Growing a small business is not for the faint of heart, especially at the beginning before there is a tipping point where all of your efforts have built momentum and it becomes easier to attract clients.
However for those of you who have made a decision to leave the “safe” but often confining world of 9-5, one of the rewards is the incredible opportunity for personal growth.
Your business is your creation, and extension of who you are. You get to create it however you want – authentically yours. Your days are spent the way that you want. You make choices on how you spend your time (although it may mean bartering time you spend with family in the day with working til the wee hours of the night to meet a deadline). You get to decide on who you will work with – your ideal clients and focus on attracting them through your personal marketing funnel. You have the potential to make as much money as you want, while doing it in a way that lights you up.
It is all up to you.
And the really cool part is that, in order to be really successful, you actually have to grow into the person that you need to BE.
The #1 secret to growing a small business is your willingness to grow yourself and get out of your comfort zone to break that glass ceiling of what you think is possible.
You look at the world with a different lens when you know that the success of your businesses is a result of what you do or don’t do. When you take ownership of the integrity of your business you are saying to the world -“this is a reflection of who I am and what I believe”.
It takes a lot of moxie to evolve into someone who stretches and grows in order to create a thriving business but the benefits are huge. Here are 3 ways that you must grow yourself as you evolve into the most amazing leader of your business:
1) Be Willing To Believe that You Can Figure Anything Out – When you are running and growing a business you need to make sure that your mindset is aligned with what you want to create-the big dream. In order to do this you have to believe that whatever you don’t know how to do, you can figure out-or you can pay someone else to do it.
Too often people get caught up in small obstacles that stop them dead in their tracks. They tell themselves that they can’t have a business because they don’t understand social media marketing, tax implications or labor laws, accounting, etc. A small business owner has to come to the plate with the mindset that anything is “figure-out- able”, and it truly is.
Learning and growing is part of the journey…… embrace it.
2) Be a Decision Maker- When running a business you are the one in charge. You have to make large and small decisions constantly. It is important that you fine tune your decision making process.
Learn how to tap into your inner guidance so that you can instinctually use this resource as a guide to make quick decisions. No more waffling. Make decisions and then go with them. You can always course correct (by making a decision to do so). Remember, not making a decision is really making a decision. When in doubt, ask yourself: What will get me closer to what I really want? If the answer makes you feel more expansive….. then run with it. If it feels too restrictive……. chose something else. Trust your gut!
3) Be the CEO – A CEO’s primary job is to determine and guide the long term vision and direction of the company . Your job as CEO is to focus on the strategies, systems and structures that you need to implement to achieve your desired results. No matter how small your business, it is up to you, as CEO to set the tone and expectations for your business.
Too often when we are running a small business we spend most of our time managing it and far too little time working on high level strategies to move it forward. Make sure that you put time in your schedule every week to work on the strategies that you would like to implement to grow your business.
Start asking yourself questions like: How can I delegate tasks that I don’t want to do? Where is the most effective use of my time? Where do I envision my company 2 years from now? 5 years, 10 years? What do I need to learn to grow my company?
When making any decisions about your company from financial investments to marketing to branding to growing to hiring or firing, etc.- you have to put on your CEO hat. You have to think like the a CEO and look at the big picture-the dream of where you would like your business to grow.
And most importantly – how do I grow into the person that I need to be in order to be the CEO of my company?
It is so easy to get caught up in actions that you have to take in order to grow your business, but it is equally, or more important to be mindful of how you are expanding to reach your goals.
Start being conscious of evolving and uplevelling into the person that you need to be and watch your business grow!!!
Cheers to Your Success,
P.S. If you would like to set up a complimentary session to see how you can grow your small business email me at marianne@mariannecherico.com
