip on the what-if’s and allowing themselves to create in the present moment, to create their lives NOW, not in a someday plan.

So what would it feel like to release some of that pressure? To allow yourself to create one client at a time? To be in alignment with the ways you personally want to create your success instead of how someone else tells you to do it?

See it really doesn’t matter what your price is. And it doesn’t matter how often you speak or where you speak. Just get one client who inspires you. Have conversations with people who have visions that light YOU up.

All of the background noise will be there, the emails and clever marketing copy will continue rolling by. You can start creating the biggest dream of your life today without listening to any of it…

As long as you start on YOUR path, not anyone else’s.

Sent with Love & Light,

Stacy

You can find out more about Stacy Nelson, her amazing private coaching and group programs at www.stacynelsonunlimited.com