Remarkable Difference, or Noticeable Shortcoming?

I have a confession to make. I really don’t like much about the self-help movement.

As a business strategist who uses coaching processes to work with my clients, you might think this is odd. So, let me explain.

The basic foundation of most self-help advice is to wrestle the demons, and fix what’s wrong with you. It took me a long time to put my finger on just why this has irritated me so much. But over the past year, I finally got it.

The problem I have with this approach is that people who adopt it tend to focus all of their attention on their weaknesses instead of acknowledging them, giving them a curt nod, and moving on to their strengths instead. It can become a new religion of obsessive proportions.

Think about it. If your weaknesses were people, would you willingly hang out with them most of the time, or would you choose to be with others with whom you are at your best?

When I meet with aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners, I often observe them taking this same damaging approach to their businesses. The ugly step-sisters of doubt, fear and comparison to others stop them from seeing the princess-like qualities in Cinderella.

This causes them to be hesitant, and all too often, to market themselves in a lackluster way. They focus on all the things they’re (supposedly) not instead of all the things they are.

When you’re coming out of a professional career to start a business, you’re stepping into a vulnerable and unknown territory. You are no longer your job title with your years of experience; you are now the new kid on the block when it comes to running a business. And this plays games with your heart and your head!

All of a sudden you question your exciting business idea, and wonder if you fell for the “grass is greener over the fence” trick. And you start questioning if you have what it takes to be in business at all. What happened to the driven, creative, productive professional?

The answer is, he or she is still there. But you’ve now met some new parts of you.

One of the best ways to build your new business, or reinvent an old one, is to honestly assess your strengths and weaknesses. But don’t let the weaknesses drive you (and by the way, being new to business is not a weakness. There are ways to get around this).

When I work with a client on designing their business services and the best ways to market them, we always spend time determining strengths. Often the strengths are the qualities in you that come easiest, and are the things you like to do the most. This can be skills, the types of clients you work with the best, and the way you like to work.

For example, if you’re the kind of person who likes to work alone, and doesn’t enjoy entertaining, running a hospitality business and interacting with customers is not the best idea for you if you are placing yourself front and center.

When it comes to marketing, you also need to focus on what makes you unique and difference. John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing calls this “your remarkable difference.” We all have them, but some of us spend too much time on what I think of as “your noticeable shortcoming”…in other words, the thing we think we lack that we’re sure our potential customers see.

So if you are finding yourself focusing on things like this:

• I’m new and nobody knows me
• I don’t have clients yet and they won’t take me seriously
• I’m the only one working in my business, I’m not big enough… it’s only me
• I don’t have the (time, money, background, resources, staff, etc.) that the big guys do

 Then it’s time to take a look at those perceived weaknesses in a new way:

• I’ve got something exciting and different to offer
• I can’t wait to introduce it to the people who value and need this (if you don’t have clients yet, make sure you read this article)
• When people work with me I am able to be responsive and to give them excellent service
• I’m able to offer high value with low overhead, which allows me to be aggressive and competitive in my pricing

Be kind to yourself, and let your light shine! Designing your business to suit your strengths is well worth the effort, and will be easier and more profitable than spending time and money overcoming your weaknesses.

Want to use this article? You can as long as you include this footer: Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System^TM  for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and live outside of the ordinary. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful and extraordinary business. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for information and step-by-step resources to take you from overwhelmed employee to extraordinary entrepreneur.

Design Your Business Around Your Strengths

In my opinion, many entrepreneurs spend more time focusing and trying to overcome their weaknesses, than capitalizing on their strengths. You may have heard Carl Jung’s famous statement, “what you resist, persists” and I believe this to be true when it comes to entrepreneurs getting lost in their perceived shortcomings. Enjoy this guest post by Jacqueline Sinfield.

Did you know that it’s possible to have happy, rewarding and productive days in your business every day? Where you never struggle with tasks or feel sad or bored? Where your clients think you are amazing, shower you with praise simply by doing what comes naturally and is fun for you?

 Does this sound too good to be true? It’s not! This is exactly what happens when you create your life and business around your innate strengths. Your unique strengths and talents are the characteristics you were born with. When you are performing activities that utilize your strength you feel invigorated, energized and alive.  This is in stark contrast to when you are doing tasks where your strengths aren’t involved. You have to mentally psyche yourself up or motivate yourself to do a task, you feel exhausted doing it and your productivity is poor. Usually we don’t appreciate our own strengths because they come very easily to us. We think anyone can do it, and thus diminish the value. Plus in a culture where hard work and long hours are praised, it is easy to focus on your weakness and spend time there instead because that is where you have to ‘work’ hard and struggle.

 If you have your own business you are step ahead of the game because you almost certainly started your business around what you are good at (your strengths) and enjoy doing (usually the two go hand in hand). However, when you fine tune your life even more, it goes from “good” to “I am in heaven.”

The first step is to get clear on what your strengths are. Psychologists Peterson and Seligman identified the following 24 personal strengths.

Personal Strengths of Wisdom and Knowledge

1. Creativity

You think of new and original ways to do things.

2. Curiosity

Always very interested in the world around you.

3. Open-Mindedness

Open to new ideas, non-judgmental, able to see both sides.

4. Love of Learning

A student of life, love constantly learning new knowledge and skills

5. Perspective

See the world with perspective and wisdom

 Personal Strengths of Courage

6. Bravery

Act without fear of physical or emotional threat.

7. Persistence

Have an “I started so I will finish” attitude.

8. Integrity

Act in a genuine, authentic and honest way.

9. Vitality

Have zest, enthusiasm and energy for life.

 Personal Strengths of Humanity

10. Love

Place a high value on the close relationships you have with others.

11. Kindness

Happy to perform good deeds for others with care and compassion.

12. Social intelligence

Have your finger on the pulse of the emotions of the people around you.

Personal Strengths of Justice

13. Citizenship

Loyal team member.

14. Fairness

Treat all people equally with no bias.

15. Leadership

Maintain good relationships with the group while moving them forward.

 Personal Strengths of Temperance

16. Forgiveness

Able to forgive others and not hold a grudge.

17. Humility

Displays modesty, let your accomplishments speak for themselves rather than brag.

18. Prudence

Is cautious, thinks of consequences before taking action.

19. Self-Regulation

Able to control own emotions and impulses.

Personal Strengths of Transcendence

20. Appreciation of Beauty and excellence

Appreciate natural and man-made beauty in the world.

21. Gratitude

Is thankful. Count your blessings.

22. Hope

Always optimistic about the future.

23. Humor

Laugh readily, give laughter to those around you.

24. Spirituality

Believes there is a higher purpose, has faith.

 As you read the list you probably resonated with almost all of them! The trick, however, is to narrow down your strengths to just three or five. These are your core strengths. When you know yours, you can make changes in your business so that you are working with your strengths and not against them. Here are a few examples. A client of mine has strength number one, creativity. When he was working for a large corporation he couldn’t help but come up with ‘bright ideas’ of how to improve the way business was done.  His bosses considered him annoying and he was highly frustrated and under-valued. Now he is a consultant for many big corporations. In this role he is paid handsomely for his ‘bright ideas.’ He goes to work in T shirts and he feels a sense of pride and joy in his new role. One of my strengths is ‘no. 12 – Social intelligence.’ I love my work as a coach because it utilizes this strength. However, being a coach involves other activities besides working one on one with clients. There is marketing, website maintenance, book keeping, etc. In order to work with my strength and not against it, I hire a book keeper and graphic designer etc. This way I can work with my strengths and they can work with theirs.

 Are you ready to embrace your strengths? Here’s how in five simple steps.

  1. Identify your three to five core strengths

2. Think of the activities you do in your business at the moment that utilize them. If you aren’t sure, it will be the activities that you are naturally drawn too, the ones that you lose track of time doing.

3. Brain storm ways you can ‘get rid’ the other activities that aren’t on your list. It could be by delegating them, or thinking of a different approach that uses a strength to get the end result.

4. Re-evaluate number three on a regular basis. It’s surprising how unwanted activities can slip back into your life

5. Start to pay attention to how much happier and productive you are when you have made these changes.

Jacqueline Sinfield is an ADHD coach and author of the book, Untapped Brilliance: How to Reach Your Full Potential as an Adult with ADHD. She has worked in the healthcare field for nearly twenty years. She has an Honors degree in Psychology and trained and worked as a nurse in England before moving to Montreal, Canada where she has her own private coaching practice.

The Feel-Good Business Plan

It’s that time of year again. Depending on how you feel about planning for your business, it fills you with excitement, or sense of foreboding and dread.

I’ve met entrepreneurs of every shape and size, and encountered the full range of approaches to business and marketing planning. Some can’t wait to get started and look forward to a new year as a clean slate. Some over-plan and analyze themselves right out of taking any action. And some swear that planning stifles their creativity and spontaneity.

What I’ve understood for many years is that the process is more important than the plan. Having a perfectly crafted document that you never use is just as pointless as not having one at all. What I believe to be true, is that underneath our planning symptom, often lies fear.

Fear of making a big mistake, fear of not doing it right, fear of being trapped or painted into a corner. Fear of taking on too much, fear of not making enough money at the end of the day, or fear that at the end of the next year, you will be no further ahead.

Believe it or not, many people fear success more than failure. Subconsciously, many of us fear loss of relationships and what people will think of us if we’re too successful or make more money. So we often fear taking bigger steps. Fear of what will change. Fear that we will change.

Most of the time, this is not a conscious feeling. It simply makes its presence felt in mysterious ways – like procrastination or perfection!

So if you resist planning, or you spend weeks and months perfecting every plan, it’s often the same underlying cause. Here are some tips:

1. Reframe your assumptions about planning. Planning is no more than making decisions on where you’d like to go, and deciding which route you prefer to take to get there. Just like planning a trip, the destination and the route is up to you. You can change it at any time.
2. As you make decisions, tune as much into your gut feelings and physical reactions as you do into your thoughts. We associate planning with thinking and doing, but how you feel about your choice is just as important (and often more so). Do you feel tightness in your chest, or a sudden tenseness in your neck and shoulders when you consider something? Do you feel sick to your stomach? Or do you feel that lift of excitement in your torso? Pay attention to this.
3. Don’t worry about what others have told you or what you’ve read.  As you make decisions, especially in how you will market your business, using your strengths and keeping it simple are more important than keeping up with the latest trends or what some celebrity or competitor in your industry is doing. Most solopreneurs and service-based businesses only need a few consistent marketing actions to get the clients they need. If you have an existing client base, think about how you obtained your most ideal clients, and do more of that. I see business owners knock themselves out with too much unfocused activity, usually prompted by the feeling that they needed to do what other people were doing or what seems to be the latest hot marketing trend. It has to fit you and your business, and this always goes back to your strengths and how it makes sense for your ideal clients to find you. If you are really stuck, get a professional opinion from a knowledgeable advisor.
4. Keep it fun. If you are a visual person, doodle your plan or create a vision board or map. If you need to talk things through, record it, or get together with a masterminding buddy. If you like to create a document, set aside a day, clear the decks and get to it. If you have a laptop, consider working on it in a different location than where you usually work. A change of pace and absence of typical distractions in your office often get the creative brain revvedup with a new perspective.
5. Set personally meaningful goals. If making a certain amount enables you to achieve a dream, like taking your family on a special trip or making a lump sum payment to your mortgage (or my favourite, buying a horse), then state that. The more you tie together your plan with your life, the more it means something to you.
6. Use your plan as your guide for 2011. Revisit it, and stick to it. Adjust when you need, but give it a fair chance first. Marketing is a long term game. If you give up too soon, you will never know why something didn’t work, and whether success was just around the corner. Some of the elements you will want in your plan as a minimum, are your financial goals, what products and services you will offer this year, and the marketing actions you will take (and when) to support them. Plot these actions on the calendar, and you’re ready to go!

In conclusion, there are many ways to plan. Whether it’s a 40-page document, a two-page summary, or a vision chart, the most important part of planning is actually doing it! One of my favourite quotes is hundreds of years old: “A goal without a plan is just a wish” – so start wishing, but don’t forget the plan that will make it come true.