Episode #22
Today, when I sat down at my computer after a few weeks of being off schedule, I almost didn’t know where to even begin. I got through a few emails, checked some rather dull reports (dull because I’m not getting the return I’m working towards. One sale here. Another there. But that’s it) and soon the voice in the back of my head was chirping at me.
“What are you even doing, anyway? And who are you doing it for? And why. because it’s pretty obvious that you DON’T have a clue how to do this….”
Don’t you hate that voice? I mean, geez! Shut-up already!
It’s true that I don’t really know what I’m doing. That’s why I read books an listen to podcasts of all those who have come before me, whether they are entrepreneurs or work in the ‘normal’ jobs. I didn’t go to school to learn how to build a business or podcast or publish books. I’m flying but the seat of my pants.
But where the voice is wrong is in thinking that I’m going to listen enough to it and quit. Because I’m not quitting. I’ve come too far to just give up before I feel like I’ve even started.
So, today I decided tog o back to the basics and do a reset. Go back to why I’m doing this an what are the fundamentals of my business in order to make sure that I’m still moving forward in the direction I want to go. After having done this, I’m convinced that it’s a good thing to do throughout growing a business to make sure you haven’t gotten off track or to make sure that the new path you want to go on is actually being accomplished. It could go either way.
Here are the questions I gathered and answered for myself. You can hear my answers to the questions on the podcast Pencils&Lipstick.
- Who are you?
- How is your business different?
- Are you providing something people need, solving someone’s problem or creating something beautiful for people to enjoy?
- Who are you selling to?
For this last one, I used mind mapping, something I had never heard about. You can do it on paper or go to mindmup.com to do it for free online.
Once you can answer all of these questions, for those of you who haven’t started yet, this is when you would go ahead and choose a name for your business, a logo, a website, set up your social media with the name and decide on setting up a blog or newsletter.
Then come some more hard questions:
- What do you do that people will pay for?
- How do you know that people want it?
- How much should you charge for your product or service?
- Where are your customers?
- Who are your competitors? What can you LEARN from them?
- What trends might impact your business, either good or bad?
- What will you need to be UNIQUELY good at to succeed?
- What different paths could you take to find customers?
This exercise was a good idea for me to do the other day. I day to reset and take the time to really think about my business and me and how I am combining them together. I encourage you to do the same thing, even if you aren’t feeling a little lost. We tend to continue moving headfirst into life and never taking a moment to gather our thoughts and evaluate where we are right now in order to make sure we are going in the direction we really want to go.