Hunting Up Opportunity
Past Monthly Topics
Take Care of Yourself First and Keep Your Clients Happy
March 11th, 2010We all know that when animals go hunting, they always go after the weakest, sickest ones first. It’s just easier to catch your prey when it’s under the weather and feeling sluggish. But what happens when the hunter gets sick?
The hunter goes hungry, unless they’ve prepared for this day. As it happens, I did get sick for a few days at the beginning of the month and it brought into sharp focus how important it is for entrepreneurs to take care of themselves.
I’m probably better off than most entrepreneurs in that one of the focuses of my businesses is consulting with people about how to develop systems to stay organized so they can achieve more balance in their lives. I don’t work 20-hour days and am aware when I’m pushing my mental and physical limits because I take my own advice. As such I tend not to get as burnt out as my fellow entrepreneurial colleagues. I almost never get sick.
But when I did get sick, it was really bad. I got a sore throat so awful I couldn’t sleep at night, and of course I couldn’t focus on my work the next day. Even after I was diagnosed with a sinus problem and got antibiotics, I was still miserable for a few days as my body recovered.
Of course, I couldn’t do any actual work during that time. For many business owners who try to do everything themselves, this could be a disaster.
Fortunately, I could see by noon on the first day that I would be in for some downtime. This is where all of the systems I’d worked hard at developing kicked in to save the day. Thanks to my up-to-date planner and email systems, I was able to quickly get in touch with my clients I needed to do reschedule. As well, I already out-task a significant amount of administrative work, so that would carry on despite my being stuck sniffling on the couch. I was free to rest up and not worry about my business and just focus on getting healthy.
Now I’m feeling better and back in business. My appointments are on track and even though I missed about a week of work, catching up won’t be so hard.
Could you say the same if you had to take off a week from your business? How about two weeks? What would happen to your clients? If you haven’t got systems in place to cover for downtime, now is the time to get started, while you’re still healthy.
Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca
How to Make Business Development Easy
March 10th, 2010
It’s easy to say “make business development a game,” but it’s way more complicated than that, right?
Rule #1 of the new Business Development Game…have fewer rules!
Isn’t life already bogged down with an awful lot of rules? Surely some of them aren’t necessary. How about trying this instead:
- Make a list of your clients
- Grade each with 1-3 stars based on how much you enjoyed working with them, the more stars the better
- Cross off all the clients with only one star
- Add an extra star to the remaining clients who are profitable to your business
- List why you like the clients with 3 and 4 stars and look for commonalities like industry, type of work, age, gender, etc.
- Start marketing to more of the clients who fit the bill for enjoyment and profitability.
That’s it. Yes, really!
Quit making up complicated rules that don’t actually exist and just start where you are right now with what’s already working. Do more of what works, less of what doesn’t.
And have some fun out there.
Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting
Be Curious
March 9th, 2010
Whenever you’re hunting for new business opportunities it’s vitally important to stay curious. When you get attached or desperate, you lose all of your creative and intuitive powers. It’s like putting on a pair of blinders and heading out in to a forrest. You’ll never see anything but what’s right in front of you and therefore will miss over 270 degrees of view. Often times the most exciting opportunities are already in your life, it’s just that you haven’t noticed them in that way. When you turn on your right brain, get creative and innovative, and are curious about what opportunities are all around you – you start to notice things in a new way.
Take notice over the next week of your ability to remain curious and see what opportunities you can spot and furthermore hunt up.
All the best,
Heather White, CEO, 2020 Communications Inc
Opportunities Are All Around You
March 5th, 2010There are tons of opportunities all around you to build your business. In the local newspaper, on business blogs, at networking events, in the shape of the person in line next to you in Starbucks.
The key is to be curious and talk to people. Every day. Ask them what they do and listen to their answers. And if you see a potential solution you can offer, then do it. Don’t start giving yourself all the reasons why they won’t be interested.
Finding new business opportunities is not some deep, dark secret. Neither is it complicated. Know what you do (the solution you provide), know who you do it for (your target markets) and then go out and start contacting people. That’s how you build successful business. One contact at a time.
Fiona Walsh, CEO, FM Walsh & Associates Inc., www.fmwalsh.com
Focusing On Your Target Market
March 4th, 2010When I ask new entrepreneurs about their target market, I’m no longer surprised when I hear their answer. Far too often, it’s “everyone! Our product/service is needed by everyone. That’s why this business is such a sure thing!”
I can understand why their enthusiasm gets the better of their business sense. For plenty of businesses, the product or service can seem (at first) like everyone would want it. Restaurants are a classic example of this – everyone needs to eat, so how can a restaurant go wrong?
Of course, restaurants have some of the highest failure rates of any new venture. Everyone does need to eat, but getting the right combination of tasty food, great service, location, price, décor and a hundred other considerations just right is not an easy task. Most importantly, restaurants seem to do well when they target people with specific tastes. When was the last time you heard someone say “let’s go to that Chinese-Italian-Irish pub restaurant down the street! I hear it’s got something for everyone!”
In my own business, I learned early on to target specific markets. Of course, everyone needs systems to organize their lives, boost productivity and get better work-life balance. But who’s going to hire me to teach them how to achieve these things?
After doing my research, I recognized that some of my biggest customers would be people who were moving or downsizing their homes, as well as offices that needed to reduce clutter and improve productivity of their employees. Also, successful professionals who were being held back in some ways by bad habits and procrastination could also use my services.
After catering to these target markets, I also adjusted my services to that target market to offer both organization consulting and speaking engagements for companies and organizations that perhaps wanted a one-day workshop or training session. This has led to success and many happy clients.
Whether you’re hunting in the forest or running a business, you have to know where to direct your limited ammunition. Understand your target market before you start your business and keep re-evaluating to ensure you’re not missing opportunities in other markets.
Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca
Business Development CAN be Fun
March 3rd, 2010If I told you that in order to grow your business you’d have to crawl around on the ground on your hands and knees, looking for leads in assorted cracks and crevices, and likely getting your new dress dirty in the process, I’m guessing you’d hesitate. Procrastinate. Avoid.
With that description, who wouldn’t?!
I’ve just described the traditional Easter egg hunt, originally a pagan ritual later adopted by Christendom to celebrate birth and growth. But in this version, kids hunt down coloured eggs or egg-shaped candies that have been hidden throughout the house or yard. It’s a game kids love and adults delight in orchestrating.
How might your attitude toward the dreaded Business Development be changed if you were to change your perspective and view it as a game. A game where you are rewarded each time you find a prize.
Chocolate, anyone?!
Hunting up opportunity, i.e. business development can be fun. You just need to relax and turn it into a pleasurable game.
Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting
Find the Watering Hole
March 2nd, 2010
When you’re hunting for new business, and especially when you’re a single shingle entrepreneur, it’s important for you to stretch your resources. One of the easiest ways to do that is to find the watering holes where your niche markets hang out together. If you can have an opportunity to speak to your target audience in a group, you’ll get far greater results than if you tried to find them and speak to each of them individually. Start today by profiling who is your niche market? What are their commonalities? What kinds of books/mags/websites etc. do they read? Where do they hang out? What do they watch on TV?
Once you’re clear on who they are and where they can be found (aka the watering hole), hunting becomes a walk in the park.
Happy Hunting!
All the best,
Heather White
Restoke yourself with a really cool project
February 26th, 2010Feeling blah about work and business? Feeling like you are missing the passion and fire you used to have? Working harder and longer isn’t going to bring it back. But I know what will.
Find yourself a really cool project to work on. Something that stretches you, excites you, invigorates you. Perhaps something you have been thinking about doing but haven’t really found the time to do yet. Yes, I know you’re probably thinking: “I’m so busy now – I can’t fit in anything more!”
Here’s how a really cool project could refuel you:
- Whenever I start something new, and often it feels like a lot of work that I really don’t want to do, I always find myself attracting bright, talented people to the project and all kinds of unexpected doors open.
- The sheer joy of doing something new and different gets me excited and passionate. It makes me realize that if you want to have an impact, you have to try uncharted waters. That’s truly how you make a difference.
- When you pull people together that are excited and passionate, things move quickly, which means you don’t have time to moan about how overworked you are. You are having too much fun instead!
So if you are having a case of the February ‘blahs’, then do something memorable!
Fiona Walsh, CEO, FM Walsh & Associates Inc., www.fmwalsh.com
She-Team Roundup. Channeling Your Passion
February 25th, 2010This month’s She-Team theme has been about channeling your passion for business. But this theme is also connected with other topics we’ve covered in past months. I mean, passion is so important to running a business that you can’t avoid talking about it!
Looking back over She-Team articles from the past year, I’ve picked out some of my favorites that tie into this theme:
Shake It or Go Down. Fiona Walsh looks at channeling your negative passion (ie. Frustration) into a positive business outcome.
Find Your Inspiration. Liz Gaige stresses the importance of loving what you do.
I’m Feeling a Pitter Patter in My Heart. Chris Flett talks about falling back in love with doing business development.
Scheduled Profitability. A few of my own suggestions for scheduling your business tasks to handle them while you’ve still got the energy.
Which posts were your favorite ones about channeling your passion for business (from this month or before)? Leave a comment and let us know.
Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca
The Ugly Side of Passion
February 24th, 2010pas·sion [say pash-uhn]1
n: Any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
Most of us think of our passion as the thing we love, the thing that makes us supremely happy. But passion is actually anything we have a strong compelling devotion toward, which can also include the negative.
At a morning Coffee Talk recently, I asked the women in the group how many of them spent time criticizing themselves.
“How often do you go over and over past events in your mind, or with your friends, wishing you’d done this or that differently, beating yourself up about how you handled a situation, or criticizing yourself for a decision you’ve made?”
Sadly, the answer around the table was a unanimous, “All the time.”
When you spend time doggedly agonizing over the past and all the ways you screwed up, the ugly side of passion has reared its head.
Stop and think about how much time you spend criticizing yourself. It’s sobering to realize that your devotion — your passion — has become focused on passing judgment on yourself instead of acknowledging and embracing The Amazing You™. The evidence is in how regularly you find fault in who you are.
Yikes! Would you let someone speak that critically about your friends?! I’ll bet not.
Stop focusing your energy on shredding yourself to bits! Instead, channel the beautiful side of passion. Re-direct all that energy and power toward unearthing and appreciating the things that make you wonderful and unique.
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Okay, admit it. What makes YOU wonderful? Come on, it’s practically anonymous on the Internet, you can tell us. You know you don’t hesitate to advertise a weakness (that’s such a girl thing, just quit it!)
Take a moment to share what makes you The Amazing You™!
Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting