Business and Getting Back to Basics

Have you ever noticed that after being on the road for a couple of weeks, it’s funny how luxurious the comforts of home feel when you return?

There’s something about being somewhere else, without all the trappings of your usual surroundings that makes you see things in a more streamlined and simple way.

When you quit your job and start a business, you can really fall in love with your new life. It’s a wonderful thing, and that’s why I so enjoy helping people make this transition.

Here are some “back to basics” lessons that you can use to reconnect and regroup once in a while to make sure you’re building the right business for you.

Stop Comparing!

One of the challenges I see for many business owners is that they often get caught up in what everyone else is doing and using that as their yardstick. If you find yourself constantly comparing to your competition and trying to keep up with Joan or Joe, it is quite possible to make a good income and even an astronomical income. But if it isn’t the right fit for you, it will soon feel like a chore instead of a source of joy and satisfaction.

If you’re running hard to keep up with everyone else, you’re going too fast to enjoy the journey. You’re so bent on getting to a mirage destination that you’re often not seeing the opportunities that are truly yours and in front of you, and not someone else’s in the distance.

If this sounds like you, take the time to get back to basics. Remember why you wanted to start a business in the first place, and if the reason still holds, make your decisions with this as your measure.

Stop Counting!

In North America we tend to use financial success and material things as our signs of success. So when we carry over into a business we often think we have to work hard, constantly make more money, grow and expand our businesses.

The focus of many internet business resources is six and seven figure businesses. I know that not everyone truly wants or needs this. This is why the first focus of discussion with my clients is about what they really want for a rich and extraordinary life rather than what income level they wish to attain.

Of course, you need to make money, so you can’t ignore the numbers. But you don’t have to be a six figure business owner to be so happy you can’t believe you’re getting paid to do what you love. The key is setting up your business to more than cover your financial needs and to allow for sustainable income and cash flow. Whether your financial watermark is $10,000 a year, or $500,000 a year is completely up to you. Don’t get distracted by gurus telling you this is your inner self tricking you into settling or any other hype. If you are truly not settling out of fear and simply have lesser income goals, that’s ok! Just like in the corporate world, there are many big bucks business owners who are unhealthy, unhappy and unfulfilled. Create the business and life that you want.

Stop Working So Hard!

Another area of self examination is your attitude toward work and success. This is my personal cross to bear and something I have to constantly check myself on. I grew up with the Prairie ethic that to succeed you had to sacrifice and work very hard – usually physically -  to succeed. I am no stranger to hard work, but I have learned that it IS possible to work smarter and not harder,to succeed even more. However, I need to remind myself of this often. Having a coach of my own and participating in masterminds is a great way to keep myself straight.

So if you feel like you have to push and grind away to get it all done, you’re probably working too hard and taking too much on. If you have a solid plan, know what you need to get done, and set your bar appropriately high, you will have to work, yes, but it shouldn’t feel like walking an elephant on a leash everywhere you go. Working without ever taking a break, never taking holidays or weekends, is a sure sign that you have bought into the mindset that is has to be hard to be a serious business. I take a lot of holidays and I rarely work on a weekend.  But beware – this comes in many forms.  Loving what you do and therefore working all of the time can be the “work is hard” limiting belief in disguise. Work is the healthy and socially acceptable addiction, right?

If you use these check points as you develop and build your business, you’ll be able to get the level of extraordinary business that is a custom fit for you.

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.

Starting a Business – Enjoying the Entrepreneurial Ride

I grew up on an acreage in Central Canada, and enjoyed the serenity of nature and freedom of wide open spaces. I have always been an animal lover, and was horse crazy from my very first steed (his name was Pokey and he had springs and a metal frame).

When I was old enough, my dad gave in and bought me a beautiful Welsh pony, and one led to another. Having my own horse was a dream come true but like many young girls, as I grew older, I had less time for my horses, and the time came to sell them.

Twenty-five years later, I’ve returned to this childhood passion of mine and fulfilled my dream of owning my own horse again (that’s me with my beautiful curly horse Spirit, above).  Much has changed for the better in the past 25 years in the field of horsemanship, not to mention my brand new awareness of fear and the potential of getting hurt, and all of the things a mother with a mortgage thinks about when doing something with an inherent degree of risk.

Becoming involved with horses after so long has brought a new dimension to my life that I couldn’t have imagined. The ripple effect of this one action is incredible and could fill a book full of experiences, observations and lessons learned – personally, professionally and physically! It has been transformational for me, and I believe it makes me better at my work as a business strategist as well.

You see, several things had to happen for this experience to materialize – and the parallels to the entrepreneurial journey are striking. First, I had to make the decision that I wanted to be involved with horses again, even though I had no idea how (at the time, the sheer logistics of owning a horse again seemed impossibly beyond my reach – where would I find one, where would I keep it, would I know enough to do this on my own, what about my travel schedule, let alone the cost…and so on); then, I had to take a first step (I decided to start by replying to an ad to someone I didn’t know, who was looking for someone to ride her horse over the winter); next, I had to face up to my own limitations (the distance to the ground multiplies, I am convinced, for every decade we are on this earth); I also had to find my inner strength while literally shaking in my boots in order to command the attention of a powerful 1,100 lb animal (walking confidently and calmly to catch a snorting, prancing horse who has gotten away from you – when you are 130 lbs and “two apples high”); and above all, I had to be willing to be a student again (the first time I put my foot in the stirrup, I realized how clunky and unnatural it felt). Had it not been for my sheer joy and determination, I might have let discouragement overtake me. But how amazing it felt to be riding like the wind, without the security of a saddle, seven months later.

When you choose to start your own business, especially after a long career, you’re faced with the new challenge of running a business in addition to performing your craft and serving your clients. Starting a business involves a believing in something you can’t see or touch (the ultimate definition of faith), and changes every aspect of your life. It pushes limits and pulls muscles you didn’t even know existed. Doubts arise, obstacles are encountered and you sometimes feel like the weight of your world is on your shoulders. And like a living, breathing, powerful animal, it can melt your heart and break it, all in the same day.

It may seem incongruent coming from someone who has spent 20 years working in a highly creative, yet methodical and strategic profession – but the biggest lesson I’ve learned from horses that helps me help entrepreneurs is the concept of harmony and what a favorite writer and horse trainer, Mark Rashid calls “the art of going with.”

“Going with” requires the ability to move without resistance, instead of bracing yourself against it. It’s about going with rather than fighting situations and being able to see what’s working and using that positive force, instead of concentrating on what isn’t. It requires a great deal of self awareness and often includes swallowing a huge serving of pride.

In the world of business, as in horsemanship, many people expect to achieve great heights without first mastering the skills they need. They also frequently resist change at all costs, even while outwardly insisting they want it.

On a horse, pushing beyond your ability and being inconsistent or wishy-washy in your cues can cause injury or even death; in business, it can cause you heartache, financial setbacks and possibly, failure of a dream.

“Going with” means accepting where you are at a given time, while still being committed and doing the work that will get you to the next step. When you can truly define, without judgement, your limitations, and areas where you need improvement, and be willing to accept and learn from them and accept help from others, you are moving with the change, rather than letting yourself be pulled, pushed or controlled by it.

“Going with” also means you learn to rely more on finesse than force. There is a fluidity and magic to business that you can only experience when you are paying attention and are still enough to catch it.

When I work with entrepreneurs coming from a corporate background, I see the results of years of conditioning in going against. The methodical, linear, progressive and controlled steps of education and employment do little to prepare us for our new roles to “think outside the box”. Inside, we expect to carry over the high level image and position of our career that we hold up as our proof of attaining a certain level of skill in our profession – especially if we’ve attained a senior executive level and high salary. We fail to acknowledge that when it comes to the art of entrepreneurship, we don’t know what we don’t know – for any variety of reasons. After all, saying “I don’t know how to do this” is extremely difficult for someone who is used to being the boss or being at the top of the game for many years.

Add to that, the personal boundaries encountered when becoming your own boss, and you can soon be going against instead of going with.

There is a wonderful anecdote Mark Rashid tells in the book Horsemanship Through Life about a woman attending one of his workshops. When he asked her how long she had been riding, she answered 22 years. Over the course of a few days, the skilled teacher could see gaps in the woman’s basic fundamentals although she had been able to compensate in other ways. At the end of the event, she told Mark that she had realized that she had been in such a hurry to master the next level of skill, that she jumped from one thing to the next, and to the next, never truly understanding what she was learning and grasping the reasons behind each step. She also confessed she had never allowed herself to be happy and accepting of her abilities, no matter how much she progressed. Going against instead of “going with” got her to a certain level but stopped her growth, and actually made the whole process much more difficult than it needed to be.

At the end of the clinic she reflected “Well, after these four days, what I’ve come to understand is I’ve actually only had one year of experience…22 times.”

As you approach your business and the transitions you’ll be facing, recognize that it’s often less about “muscling through” and more about finding the peace and harmony of what you naturally excel at and who you’re meant to best serve, and facing your limitations and getting help when you need it, without putting judgement upon yourself. Most of all, accept that there will be falls along the way, and instead of bracing yourself, enjoy the ride!

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 SystemTM 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.

The Four-Hour Work Week: Do You Believe It’s Possible?

(Well, I work more than four hours, but the point is, it doesn’t feel like work… read on)

I have been known to say, if your business feels like a job, it’s a sign you haven’t built it right. I can always tell when someone doesn’t believe me. They can’t conceive that it’s entirely possible to do the work you’re meant to do, love doing it, and build it around your life. Most people think of their earning  years as a means to an end, something to be endured and tolerated until the freedom of retirement.

I can honestly say that I’ve never had a bad day since I started my own business in 2007. When I look back at my corporate career, this astonishes me. I had many bad days – weeks, and month, even. When I first started my business, all I wanted was to earn enough to match my salary, and be able to set my own schedule. In those early days I hadn’t fully grasped what was possible.

I see this same pattern in many of my small business clients. It takes a while for the “corporate detox” to occur and I think for many of us, we’ll always be recovering employees.

The reality is that years of approaching work and productivity in a certain way has conditioned us to believe that work means getting as much as humanly possible done within a set number of hours in a week. Who says that your business day should feel like squeezing the last drop of precious water out of a sponge, as if your life depended on it?

One reason is that we simply haven’t experienced any other way. The other is that we may not have thought of the non-traditional ways we can be marketing and packaging what we have to offer to bring us the revenue we desire. Most corporate fugitives slide into their businesses doing the same kind of work they did in their careers, and the only change they make is that they’re collecting money in the form of a receivable, instead of a paycheck.

If either of these scenarios rings a bell for you, here is a three step process you can use.

1. Ask Yourself These Questions

When you wake up in the morning, are you excited, or do you feel a seeping anxiety?

Do you look forward to doing what you do with your clients, or do you feel it’s a chore?

When you have a project to do related to your business, do you procrastinate, or do you have to rein yourself in to stop from working on it?

How often do you feel true joy when you work? When do you feel like you’re in the zone, when you feel like you are doing EXACTLY what you’re good at and meant to do?

When was the last time you tried something completely new, and got really excited about it?

Explore this. All of these are clues about what’s working and what’s not for you. It’s your business and it doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.

2. Envision Your Ideal Day

Play along with me and envision what your ideal day would look and feel like. What would you be spending your time on? What would be the ideal mix for you? For me, it includes lots of quiet time, lots of thinking and writing time spent on brainstorming and working on my own projects, spending some time connecting and keeping in touch with my network and clients, and one or two appointments either working with clients, or meeting with people who are interested in what I have to offer. This is broken up with lots of time outside and being with my daughter to get her to and from school without the bustle and chaos of my corporate style work week. This is the very reason I work with a limited number of clients, because I love working closely and really getting involved in their businesses. Your day might look similar or could be vastly contrasted. It might mean being in an office space, and not in a home. You might thrive on lots of meetings and faster pace, and love getting in front of groups or working with lots of people. When you do this step, it’s important not to rationalize and over think. Tune in to what you’d ideally like, not what you think is reasonable or possible in your current circumstances. Write it out beginning from how you feel when you wake up, through the entire day.

3. Take Inventory and Take the Next Step

Now that you’ve spent some time on this, look at the reality of your calendar and how you spend your time. If you see drastic differences, know that it is possible to do a makeover on your business. It all starts with baby steps so don’t feel discouraged. What matter is that you’ve become more aware of your ideal, and to begin to move in that direction. If you’re feeling great, then celebrate, and take the day off! After all, you’re the boss and CEO!

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 SystemTM 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.

Are You in the Wrong Business?

If you’ve left a career to start your own business, you’ve made what likely amounts to one of the biggest decisions of your life, next to getting married or divorced, or having children. That decision is not made lightly, I know. It’s a frightening yet exhilarating time when most people think you’re crazy, and you have moments where you wonder if they’re right!

Fast forward to a few years down the road. You’ve gotten past the early phase where your number one concern is getting clients and making enough money to make it worthwhile.

So you’ve made it past that point, and what happens next? You may feel as if you’ve fallen into a predictable routine, except that you can’t seem to break past the plateau you seem to be anchored upon. No amount of muscling through or trying umpteen new ways of doing things seems to work. You start to get tired of doing the same things with the same type of client.

I can describe this so clearly, because I hear this all of the time. And because I felt that way at times, when I mainly did corporate consulting in the early years of my business. You’ve basically built a business that starts to feel like the job you left. But you feel trapped because you’ve now invested your life, heart and soul into getting to this point.

If you feel this way, know that you aren’t trapped. In fact, you hold the keys to releasing yourself, and the good news is, the decision is usually nowhere near the scale of the major ones you’ve had to make up until now.

When I provide small business consulting services to people who find themselves at this point, I always go back to the basics. Here are some things we discuss together to explore whether the business needs a slight adjustment, or merits a complete redo:

• What matters most to you?
• Why did you want to start a business in the first place?
• Who do you like to work with?
• What do you love to do?
• What would you do all day to make you feel giddy at the thought of actually being paid for it?

This may seem a little soft coming from someone who specializes in diagnosing what’s working and what’s not in people’s businesses, and strategizing all areas of the business to make it work better. But here’s why I LOVE working with small business owners who want to design a business that feels good to them and makes money: they are emotionally invested in their businesses. This means there is little or no line between what makes the person tick, and what makes the business thrive. So before we can get to the hard core business and marketing strategies around target market, pricing and packaging, best marketing approaches, and the how-to’s of marketing and selling, we need to look inside first! This is where the magic begins (and it is also why I love working so closely with entrepreneurs).

So if you are feeling a little lost in the business you built, go back to some of the basics of you. Allow yourself to explore if the reason the business doesn’t fit may be because it was built on the old you. Starting your own business involves incredible personal growth and challenges you in ways you can’t imagine when you’re not there yet, so it’s 100% normal to feel as if you’ve outgrown your business. Once you get a handle on what’s missing, you can look to your business with a more honest perspective and see whether you want to adjust it or transition into something completely new. Most of the time, there are assets (such as your brand, your contact list, your network) that allow you to transition in a natural, evolutionary way, rather than a sudden severing. Make sure you don’t abandon what’s good without at least looking at it clearly, and if you lack the perspective on this, get an outside opinion.

Whatever you decide, remember that it’s your business and your life, and it is entirely possible to build it in a way that makes you money, and brings you much joy.

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™  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.

Managing Yourself and Your Business – Are You Hearing More Noise Than Music?

Last week I was meeting with a client, who was feeling very overwhelmed, overscheduled and confused. I understood exactly how she felt, because I had been there once or twice myself. I could have told her a million different things to keep her on track, focused and accountable, but I felt this overwhelming intuition that what she needed most was a break from the noise.

So I told her to reschedule all of her commitments, unplug from the social media routine, not attend any of the classes she had signed up for, stop reading ezines, and take a proverbial “who cares?” approach to anything she felt like she really should be doing. She was surprised, I think, at my laissez-faire suggestion, since I am usually very practical and a step-by-step, work the plan, kind of advisor.

I found out from her later that it did her a world of good, and that it helped her settle some questions that she had been grappling with for a while now.

The ironic thing is that a week later, I found myself in the same place. Although the specifics and variables were different, the net result was the same. All of the things that usually jazzed me up, felt more like noise than music.

So, I took my own advice and gave myself permission to do absolutely, positively, nothing productive. I spent time outside in the sun, had an afternoon nap and put the word out that I was not cooking dinner.

And guess what? My husband shopped for ingredients and actually tried a new recipe, it turned out great (he is not a cook, so this was a stretching experience for him), and I woke up the next day feeling wonderfully. I also received three opportunities before noon. What a difference a day can make.

The reason I’m sharing this with you is that I know that many of you are way too hard on yourselves. Combined with the conditioning we carry from education and employment, we keep pushing through and find it very difficult to deviate from our plan or what we think we should do.

I’m not advocating to unplug from your business forever, throw up your hands and wait for things to happen, but rather to listen to yourself when you’re feeling overwhelmed and confused. When this happens, you might ask yourself:

• Am I feeling overwhelmed because I don’t know how to do something?
• Am I feeling overwhelmed because I’m not sure if this is right for me?
• Am  I feeling this way because I am not confident, or afraid it will not work?
• Or am I so overwhelmed, I have no idea what I’m feeling or why?

If it’s one of the first three, if you can identify it, you can solve it. If it’s the last one, give yourself the permission to unplug. You might find the answers are clear when you power up again!

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™  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.

Getting Sales Results in Your Business: The Real Secret

I spent many years both as a corporate communications manager and as an independent consultant advising organizations on marketing, crises and facilitating all kinds of change – reorganizations, product launches, new markets, and so on.  After more than 20 years immersed in this, I see the patterns in a vivid, glaringly clear way. Change is often blindingly and fundamentally simple…yet, not easy.

When I work with small business owners to help them design and market effective businesses, I see the same principles at play, and although the scope is different, the symptoms and diagnoses are very often the same: to build a strong business, you need happy, engaged staff; clients who are looking for and are willing to pay for your services; and effective marketing and operations.

It’s also clear to me that the desire to achieve these things, and even spending a lot of time and money on them, doesn’t make it easy to do what we know is needed and good for our businesses. Figuring out what you need to do and actually doing it consistently over the long term are two different things entirely!

There are actually four key areas that have to be addressed for real change (and real results) to occur in any business or organization. These four essential ingredients are constant no matter what your goal is – introducing a new customer service process, launching a new product or service or building a virtual or employee team.

Systems – you need systems that support your intended results, and they need to be monitored  and followed. They also need to be rewarded! Whether you work solo, or have a team in place, celebration and a feeling of accomplishment is very important.

Attitude – you and your team need to buy in and commit fully for any new goal or new way of operating to work. It is impossible to delight your clients if you are not sincere and happy.

Knowledge – you need to know how to do the things that you need to be able to do, in order to create change and results. The desire to do it isn’t enough, although it’s the right place to start!

Skills – beyond creating an environment and systems that work, demonstrating your positive attitude and knowing how to do something, you need the skills to be able to do the actual work!

Here are some symptoms that one or more of these areas are out of sync:

• You’re too busy focusing on today and your day-to-day busy-ness and so you put “it” on the back burner, thinking it can wait since it’s a longer term plan (systems)
• Your team members don’t see this as a priority (systems), that it’s optional (attitude) and they don’t understand the connection between their roles, and the long term importance of  “it” (knowledge)
• You know what you should do, and even how to do it, but you or your team members are simply not good at “it” (skills)

So what’s the secret then? In my opinion, you need a balance in place of the right people, the right skills, and the right strategy in place.  You need to create a foundation for your business that includes a clearly defined market, carefully selected choices to offer them, products and services that allow you to put only your best foot forward.  Then you need to make life as easy as possible for yourself, your team members and your clients. Creating a simple strategy and systems that are easy to follow, so that you are consistent, is the best way… because it’s the only way you will stick to doing what you know is good for you, your clients, and your business.

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™  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.

Business Success – Are You at a Turning Point?

If you listen to the stories of most successful entrepreneurs, you’ll often find they experienced a turning point after which their business took off. Of course, when we’re living it “real time” we can’t always see that the turning point is just around the corner.

Recently I interviewed 15 entrepreneurs for the Best Business Advice Ever series, and in many cases, each of them described their own turning points along with the advice and experienced that shaped them. Watch the video below.

Here are four themes that consistently showed up in these discussions.

• Clarity – success comes from being crystal clear about the vision you have for your life and your business. It can come in the form of one defining moment that simply cannot be ignored, or in a series of increments. Clarity often sends you signals, like nudges of intuition, acceptance or resistance in your body, and a deep inner knowing or gut instinct that something is right or wrong for you. Clarity also means getting very specific about your market and what you have to offer.
• Commitment – success comes from ultimate commitment and a refusal to accept anything less than the vision you have. It is not about muscling your way through and pushing harder and harder, necessarily! Being committed as well as clear, and being willing to shift and adjust your approach as needed is equally important. It means finding the healthy balance between being committed to success and being addicted to the notion of it.
• Help – success comes from accepting help and building support structures. I have yet to interview a successful entrepreneur who says it’s possible to build a successful business alone. It means being willing to accept help in the form of mentors, coaches, professional advisors, as well as hiring the help you need to support yourself and your business operations.
• Acceptance mixed with action – success comes from taking consistent action, and being able to adapt and implement advice from the right people at the right time.

Best Small Business Advice – Interview with Linda Miller Zellner

Until March 31, I’m running the Best Business Advice Ever interview series featuring successful entrepreneurs. I’ve asked each of them what’s worked, which mistakes they learned from the most, and the one piece of advice they have to share with you.

A veteran of investment banking, fashion and publishing, Linda possesses the business savvy and creative inspiration that propels Hamptons Creative Group into a much sought-after advertising, marketing and special events firm serving the Hamptons and other niche markets with similar brand cache. Linda chose to exit a groundbreaking career as one of the first women to hold a position in the male-dominated firm Goldman Sachs in the 1970s to form a magazine publishing company which was eventually purchased by a well-known media giant. At the helm of Hamptons Creative Group, Linda’s skills as a community organizer, marketing concierge and “Brand Therapist,” leverages her call to action in a new way, benefitting like-minded businesses, solopreneurs and organizations.

After selling the publishing business, Linda worked with her husband Bob Zellner to publish The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, his memoir of being a white southerner in the freedom movement before she established Hamptons Creative Group. Listen to the interview to learn:

• What she learned from the “school of hard knocks” as a woman in the business world of the 1970s
• Her personal “24-hour rule” that she learned after making a bad business investment decision
• Why face-to-face contact is still so important in business in this online world, and how you can maintain this sense of connection and community
• How to stay true to yourself in your business

To get a complimentary download of this and other Best Business Advice Series interviews, enter your name and email here (it’s free and there are no sales pitches or upsells in these presentations – enter your phone number if you’d also like to get early notice of upcoming events). You will also receive a subscription to popular articles published by Corporate Fugitive and Sherri Garrity.

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What to do when fear freezes you in your tracks

“You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”

Wayne Gretzky
Canadian hockey player “The Great One”

If there’s one thing I learned early on in my career, and business too, it’s that I would never know the answer to a question if I was too afraid to ask it.

I’m the kind of person who tends not to hear “no” (just ask my husband) and this has served me well over the years. When I set my mind on something, I generally get what I want. But I can tell you that operating my own business has tested my limits and has required me to take some shots that I’d never have imagined in my corporate days. It was never required of me to step that far out of my comfort zone. Being extremely good at my technical area of expertise was enough to be successful in my career.

Over the last year, I’ve moved away from a lucrative consulting base into uncharted territory. I made a monumental decision to turn down contracts that equaled my previous corporate salary. I said no to renewals that would easily cover my living needs each month and then some, because the work did not match the vision I have for my life and my business. I also set the wheels in motion for growth that could take my breath away if I stop too long to think about it. Does this scare me? You bet!

So I am no stranger to fear. When I tell my clients that it’s ok to feel the fear, but not to let it stop them, I practice what I preach, and so do my successful business colleagues. What separates the thriving business owner from the struggling entrepreneur is not the absence of fear. We all feel it. In fact, the bigger the business, the bigger the fear! The difference is being able to continue to take action and stay focused in spite of it.

Fear can paralyze you in many ways, for example:

• Spending lots of time marketing, but no time selling
• Letting potential client leads go cold
• Being afraid to pick up the phone and call potential clients or others who could refer you business
• Not spending money on the things you need to grow your business, like getting help or professional advice
• Filling up notebooks with enough incredible ideas to make your business boom but not taking a single step to implement them
• Watching others pass you by with an idea you had months or even years ago

If you recognize any of these scenarios, you have opportunities right in front of you, at this very moment, that aren’t being acted upon. If you aren’t as successful as you’d like to be in your business, not taking action is costing you – 100 percent! There is nothing more important for your business than taking the actions that move it forward today.

I see this happen all too frequently, and what I’ve come to understand is that for many business owners who have brilliant ideas they aren’t pursuing, the overwhelm and fear they feel has hardened into a frozen ball of paralysis.

If you recognize yourself in this scenario, my goal is that you take action on the things that will get you the biggest return, the fastest. One of the ways you can do this is to get really clear on why you’re letting yourself stay stuck. You see, “stuck” isn’t a state of being that’s thrust upon you. It isn’t something that happens to you. It’s a place you got yourself into, which means with some help you can get yourself out!

Most of the time, when we’re uncomfortable with moving ahead with actions we know are good for us in growing and marketing our businesses, the source of these feelings can usually be split into one of two categories: things we avoid because we’re fearful, or things we avoid because we don’t know how to do them (and so we’re afraid of making a mistake, or appearing incompetent).

The good news is that as soon as you identify the real reason behind your discomfort, you can take steps to fix it.

Imagine the compounding effect of one snowflake being rolled down a hillside. What starts out as tiny, separately insignificant, unique snowflake gets bigger as it collects more of them. As the size of the ball grows, it also picks up speed. If you can imagine each of your challenges and fears as individual snowflakes, now you’ve got yourself a runaway snowball, chasing you down the hill! When you look at this killer snowball, it’s hard to remember that it was all started by a single snowflake!

When you feel overwhelmed, the first thing you need to do is separate the snowflakes. For example, are you really not calling a potential joint venture contact because you feel unprepared? If you feel that way, is there truth to it? Do you need to do some homework, and if so, what? Do you need advice? Do you need to learn how to do something? Is it only one little thing that you can easily solve now that you know what it is? Or are you simply nervous about it?

If you’re nervous about it, is it because you feel you aren’t ready? What would it take for you to feel ready? Is it technique and how-to information that would help you? Or is it simply a fear, that you can conquer once you’re confident that you’re prepared? Or that you can work through, on your own, or with help?

Being able to identify the areas that are causing you stress, or making you feel overwhelmed is really important. It allows you to control rather than feel controlled, and will help you take action on the things that will build your business.

Keep Left on the Service Spectrum

There’s an elusive line that many business owners never cross, and as a result, never get the see the rewards that are waiting on the other side. I think of it as the Service Spectrum.

It’s the line between being  a service provider, and an expert. Imagine a horizontal line, and at the far left is the pure Subject Expert, sought out for knowledge and unique expertise or message. This person probably spends a lot of time speaking, often doing short term consulting, perhaps is also an author or a popular media source.

At the far right is the Supreme Doer. She is the go-to person to get “it” done; the worker bee who excels at a particular skill, and works with one client at a time. This person spends most of her time on project work for clients, and often approaches her work with clients the same way she did as an employee in her career days.

There is nothing wrong with being a Supreme Doer, but here’s the rub: most Doers make less money, feel more overworked and discouraged, and enjoy less flexibility in their business, because they’re so busing doing the work, they don’t spend time on growing themselves or their businesses. These are the business owners who most often under-earn, and become disillusioned.

The biggest mistake (and recipe for heartache) is to be a Supreme Doer, and offer the complete, done-for-you service as your base, most common, and lowest priced service .  Or  worst of all, to have it be your ONLY service and have it be underpriced, to boot.

My goal for you is that you take the time to consider what you want, and how you want to work. You will know in your heart if you are a happy Doer or a dissatisfied Doer. If you are a business owner who feels stuck, take a look at where you are in the service spectrum and migrate left!

If you are like most Doers, you hesitate, even feel adamantly opposed, to seeing yourself as a Subject Expert. You don’t know enough, you haven’t been around long enough, and besides, there are already lots of them, so who do you think you are?

If you feel that way, go for the middle. There are lots of ways to add services to your business that move away from one-to-one, doing it all for each client. You will also make more money, feel more in control, and have the time to enjoy the work and your clients more.

Here’s one example of a favorite approach I like to recommend to clients.

• Create a choice of three levels of service for your clients.
• Charge the most for the complete, done-for-you solution, and have this be the most hands-on service you provide. Charging more for this allows you to take on less clients and have time to work on other areas of your business. At this end of the spectrum, you may choose to offer more than one package, and that’s ok, as long as the choices you offer have enough of a margin between them that it makes good sense from your perspective as well as your clients (tip: a great way to do this is to offer a-la-carte choices as add-ons, and let your clients custom design what they want, of course, based on the choices you give them).
• Have a mid-level solution in which clients receive a done-with-you level of service. Get creative with this. This could mean training or coaching them through while they “do” the work themselves, or it could mean you project manage them after you complete the project to a certain point. Depending on the kind of business you have, it may also mean working with clients as a group.
• Have an offering that is purely content and subject driven. For example, you could offer training classes, workshops, or do-it-yourself resources on the topics that you get the most questions about when working with your clients. Or, you could provide short term consulting like providing an audit or expert opinion (tip: this is a great follow-up to clients for which you have provided “done-for-you” services).

This is just one approach to look at ways you can offer your services, there are many others. The point is, think beyond the traditional, single transaction, single client approach we have grown up conditioned to associate with providing a service or product. Think about what your clients most value, and other ways you can share your knowledge and expertise with them. Get creative, and remember to keep left!

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 SystemTM 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.

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