From The Business Coaching Chronicles: Small Business Success

Small Business Success For AllOne of the truths of small business success and business success in general is that business mirrors life and life mirrors business.  For the self-employed business owner, entrepreneur or solo professional personal development in business will cause personal development in the person.  And, if one undertakes personal development in one’s personal life it will be reflected in one’s business.

Small Business Success—Personal Development

Several years ago in my personal business coaching practice I had a client who had a good business that was stuck and going nowhere.   When I say a good business, I am referring to the fact that it was quite profitable.

Yet, there was little enthusiasm among the employees, management and the owner himself.  He blamed circumstances and things.  He wanted to recapture the magic and excitement of when he was starting his business 20 years ago.

But, he was stuck on how to go about it.  Our first step was to have him take personal responsibility.  More specifically, he had to take responsibility for creating a new vision for himself and his company.  It had to be something that he and others would be excited about.

He understood that seldom would his happiness, love of life and business, income or virtually anything else exceed his personal development.

Small Business Success—Losing The Weight

Interestingly, where we started was with his weight.  He was about 75 pounds overweight.  For those of you who have lost a substantial amount of weight you understand how important it is to have a picture of a successful outcome.

He went back to pictures of how he looked when he was first married.  He put those pictures up around his bathroom at home.  He started to walk.  He got a calorie counter and became disciplined in the number of calories he took in every day.

Not by coincidence, the first thing he started doing in his business as he began losing weight was to look at all areas of his business where he could cut waste, slim it down so to speak, and make it more efficient.  He was now on the path to greater small business success.

Small Business Success—Regaining Energy

As this self-employed business owner started doing these things in his business sales started to increase.  There was a sense among the employees that something new and better was happening.

As he continued to lose the weight one of the first areas of focus was on his employees and their welfare.  He had always been a good employer in that he paid well and on time.  But, there was no real sense of team.

He started to take an interest in making his work place more fun.  He started bringing in pizza one Friday a month for the employees lunch.  He put together a list of everyone’s birthdays and made sure that each person was recognized and appreciated on their birthday.

Small Business Success—Keeping The Momentum

As time went on he reached his weight loss goal of 75 pounds.  But now he understood something very important.  He would have to have a new vision, a new goal to strive for or otherwise the momentum he created would be lost.

His next goal was to completely repaint and redo the inside of his home.  It hadn’t been updated in over 20 years.  As he started on this goal guess what happened?  He started to upgrade and redo parts of his business.

In a year and a half the transformation of him and his business was remarkable.  The excitement had returned.  The attitude of his employees was very positive.  The company was achieving new records in sales and profits.  He had positive forward momentum and was keeping it.

Small business success and being on a track to keep it were very exciting.  And, it all started with the owner expanding his vision of himself and what he could be.  It all started with him deciding to lose excessive weight.

Only when we let go of the old can something new and truly better enter.  Only then can we experience personal development.  And when we go to work on ourselves it will be mirrored in our business in the form of small business success.

 

 

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