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.