Posts Tagged small business owners
Top 7 Assumptions that Keep Small Businesses From Success
Each and every day, small business owners to Fortune 1000 executives bring assumptions about their market place, their business, their employees and their customers into every decision that they consider and eventually make. These assumptions have a significant impact within the operations of the business. If you are seeking small business help, maybe it is time to check your own business assumptions.
1 – Everyone needs my product or service.
During a recent workshop on business building for local business owners in Northwest Indiana, one of the participants said with great conviction that “Everyone needs a health store.” I respectfully challenged that assumption by providing some examples from my own family including a 102-year-old grandmother and an 85-year-old uncle who had never been in a health food store. Her assumption potentially kept her from identifying her true customers.
2 – I can’t spend time working ON my business.
Having worked with a variety of small business owners to help them create executable strategic plans, this assumption is disastrous. When business owners assume that they must focus 99% of their time working IN the business instead of ON the business, the chances that the business will falter in the future have been greatly increased. This assumption is verified in the book It’s Not the Big that Eat the Small, It’s the Fast that Eat the Slow, by authors Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton who expose how much time business owners spend on yesterday and today’s issues without looking to the future the source for tomorrow’s business.
Tags: health food store, laurence haughton, old grandmother, small business owners, true customers
Small Business Help
Recently, I met a possible center of influence or significant referral resource at a networking event. We scheduled a meeting to get to know each other better. She specifically wanted to know what made me different from all the other small business coaches or executive coaches within the Chicago market place.
I immediately knew what my response would be when we meet – I double results through a quarter of a century proven process that builds sustainable change within the K.A.S.H. Box.
Since many small business coaches focus on intangible outcomes, I have learned that by bringing the results out first is one of the three differences that makes me unique. The second difference is that I use a process that has a proven 30 year history. With coaching being a relatively new field, many coaches can’t make that claim. Finally, my third difference is the use of building sustainable change through the concept of the K.A.S.H. Box for Sustainable Change.
For many small business owners or entrepreneurs being able to answer this question – What Makes You Different or What Is Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? – quickly, succinctly and with assured confidence is a significant challenge. In working with my executive coaching clients (many of whom are small business owners seeking small business help) having them identify what makes them the stand out as the Red Jacket in a sea of gray suits is one of my first coaching actions.
Tags: elevator speech, gray suits, small business owners, unique selling proposition, unique selling proposition usp