Ok, so I thought some of you might like to listen to my lovely voice so I’ve decided to start podcasting along with my blog. It’s a little rough to start out with as I prefer to do them on the fly but bear with me and I’m sure they’ll get better!

The music is Unnatural high by George Wood, found at PodsafeAudio.

Let me know your thoughts.

 

 connexted introduction: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Vision, Strengths, and Passion in Small Business: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today we’re going to talk about whether you should be in business and if you’re actually in the right business. Scary, I know, but it’s better to face these things head-on rather than try to ignore them and wake up in a few years broke and miserable!

First, I want to summarise a very quick point about internet opportunism versus a real business. If you’re a person who’s running round looking for the next get rich quick scheme, forget about it. It doesn’t exist and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is just plain lying. There’s only one way to build a successful internet business, the exact same way as you build a successful bricks and mortar business out on the street. If you’re running from affiliate program to affiliate program, trying to find the right product, launching multiple different websites that you lose interest in you’re not creating anything sustainable. Read on for the fix.

There are three important considerations when starting a new business. Before you start a venture you should ask yourself how it fits with your vision, strengths, and passion. Rich Shrefren’s ‘The Missing Chapter‘ goes into more detail about these but I wanted to lay them out quickly for you.

Vision
Vision is the view you have for your business in the future and when it’s finished. If you don’t have a clear picture of what you want your business to be like in 1, 5, 10 years time, how will you ever improve your business? Your business will simply drift from one goal to another and you really have no hope of making it as great as we both know is possible.

You should have an image in your mind of what your finished business will look like. How will it be decorated? How many stores will you have? How many employees and what will they be doing? Once you have this picture in your mind, write it down. This is your business’ story as talked about in the E-Myth. Does you business have a compelling story?

Strengths
It’s time to look long and hard at yourself. What strengths do you have? What weaknesses do you have? Is your business aligned with your strengths and are you working on improving or finding other people to cover your weaknesses? Your strengths are built into you from a young age and you’ve been developing them all your life. So it makes sense to align your business with your strengths for it to be as successful as possible.

Rich uses the example of his friend being a professional tennis player while he is very good at poker. If either of them is playing for money against each other, they’ll want to play the game that they’re best at. Business is another game, so choose the game that you know you can win at.

Passion
We all have things that we are passionate about and no, you can’t say making money. Your business should be something that you feel passionate about, with a vision that compels you to get up each morning and do your best. Without this passion, with money as your only drive, you will find yourself unmotivated and hating your business. You spend most of your day working, so make sure you’re working at something you enjoy.

For example, I love helping and growing businesses. I love talking about business, I love finding out about how other peoples businesses work. And are you in trouble if you ask me for business advice, you’ll never shut me up! This makes me happy, this gets out of bed in the morning, and this is why my business works.

Too many people nowadays are goal obsessed. They set all these goals and when they reach them wonder why they’re still not happy. Happiness and fulfilment is something that should happen every day in your life, not just when you achieve a goal. If the only time I was going to be happy was when I made a million dollars, what a miserable life I would lead!

Connecting your business vision with your strengths and passion is the way to create a sustainable, expandable business that will be fulfilling everyday.