Break the chains of employee mindset

If there is one guaranteed way to sabotage your business and your peace of mind, it’s to carry over the employee mindset from your corporate background into your self-employed life.

The fact is, we are so conditioned to conform to the traditional hierarchy of boss and subordinate that we often don’t realize how intricately we are wired to think and behave like this. But to excel in your own business, you absolutely have to BE the boss. You have to live it and breathe it and accept this role unconditionally.

Being the boss comes with a lot of unfamiliar territory, even for those of us who held managerial or executive roles during our corporate careers. Here are some boundaries you absolutely must set in your business.

Respect - Your clients are not doing you a favour by giving you work. You are providing a valuable service to them. This should come with mutual respect. Do not lower your position by feeling that you are indebted to a client because he or she is paying you.

Commitment – Establishing your own business requires commitment and the sheer will to believe in it and stick with it long after others would give up. Business is not a hobby. This boundary is something you’ll need to set for yourself, as well as others who may not take your new business as seriously as you do. Treat your business with the respect it deserves, and others will follow.

Status – When you’re the boss, no one is going to give you the Gold Star or the Rubber Stamp that you might have received when you were an employee and you did something extraordinary. Here, no one is going to tell you what’s a good idea or make a final decision. The sooner you claim this new expert status, the sooner you will grow into the position of a confident and purposeful entrepreneur. If you have a tendency to seek others’ opinions before taking action, avoid making decisions because you’re terrified of making a mistake, or you feel the need to explain yourself a lot, these are all signs that you may be letting your insecurities (which we all have, by the way) be the boss in your business.

Time – Your role is to turn time into profit, so you need to spend your time like it’s money coming out of your pocket. Guard your time like it’s the most valuable possession you have. Set and be on time for meetings, and expect your clients to do the same. Establish and stick to deadlines, for your own projects and for your client work. Set deadlines in turn for your clients to respond to your requests, and make sure that your policies are clear on what happens when they are not met.

Access – As an employee, especially in higher level positions, in many workplaces, there was an unwritten expectation that you’d be on call and jump at every request. Cell phones and blackberries removed any privacy barrier we may have had. As a business owner you need to be watchful that you are not cloaking a state of “servitude” in the disguise of “providing customer service.” Your clients will respect you more, and you will command a higher price, if you are professional, efficient and business-like. This doesn’t mean you need to establish an ivory tower or CEO Cone of Silence around you, but you shouldn’t be accessible without limits.

Money – Let me repeat, your clients are not doing you a favour by doing business with you. You are in business to make money. Despite your love and passion for it, you still need to be paid! Don’t feel guilty or bashful to command what you deserve. You would not have worked at a job without pay, and neither should you in your business life. Your rates should allow you a healthy profit and your payment terms and structure should provide you with cash flow. There are many ways to set up your products, services and contracts depending on your type of business, but as a rule, you should have a clear menu of rates for specific levels of service, you should have a method of collecting money up front (deposit or in full depending on your business) and you should not be doing the work weeks or months before getting paid for it. If you are in a consulting type of arrangement, you will also want to have an exit clause and a payment schedule that allows you to be paid even if the project is delayed or ultimately cancelled.

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.

Confused about picking a niche?

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To niche or not to  niche, that is the question. Depending on who you follow, you will hear that you absolutely must choose a niche, or you positively do not have to, no way, no how. No wonder this is one of the most common questions I hear from small business owners. Whether you pronounce it nitch (American) or neesh (this is how most Canadians say it) it’s one heck of a confusing topic!

I like to keep my advice simple. So here it is. No matter what you call it, picking a niche, or not, does not have to be the compelling all-consuming decision you might think it is.

A niche is just another way of defining who is in your primary customer base for a specific product or service you offer. Your market is that identifiable, visible and locatable group of ideal clients – and the group is made up of real, living and breathing people. The trouble with most marketing textbook language is that it sounds so much like warfare – with words like target, market penetration, critical mass, tactics, and so on, that it’s easy to forget that your business depends on one individual making a highly personal decision to spend money on your product or service.   

So picking a niche just means defining the characteristics of that ideal customer, in a way that you can collectively reach more of them.

To answer the question, do you need pick one, the answer is, yes. The reason you need to start with one is that you have to be able to find and reach potential customers. To do this in any organized, clear and efficient fashion you need to know who they are, what problem they’re trying to solve, and where they hang out.

 Obviously, the clearer you are, the easier it will be to find them, and to get your message out to them. The better match your message is to their needs, the more likely you are to attract them as clients. And since you have limited time, money, and ability to provide these services or products, you want to have your marketing efforts as focused as possible.

Here’s where the confusing part comes in. You might resist choosing a niche. You might hear the term multi-preneur and see yourself fitting into this group. A multi-preneur is simply a label for a business owner who has more than one type of business. These are business owners with multiple passions and service offerings. They have more than one niche. You might even hear them say they refuse to stick to a single niche.

So if you’re wondering if you have to pick just one, the answer is no. You don’t have to pick just one, but your marketing has to be focused ON each one.

Here’s a real life example. I know a business owner who is a reflexologist, massage therapist, and marriage commissioner. She ’s also a nurse. She has multiple interests and services that she provides, so she fits the definition of a multi-preneur.

However, she doesn’t market all of these services at the same time to one niche. She has separate marketing materials for each service, and they are each focused on a specific niche of customers. It wouldn’t make any sense to someone reading it if she had one website or brochure that tried to speak in a compelling way to seniors needing specialized health services and alternative therapies like foot detox, working women who want massages and pedicures as break from their routine, and brides-to-be  planning their beautiful wedding ceremonies.

So if you find the thought of having to pick just one niche for your business confining, just remember, it’s not the number of niches you have that counts, it’s how well you connect with each one of them.