Know Yourself, Know Your Business

Know Yourself, Know Your Business

If you’re a small business owner, you’ve probably done your homework.  You know what marketing’s about.  You know who your customer base is, and you know what’s a fair price for what you’re offering.
In other words, you’ve probably done your homework on the business side.  But how much time have you spent understanding the single most important factor in your business: you?
Surprise—business success is about much more than spreadsheets, cool marketing materials, and finding the right business connections.  It’s about choosing a career path that suits your personality, skills, hopes, fears, weaknesses, and thinking style.  And here’s another surprise—you might not know yourself as well as you think.
What a load of compost!  No one knows you as well as you do.  Maybe, but did you ever stop to think that you might not be the most objective authority when it comes to you?
If you’ve never taken the time to have a good hard look at how your business interests match who you are as a person, this is the workbook for you.  By the end you’ll have a better sense of how you determine your business’s success—not through finances, product lines, service quality, marketing, or sales, but through you.
If you’re a self-enlightened type who knows yourself better than the alphabet, then this is the workbook for you, too.  We can always learn more about ourselves with an open mind … you might be surprised to find out how the personal you affects the business you.
Getting To Know You
The Person/Task Fit
Your success in business is going to be partly determined by factors external to you, such as the economy and changes in your industry.  It’s also going to be determined by how well-suited you are to your work, otherwise known as the person/task fit.  The better the fit, the greater your chances of success.
How much you like what you do is a big factor in determining how well you match your chosen area of work.  Think of something you don’t like doing at work.  Cold calling, bookkeeping, recruiting employees … whatever it is, there’s a reason (or a few reasons) you don’t like doing it.   The more time you have to spend on tasks you dislike, the greater your dissatisfaction will become, and the lower your chances of success.
Okay, great.  You’ll just spend all your time on things you like doing.  Not so fast!  That’s a roadmap for procrastination, neglecting your business and overall disaster.
A more realistic plan is to find a compromise in how you spend your time.  The more you understand about why you like or dislike tasks, the easier it will be for you to come up with a plan.
The big question is why do you like or dislike a task.  An entire book could be written on this, but to keep things simple we’ll focus on some of the top reasons:

• Skills.  If you don’t have the skills or training needed for a business task, you probably won’t enjoy it much.
• Values.  If a task conflicts with your values, you’re not going to like it.
• Resources.  If you don’t have the right resources to do a job, it’s tough to enjoy it.

 
Donna Willon
President Focused Networking Ltd.
I help You Generate More Business Through Networking Relationships, LinkedIn Training and Business Coaching
604-328-2290
donna@focusednetworking.com
www.focusednetworking.com