Answering the "Why?" in Business Motivation

Starting a business is not that difficult; however, maintaining the vision for a business in your mind and heart is needed to keep you motivated towards your goal.  A vision is a mental picture of how you want things to be.  For instance, you would carry a mental picture of what being a success means to you. 

• You can see people coming to you saying “Yes” I want what you have to offer.   
• You see your products or services being purchased and your cash register full of cash.  

But keeping a vision alive is not the first step to building a successful venture.  The first step is to ask the most important question you will have to answer prior to being a success. That question is, Why? 

• Why are you doing what you do (or want to do) in business?  
• Why have you chosen (or will choose) to focus on a particular field, discipline, idea, etc.? 

It’s important to know why you intend to do something as intense as operating a business.  Starting or operating a business based on the wishes and dreams of others or based on the traditions within a person’s family. Perhaps you grew up in a family business and felt obligated to carry it on. But now, you might feel discouraged and unmotivated.  The business could have great potential but your lack of enthusiasm makes the marketing lackluster or almost non-existent.  When, you think about why you are in this particular business, its not because of your personal passion but because of the dreams of others. 

Working in a business because of the expectations of others is not always enough to motivate you to go through the ups and downs of business. You must have a passion for what you do.  It’s when you love the work, and want to do the business, that you are in the right field. 

This brings you back to why answering the question “Why” is an important first step to create a vision for your business. 

• Why do you even want to serve a certain target community, locally or online, in this manner?  
• Is this something you would choose to do on your own, or do you feel forced to go into this business or service?  
• Do you know that this business is the best use of your talents and skills?  
• Are you honoring your personal and business values through this business?

Answer the why and you’re on your way to understanding what you need to be doing in your life through business. 

Take time to find your true heart’s desire in business and pursue your true dreams. Then you will be a business professional who is ready to continue building your business in a way that enhances your quality of life and motivates you to continue on to success, no matter what obstacles you will inevitably face along the way.

Boomers in Transition!

Baby Boomers are in transition. After years of working for others including family and companies, Boomers are getting laid off or downsized; some are just on the move and trying to start over at a later age in life.  Others are retiring, but even more are finally moving into career, work and businesses they always dreamed of doing. 

Does this sound like you?  If you’re in the Boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964, you could be in a state of flux right now.  So what are you going to do? 

First of all, be happy!  In fact, look at the situation as the opportunity to be a maverick in your industry and create something new and exciting that only your years of experiences can produce.

You definitely will find that you have special skills, knowledge and expertise that other people are willing to pay for.  You might not recognize these areas at first because you take these things for granted. 

But don’t fear; help is on the way. One idea is to take an assessment of your talents, skills, years of experience and transferable skills and start a practice as a Coach or Consulting.  Take your area of specialization and bring those talents back to the entrepreneurial or corporate world in an independent manner. 

But don’t stop with what you’ve already done.  This is the time to also explore what you’ve always wanted to do.  Dig deep inside and pull out that long hidden dream venture and see what it takes to turn that into an income stream. 

Change and transition for Boomers can finally present an opening to do what you’ve wanted to pursue for a lifetime. Be brave, be bold be a maverick Boomer.

Could Tiger Woods Represent Your Business?

Tiger Woods is all the news these days and that’s not good; at least not for the reasons he’s in the news.  Some might argue that this infidelity situation with so many women is a personal thing between him and his wife. But it also brings up a question for business owners and organizational leaders who select a public “face” to represent their businesses. 

It’s a well known marketing fact that using famous personalities is a great marketing strategy.  Well-known celebrities quickly attract attention, build instant credibility and promote trust in the product or services they represent. The goal of course, is to increase sales as much as potentially possible.

But what happens when the “face of the business” messes up?  One of the first things the public wonders about is, will there be a loss of endorsements? While worrying about the loss of money for an already wealthy celebrity is entertaining, this issue opens up the opportunity to think about and discuss how having a person attached to your business who is sucking in negative publicity on the personal level can affect the credibility of the business.    

Perhaps it’s time for businesses to change their ideas about who or what should be representing their business to the public. 

No one is perfect so it’s impossible to know what will happen with any human being at any time. That makes selecting a “face” to represent your business or organization a tricky marketing strategy. You’re counting on the person to propel your product or service to higher levels in the eyes of your target market. 

But what happens if you get a Tiger Woods situation?  What happens when your business name is totally linked to a person that totally messes up? How do you change the negative image that could stick to you based on your selection of a representative? 

That is always a potential risk that has to be considered when dealing with human nature.  It might be the luck of the draw to find a person who starts with and maintains a spotless background over the long term to be your representative.  The problem is that it seems to be a gamble these days. With the widespread availability of video and audio devices almost nothing is a secret anymore.  Add a down economy and the potential to benefit financially by either outing someone’s bad behavior or better yet, having a relationship to someone shaky and nothing is sacred anymore.

Whether or not Tiger Woods will remain the face of all of the major companies he’s been affiliated with after this situation still remains to be seen.  Like other celebrities that have provided us with their own version of entertainment through their failures for a few weeks, the world will wait to see what the companies will decide. Meanwhile, this contemporary dilemma gives business and organization professionals just one more detail to consider if you intend (or already do) select a public person to be the marketing face of your business. 

This is just one more issue to add to the strategic plan when looking at what changes to make in your organization for 2010.

Signs You’re Facing Change in the New Year

Are you feeling in a rut lately?  Maybe you seem to be “going in circles” trying to reach goals that never seem to materialize? 

There are times in life when making a change is the only thing that can put you back on a path towards success.  The beginning of a New Year is the best time to do a quick assessment of what might be holding you back so you can determine if it’s time to make changes in your life or business.  

Go through this brief list and see how many areas you relate too.  Then see if working on change in your life or business should be on your “to-do” list for 2010? 

Check all that apply to you:  

__ Can’t seem to reach intended goals

__ Feel confused or stuck

__ Never seem to get out of a rut

__ Have the possibility of financial failure

__ Facing possible business failure

__ Have issues with bad habits

__ Difficulty managing stress

__ Stress is affecting your health, thought, abilities

__ Continue to try ideas that don’t succeed

__ Don’t feel good about personal issues

__ Dealing with professional issues you can’t overcome

__ Feel stifled in expressing your thoughts

__ Creativity has gotten bottled up

__ Can’t seem to finish what you start

__ Feel unhealthy, sluggish, depressed

__ Lack confidence in personal or professional abilities

__ Unable to identify, present and future potential

__ Live “in the past” and can’t move forward

__ Need to change business tactics but don’t know how

__ Need to hire different people but don’t know whom

__ Have problems with employees

__ Can’t seem to communicate effectively

__ Need to try something new but can’t figure out what that is

__ Keep doing the same things with the same results

__ Don’t know how to start a new project

__ Total Checked?

How did you do?  If you checked any of the points, you probably need to do something to get moving in your life or business.    

If you’ve been working on the same goals for years, perhaps these are not the correct ones for you?  Interests change as you become more aware of new ideas and possibilities.  If your business is lagging, could it be that the interests and needs of your target market have shifted and you haven’t changed the business to keep up?   

When you are too close to an issue it can be difficult to see where change is needed.  Step back for a while, take a rest and get a new perspective.  Try Change Success Coaching or have a long talk with a business partner you trust. 

Decide to to make Change Management a goal this year and make 2010 the year to embrace changes that move you forward and let go of old ideas that hold you behind.