One of the key benefits of working in a larger company is that no one person has to do it all. Effective teams are built when people with particular strengths and skill sets are hired to handle jobs they are good at and qualified to do.

If you are running a small business you may not have an in-house team, but you can certainly create one.

Operations Team

Finding quality service providers to do work you aren’t good at — or simply don’t enjoy doing — is one way to become bigger than you are. Bookkeepers, tech support, and marketing specialists are all potential members of your business operations team. This makes you more efficient and able to do what you do best, service clients.

Business Development Team

Another way to build a team, one that makes your external reach greater, is to find colleagues you can work hand in hand with, to service larger projects and clients. It might be a wholesale food producer who partners with a delivery company, or a web developer who partners with a graphic designer, or a tech trainer who partners with a software reseller.

In each case, together these partners are able to provide a wider offering of services than each one can on their own. And, working together makes it easier for larger companies to do business with you. Rather then wrangling several suppliers to look after several facets of a project, they have only one point person to deal with.

Looking for ways to build your business development team to present a larger service offering allows you to grow the business, without having to grow the operations side of your business.

Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting

Maybe the whole idea of “hunting” is where women get off track with what business development and sales truly entail. I mean, it’s not like you go out to a networking group or prospect meeting in camouflage gear. Well, at least I hope you don’t. (Ladies! I don’t care where you live, baby blue camouflage is still camouflage; it is and always will be, a poorly made fashion decision.)

We don’t chase or clobber people, we engage with them. So what’s with the “hunting” nonsense, anyway?

Those and similar misconceptions are why I’ve so often heard clients say, “I don’t like sales. It’s just not me.” We get the whole idea all screwed up – and freak out about it – because we’re using words that don’t work for us.

I wasn’t comfortable with marketing and sales at first either, but I completely relaxed once I realized marketing = education, and opportunities can be win-win collaborations. Boy, that sure takes the pressure off.

Obviously when we practice and improve our marketing and sales skills, our efforts create more opportunities for us to do business with people. Shift your thinking, get out there, and do it. No weapons required.

Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting

If you want to make it easier to rustle up business opportunities, focus your efforts. And your best bet is to start from where you are right now.

When you first start out in business, market research helps you figure out the basics about prospective customers. After you launch, the theory may not align with what actually works – who you thought would buy vs. who actually buys.

Hey, business plans are great, but take it from me, text book answers are one thing, reality is quite another. Don’t fight it, sweat it, or criticize yourself, just observe. You had to start somewhere. Now you’ve got some experience under your belt and you get to figure out where to go from here.

Here’s a tip: follow the money. Also known as “leveraging your success,” though less jargon-y than the latter term, it means: Do more of what’s already working.

The theory vs. reality-check applies to long-term companies just as much as it does to newbies. In fact, sometimes experienced companies have more trouble making the adjustment. They lose track of who their customers are because they’re so used to selling to a certain group in a certain way that it’s become ingrained. They get caught off guard, especially when markets shift.

Make you business development a game. See what’s working and do more of that. To me, that’s just checking your coordinates on the compass and getting back on the easiest path. Do it regularly and it’ll be a small, smooth shift instead of a colossal 180 degree turnaround.

Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting

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:

1. Make a list of your clients
2. Grade each with 1-3 stars based on how much you enjoyed working with them, the more stars the better
3. Cross off all the clients with only one star
4. Add an extra star to the remaining clients who are profitable to your business
5. List why you like the clients with 3 and 4 stars and look for commonalities like industry, type of work, age, gender, etc.
6. 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

If 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

pas·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.

————-
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

¹Source: Dictionary.com

Okay, wait a second. Maybe it’s not that easy to find your passion. Maybe you have been looking for the thing that’s going to ignite your passion in business for a while, but it hasn’t made itself obvious. Now what?

I was in a waiting room today, flipping through a magazine, and came across one of those 3D print ads that were popular about 20+ years ago. On paper it just looks like a repeating pattern of nonsense colour and lines, but if you look right at it, with your eyes out of focus, and gradually bring your eyes back into focus, you suddenly see a 3D image that wasn’t there before, hidden amidst the pattern.

I don’t know what that process is called (leave me a comment if you do, I’d love to know) or how it works (the geek in me really wants to know!), but it is WICKED. Do you know that the image on paper will actually move as you move the page? Trippy. And I tried it a second time, just to see if I could bring up the image again — trick my eyes and brain — and the image was slightly different the second time.

Hmmm, so what does that have to do with passion. Well, when we’re staring straight at it, sometimes the answer isn’t readily seen. Even when it’s right there. It’s worth it to take the time to relax, lighten up your gaze, and be open to something new and alive making an appearance where you’re not expecting it.

Work is so much easier when you’re doing stuff you love and tapping into what comes naturally. It’s worth it to take the time to find out what that is for YOU.

Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting

Feb 19, 2010
PS: They’re called 3D stereo images, and I found one online… 

Old Rule: There’s only one right way to do business.
New Rule: Do business your way.

Ladies, we are going to break some rules this year. We’re going to rock the boat. We’re going to quit apologizing and just be ourselves, thank you very much. And, we’re going to challenge some ideas about business and how it gets done.

Historically, industrialized commerce has been a masculine world run in a focused, linear, analytical manner, with no need for emotion or feeling. It was created by men for men, so it has suited them just fine.

News flash! Women are fully entrenched in the workforce and starting businesses at 2-3 times the rate of men. Trouble is, the structure hasn’t changed. We hit a glass ceiling or try to build business in a framework that doesn’t come naturally, and it can be tough going. Like being left-handed in a right-handed world.

But that’s just the way it is. I mean, the “old boys” are dying off, but they won’t ever be completely gone. What’s a gal to do? Well, toss out the old rules for a start. How about this, instead:

We may do business with men,
but we don’t have to do business like men.

Hey, I like men. They are lovely creatures. Some of my best friends are men. But I’m not one. I don’t want to be one. So why would I act like one in business?

News flash! Gentleman, Art of War as an approach to business is soooo last century! There’s a new game in town and here’s how it’s played. Money is a tool, not a scorecard of value or success. We don’t need to crush anyone in order to be successful. We can care more about the community than money and still make lots of money – which we then use as a tool, not a scorecard.

Don’t get me wrong ladies, we may still need to make some concessions when we work with men, just like you would make adjustments to accommodate someone who is, say, hard of hearing. Understanding their communication style, slowing things down, sticking to a single goal-oriented topic…all of these efforts just make things run more smoothly.

But I am a woman in business, so I’m going to act like a woman.

• I will work with people I like and respect and whose values I can support.
• I will be in business with my heart and soul, not just my mind.
• I will be collaborative with no need to outdo my colleagues.
• I will utilize my feelings and emotions to help me make better decisions.
• I will talk about my clothes, my nails, my shoes…and then get down to business and negotiate like a pro.

Ladies, we don’t need to fight the existing business paradigm. We just need to disengage, respect our values, do things our own way, and build strong companies that together create a new model of how the business community can operate.

THAT is some serious rule breaking.

Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting

Old Rule: Play it safe.
New Rule: Don’t be a chicken. Literally!

Forget quote of the day, here’s an idea to take with you through the year. Seth Godin answers the question, “How do we rise above the grip of resistance-addicted lizard brain into unleashed, energized, full tilt mojo and artistic moxy?”

Answer:

“The lizard is the prehistoric brain stem, the amygdala, the part of our brain responsible for anger, revenge, sex and safety. It’s what a chicken has, all that a chicken has.

The lizard is mistaken.

The lizard successfully believed, for a really long time, that safety was good. Avoid saber-tooth tigers. Duck your head. Don’t raise your hand. That = survival.

Now, of course, that equals burger-flipping and Wal-Mart greeting. Safety is a recipe for food stamps.

What the lizard ought to be doing is pushing you to do art, pushing you to stand out, pushing you to do work that matters and to make a difference. So, you rise above by seducing and quieting the lizard, and then, when it’s snoozing, do exactly the opposite of what it wants you to do.”

I’ve never wanted fear to be the thing that stops me from being what I was put on this planet to be, or doing what I was put on this planet to do. I mean, fear is just a thought, right? Who’s boss of me anyway, me or my amygdala?!

- Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting

I looooove challenging “the rules.” Even from a young age I was the kid who asked and even more often pondered, “But why?”

Typical answer, “Because.”

“Yeah, but why because?” I suspect I drove some adults cross-eyed.

Fortunately for my parents and teachers, when I was a kid I actually obeyed even if I didn’t see the logic or agree. Now? Not so much.

All along the journey from childhood through adulthood we accept an awful lot of unspoken “rules” and assumptions without challenging whether or not they work for us or are even grounded in reality. I love the story of the young woman who asked her mom why when she was growing up had her mother always cut the Sunday roast in half before cooking it? The mother didn’t really know, her own mother has just always done it that way.

When the daughter asked her grandmother, she said, “Well, for many years I didn’t have a pan big enough for a whole roast so I always cut it in half and cooked it in two.”

Moral of the story? Ask the questions, challenge the assumptions!

There is no better time of year than RIGHT NOW to examine your beliefs, ask who made the “rules” you have never even questioned, and start demanding, “Because why?!” And if you don’t like the answer, let it go and make yourself some new rules.

Liz Gaige
Market Navigators Consulting