Although small business success can be defined in different ways, I have learned from my own businesses and from being a personal business coach that there is, in the long run, one thing that every self-employed business owner wants. They want greater freedom.
In coaching success I have discovered that the entrepreneurs and solo professionals who are the happiest are the ones who have attained greater personal freedom. Here’s the dirty little secret to being a self-employed business owner. The small business you created to give you greater freedom and abundance ends up putting you in bondage.
Do You Have The Attitude For Small Business Success?
It is ironic that the very thing you create to give you greater freedom and to experience more of what life has to offer ends up putting you like a hamster on a wheel. Except, unlike the hamster, who can get off, you have to stay on. You are held hostage by your own creation.
At some point, small business success and the dream of greater freedom and abundance disappears. And the excitement and anticipation for a wonderful future gives way to a feeling that every day is the same as the last. Business and life become a slog through the mud.
Small Business Success: The Good News
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. But, to have greater freedom and abundance you must be willing to grow. By the way, no amount of business training courses, or new marketing business plans are going to give you the freedom you seek.
The freedom you seek only will come when you expand the thinking between your ears. I had a client who for some time felt that by having employees he would become a baby sitter. In fact, the thought of having employees was painful. Is this a formula for small business growth? No.
Small Business Success: The Formula
Is this a formula to stay in bondage and be unhappy? Yes! Finally, he got sick and tired of being sick and tired. He took the plunge. He expanded his thinking. He looked at having his first employee as a way to achieve his goals and dreams. He stopped looking at it as baby sitting.
What happened? He changed his thinking. He accepted the fact that he would have to embrace his own personal development. In hiring someone, he would have to learn hiring skills, payroll, taxes and how to build an organization. In hiring someone he would have to come up with a marketing business plan to increase sales to cover the expense of the employee as well as to continue to pay himself.
It was amazing what happened. In 2 years time he added three employees and increased his sales by 200%. Here’s the great news. He spends less time working in his business. During the busiest times of year he can take time off. His outlook on life and his future are positive.
What is the formula for small business success and greater freedom? It includes many things but first and foremost you, the self-employed business owner, must accept the challenge of personal growth.
As in the above case study, once you change your thinking that starts things rolling. When you add people the next thing you must immediately do is create better processes to accommodate business growth. Don’t just add people if your business is growing. Add more to your processes or systems to support growth.
Put yourself in a position where you can hire average people and have outstanding results. How do you do that? Have a good process. Think about this. If you put above average people in a bad process you will have a bad outcome. If you put average people in a great process you will have a great outcome.
McDonald’s is a great example of how process determines outcome. Give yourself greater freedom and abundance. Seldom will your business or your life exceed your personal development.
Know that the freedom and small business success you desire starts with expanding your thinking and creating a process that will allow you to move toward greater freedom and abundance. Once you see it and believe it then small business success can be yours.
