10 WAYS TO ‘TREAT’ YOUR BUSINESS

I often get DMs from new contacts asking:

‘How’s business treating you?’

This feels like a very strange question to me, because it suggests I have a passive and remote relationship with my business – that it’s something separate from me and I have no control over what it’s doing or how it’s ‘treating me’.

How very odd.

I never know how to respond!

‘My business is treating me very well thank-you.’

OR

‘I’m treating my business very well thank-you’

So, I NEVER respond to this type of message.

But it does make me think about how we perceive our relationships with our businesses – are we remote and passive, allowing our businesses to go their own way and run rough-shod over our lives?

If we are – that’s a mistake.

We are the Business Owners!

We are the ones who should be directing our businesses, not the other way around.

So I thought I’d share with you my Top 10 Ways to Treat your Business to make sure you are taking an Active Ownership Role within your business:

PLAN

We’ve all heard the expression…

Failure to plan is planning to fail

We plan for our holidays, dinner party menus, kid’s birthday parties…and yet so many of us don’t have a plan for the very thing that’s meant to pay for all that stuff: our business.

A plan gives you a very clear roadmap to follow to keep you and your business in sync, on track, and organised.

It’s your business playbook with everything you need to take focussed, strategic action.

A good plan will see you and your business succeed, consistently and sustainably.

No plan leads to confusion, overwhelm, self-doubt and can ultimately force you to close up shop and go back to the 9-5!

THIS I KNOW FOR SURE: If you don’t have a plan – you need one.

DISCIPLINE

Motivation without discipline is flimsy and won’t get you anywhere.

Hard work without discipline won’t have the strength of consistency to move you forward.

All the systems and strategies in the world will fail if you don’t have the discipline to make them work.

Business takes discipline – every day you have a choice to make: commit or sit on the sidelines.

Discipline is about showing-up even when you’re not in the mood, even when you feel down and full of self-doubt.

Discipline is about having targets, priorities, daily routines and sticking to them.

Practice discipline in all areas of your life and you WILL succeed. It’s as simple as that.

RELATE

In order to grow and become sustainably successful, you need to help your business become relatable to your ideal client.

You need people to see your business as The Answer, The Best Option, The One They Want.

You do this by getting to know your ideal client as well as you know yourself, and tailoring every element of your business around them.

Your packages, pricing, branding, messaging, sales process – if they are all developed with your ideal client at their heart your business will be relatable – and that means it will be successful.

Build a business with heart, inject it with lots of love and emotion – and that will speak deeply with your ideal client.

Everything about your business should be totally relatable.

FOCUS

Focus on the stuff that has a proper impact on your business and your bottom line.

Don’t get consumed by likes and follows on social media – they are vanity and will never pay your bills.

Focus on developing relationships, making sales, delivering value.

That’s it.

Everything you do should be aimed towards those three key activities as they have the most profound impact on the success of your business.

GOALS

Set goals – make them hard to reach, stretch and push yourself and your business to achieve them.

Laziness will kill your business – don’t let it.

Be active with your goal setting – set daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual goals.

Again – this takes discipline and practice.

Once you’ve achieved a goal – celebrate and move onto the next one.

Never just sit back and rest, always keep it moving.

If you doubt this works – set 3 goals for each quarter and focus your whole intention on achieving them.

At the end of the year you’ll have positively impacted the growth and direction of your business TWELVE TIMES!

If you don’t, your business will be exactly where it is now in twelve months.

VALUE

Recognise and respect the value of yourself and your business.

Not doing this will keep you on the hamster wheel of working very hard for people who don’t respect or value you.

Build value into every element of your business – from the messaging you put out there to the way you take your customers through your sales pipleline through to what and how you deliver your services.

When you’ve taken the time to really build that value in, you’ll never disrespect it again and will attract ideal clients who recognise and respect it.

SYSTEMISE

A business built on systems will grow way beyond what you think may be possible, especially if you are a solopreneur.

One person can only do so much with the hours they have in the day – but good systems 10x the hours you have in a day.

Review every element of your business and ask if there is a way to systemise it to make it more efficient and effective – if there is, do it.

This is a smart place to invest as early on as you can.

Investing in systems will empower you to focus your efforts on developing relationships, making sales, and delivering value.

BUDGET

Money – such a thorny subject for so many of us.

We all have a money story to contend with and many of us come from a place of scarcity and negativity when it comes to money.

These are fundamental issues to deal with when you start a business.

Once you’ve cracked them – set budgets – for everything.

Don’t let one cent move in or out of your business without you knowing it inside-out.

Know exactly how much it costs to run your business, the true value of every hour you spend in it, the cost of winning clients…everything.

Set budgets for everything and stick to them. Review them monthly.

You owe it to yourself and your business to take your finances exceptionally seriously – don’t ever neglect this vital part of your business.

WORK HARD

Don’t be half arsed about it – work hard.

Put the time and effort in to make it work.

When you are at your desk – be fully present, be focussed, stay on track.Hard work is evident and draws respect – your clients and connections will respect you when they see you are putting in the work required to build your business from the most solid foundations.

BELIEVE

I’ve held this one ’til last because this is ultimately what you need in order to achieve 1-9.

You need to believe in yourself and your business.

And I mean – REALLY BELIEVE.

Believe in your ability to be successful. Believe in the value you deliver. Believe that you will achieve your goals.

BELIEVE.

Without belief – you will be on very shaky ground all the time, and that’s exhausting.

That’s it my friend – 10 ways to stop having a passive remote relationship with your business and start treating your business like a business.

If you don’t have a plan in place, you can use mine.