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Being the best isn't enough
Uniquely being the best at what you do just isn’t enough because it’s not the best idea that makes the most money, it’s the most exploited best idea that makes all the money.
As a business owner you think you know what to do to make it. Do a great job and wait for people to tell others about you. This, unfortunately isn’t enough to make it anywhere near the top in your industry.
You need to make a shift in your mindset about what it is you should actually be doing and “Spoiler Alert” hard work and patience isn’t it.
Let’s take a look.
Doing what you do well is always going to be important. Being polite, clean and tidy, and being reliable also, but these things are a given to even get to a point where you think you might succeed.
All the above will generate you a wage. You’re not a business person at this point. You have only created a job for yourself. You have to take it to the next level if you want to be at the next level.
Even when you work for yourself you have to consider it like a bigger company and apply all the same rules to it. If you are working well and covering your end consistently over a period of time, don’t you think you deserve a promotion? If you got a promotion in your own company what would that position look like? Are you employing someone to do the grunt work? If so what will you be doing in your new role?
Even when you work for yourself. When you deserve it you have to give yourself a promotion.
The ambition you had when you decided to go it alone in the industry has to stay with you. Did you really leave employment only to be your own boss? If you did you quickly find that you are actually a terrible boss and employment is probably better for you.
Once you have someone doing the grunt work, realistically you have to step back and move away from the tools. Place your faith in a replacement knowing that if it doesn’t work out you can always find the right person next time.
You’ve taken a step back, your job is now sales. You have to engage new clients and push them in to your sales funnel to convert them in to a paying customer. What is sales? Sales is marketing. As a business owner marketing and sales are most definitely the most important foundation of your company. Remove them and you are back on the tools earning, at best, a wage for yourself.
To scale your business you have to engage in marketing and sales.
I get it, it would be scary changing your role for one that you are unfamiliar with. You’re human and we love the comfort of routine, but if it is comfort you are looking for then you need to accept that you won’t get to the top. You have to be comfortable with discomfort because path to the top will have periods of discomfort and that is why not everyone makes it there.
We are very fortunate that there is a myriad for information on becoming a great marketer and sales person on the internet. You might not be the best graphic designer, the best web designer or copywriter but you have the portal to gain access to them via the internet.
All the tools you need to be a great marketer are in easy access to you and all you have to do is start moving towards them.
Try. Fail. Learn. Grow. TFLG. This is the only method in life that works. We watch babies become children and children become adults using this method but for some reason as adults we stop. Like we have reached the pinnacle of growth. We become scared of failure so we stop trying. We don’t learn and we don’t grow.
Learn to walk again, fall on your bottom for a few months, smack your head on a few table corners but always get back up, learn from the pain and grow.
Never stop because for all you know the next time you fail it could be the last time you fail before mastery.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable when taking on new challenges.
Hopefully you get the message. You can’t just keep working hard if you want to scale your business. It just isn’t enough. You have to also work smart and working smart means doing the work that gets you work.
A purpose built website, email templates, graphic design, social media marketing and so many other things that you can either learn how to do or outsource. Just start doing some things that are specifically for business growth rather than just getting customers served.
