How Do You Treat Your Business?

Let me ask you a question: why are you ‘in business’?

Do your answers include things like: “I want to give others the benefits of my massage skills” (then why don’t you work for someone else?) or “I want to make money with my massage” (do you devote as much time to your business as you do to your massage?)

 

When you give someone a massage, you give them the best massage possible every time (at least I hope you do). Because if you don’t, they’ll go somewhere else next time they need a massage (or if it was particularly painful or unpleasant, they may never have another massage.) Sounds shocking I know, but I get complaints from folks that they didn’t enjoy their massage. I went to school to learn how to give a massage (you don’t ‘do’ a massage, you ‘give’ a massage) One of the very first things the instructor told us was that a massage should never be painful. (Unless of course it’s for therapeutic reasons). But there are practitioners who just give someone a massage without checking on how the person’s doing. And sometimes when the person complains, the practitioner doesn’t lighten up, (ease off on the pressure) they just carry on. You can’t ‘fix’ someone in just one massage. You work on their knots, stress etc gradually over time. Many therapists don’t ‘get’ this. (This is one of my pet rants: practitioners/therapists who just do- <no ‘giving’ about it> their massage by the book. Without allowing it to evolve and adjust over time & according to the individual’s needs & comfort level.)

 

Do you give the business part of your business the same attention that you give your clients? Do you treat it with the same TLC as you treat your clients? (At least I hope you’re treating your clients with TLC) 

 

Do you treat your business with the same care and respect you treat another living being, or do you treat it like a ‘thing’? An inanimate object that has no life, no soul, no ‘beingness’, just kicking it around, swearing at it, complaining when it doesn’t provide you with the revenue you feel it should? Hmmmm? What would happen if you treated a loved one like that? Or perhaps one of your clients?

 

Someone, probably you ‘created’ your business. You gave it form & being from your thoughts. In essence, you gave it life. So now you have a business. Are you taking care of it? Do you nurture it allowing it you provide you with its benefits: new/continuing clients; revenue; allowing you to share with others the benefits of massage though your skills? Generating additional clients generating additional revenue etc, etc. Well???

 

Here’s some thoughts for you. First of all, remember your business is not you. It’s got its own separate identity. It’s as unique as you are, its owner. Your business also has a feeling to it. But even more than that, it has a being-ness to it, its own entity if you like. Your business has a heart, and it has it’s own impulses and needs, separate from you. Like a garden, or a child, a business needs support, needs nourishment, needs love, and needs some hard work, but it does the growing on its own. And as its ‘owner’ you should be taking care of it, nurturing it, helping it to grow & prosper. Because if you don’t, it will stagnate and die (or ‘fail’).

 Here’s my tip for you: start looking at /thinking about your business as a ‘being’. See where you could/should be nurturing and encouraging it. Then  take it from there. The ideas expressed in this post were influenced by Mark Silver over at http://www.heartofbusiness.com . If you sincerely believe in what you and your business has to offer, you should drop by and check Mark out. 

What’s Your #1 Stategy For Sucess

Having trouble getting your business off the ground or taking it to the next level? Here’s something to work with. According to Jack Canfield of Chicken Sup for the Soul fame: The #1 Success Principle is: Take 100% responsibility for your life! Stop blaming, complaining and justifying why you haven’t created the results you want in your life.  It is YOU who creates the quality of the life you lead and the results you produce.

You can’t sit around waiting for the Universe to hand you what you want on a silver platter. Then whine & moan when you don’t get what you want.  You need to take set yourself a few simple goals & then TAKE ACTION! Don’t wait for the time to be ‘just right’. It’ll never be ‘right’.  Something will always come along to get under paw.

You should be taking action every day to grow your business, work on improving yourself & your relationships with others. Don’t have a website, get a page up there. Let folks know what you do, what problem of theirs you can help solve & how folks can get in touch with you. But you need to get it gear & do something. Otherwise you might just as well get a JOB!

If you’re really financially challenged, set up a web site blog, a blogsite (they’re free) with either WordPress or Blogger. Actually, using WordPress as your blogsite isn’t just for the financially challenged. Having a WordPress blogsite allows you to update your site as often as you desire. It has a host of other features that I haven’t figured out yet. If you’re looking for a great resource site on how to setup your blogsite check out Sandra de Freitas: ‘Does this Blogsite Make My Wallet Look Fat’ over at http://www.wordpressblogsites.com

Some Thoughts on Social Media

Unless you’ve been living in a cave lately, you’ve heard all about Web 2.0 & Social Media. Still not sure if it’s for you? Mark McGuiness over at Lateral Action has a great post ‘The Top 10 Social Networks For Creative People’ that really clarifies Social Media & the benefits of implementing it in your life. Most of us aren’t solitary creatures by nature & the more we connect with others the greater the benefit to ourselves. As Mark puts it:

“Social media technologies are providing us with opportunities to exchange ideas, stimulate and teach each other that are at least as exciting as those available to the great minds of the Renaissance.”

Here’s the link so you can go read the rest of it including comments: http://lateralaction.com/articles/social-networks-for-creatives/

It’s January – Ready to do some business building?

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? How’s it going so far? Recession got you daunted? Here’s aquote for you and some ideas to get you moving forward.

Is this you? ” Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” Lou Holtz

If you’re in business for yorself, there’s a couple of things you really need to have. If you haven’t got them, let’s get started now.

If you’re in business, doesn’t matter if you’re selling widgits or on site massage, YOU NEED A WEBSITE! You need to create an online presence. Folks don’t go hunting through the yellow pages any more to find you. They Google you. If you don’t have a web presence, you won’t get found, your competitors will.

There’s 3 ways to get online. The most costly is to have a site built for you. The more affordable way is to do it yourself & the 3 way is free, say a blog either here at WordPress or Blogger. Now there are other free ways to get online say Facebook, but it’s more professional to start with either a website and/or a blog. It doesn’t have to be a big complicted site with lots of flash etc. It can be a very basic one page affair that tells folks what you have to offer & how to contact you. I’ll get into all the ins & outs of building a website in another post.

By the way, once you create an online presence for your business you become an online or internat marketer. I know online/internet marketing has gotten some bad press. There are folks out there who will sell you a bunch of vitually useless stuff  if you let them. So if you’re new to all this internet stuff, go hide your credit card in another room. I’ll wait… Back?

Basically there’s 2 types of businesses, those that sell tangile goods like widgets & those that sell intangible ones like massage or coaching. In either case most of the strategies I’ll share with you are equally effective for both. There’s some really cool FREE stuff online that will help you build your business. So you don’t have to spend any money (well just a little like registering your domain name & gettiing a webhost & stuff like that. But in general you don’t need to spend big bucks.

There’s a ton of blogs, according to Technorati.com there’s something like 15.5 million active blogs with something like 1.3 – 1.5 million posts made every day.  You couldn’t possibly read all of them I’m going to share a couple I’ve found really useful. Go check out the guys over at StomperBlog.com  StomperNet teaches online businesses how to get more traffic, and how to convert more traffic into paying customers. It’s valuable information, & much of it is free, including the instructional videos, BUT you do need to register. It does help if you know a little about what happens online, but most of what they have to offer is brain dead simple.