At the end of the year, I like to go through my previous writing and see what where things I worked on to be a better person, business owner, leader and support my networks over time. I found something to share from a few years ago that marked a drastic change in who I am today. It was part of a short exercise to reflect on where did you personal idea of business come from. The exercise comes from the belief that your business can only grow to the extent that you do as the small business owner and entrepreneur.

What have my life experiences taught me about what business is all about?

My original answer, included to show where I was and as a contrast to where I am today.
My life experiences tell me that business is all about systems and processes that mitigate risks for greater return than investment that gives more value to clients than cost paid.

I read that and thought, Ugh yuck. Did that really come from me? What a load of crap. That’s textbook talk! That’s skirt and suit talk! Sounds like something someone from  Mckinsey would say, cold, logical and neatly pressed. It reeked of corporate big talk and objective reasoning. Things I apparently at one time thought were what business was all about. Not that those things are bad. I’m all for objective and logical reasoning but the question was on my life experiences. On the day to day who I am there’s no room for objective and logical life experience. There’s only the personal, my subjective view and skin in the game everyday life.

I wrote a new answer to that same question. But from the position I’m in today for my growth, self awareness, and life experiences, I am sure I am no longer the same person with the life experiences that had me write that old answer. That in itself has been a great reward for my annual planning and goals.

Revisited: What have my life experiences taught me about what business is all about?

I don’t know when I wrote that original response but today is a day I can speak on a deeper level, only because I feel I’m in a different place in my life. That’s the answer I wanted to buy for who I should be. It’s what I thought I had to be to be a young, successful business owner. But that’s not who I am; it’s not what my life experiences have been. What a breakdown between my life and what my business would be.

My life experiences tell me that business is about being so happy in going after my passion that I can’t help but listen to people. People come into my life because they resonate with what I stand for and what I’m passionate about. My life experiences tell me that I am connected to people and that I get off on making their lives better. Along the way, I’ll touch a lot of lives and the world is a better place for it.  And, being totally honest, I do this happy dance thing when I reach some out of reach goal for my clients, friends or myself. It would be embarrassing if I didn’t feel so good. It’s my version of the touchdown dance.

Those are the life experiences that I can never escape behind a sexy black suit but embrace and take in as what business means as a reflection of who I am.

What a difference, huh? After I look at those two responses at different points in my life I can tell you the first one was around a time where I had failed business projects a sense of distance between my clients, partners and the work I did for them. The answer now, is one where I come to all clients from a place of being a genuine person who’s only working to help them because I believe in it, I love what I do and it’s making a difference for the better. If I had a choice I’d work with the me today versus the me from a few years ago.

What have your life experiences taught you about what business is about? Take a minute to leave your thoughts in the comments. Maybe you’ll see a difference from your old self, maybe you’ll see how your beliefs about your life relate to how your business is doing.

Start Your Business to provide value, no matter the economy

There’s plenty of talk of what’s going on with the economy and what it means to the employed, the unemployed, the students and to business owners. One of the best things I’ve heard about starting a business is to do it when everyone else thinks it’s a bad time to start. When most big businesses are scaling back and revamping how they make money is the best time to come to market providing a specific value to a defined market as a new business.

At LeWeb 08 Morten Lund talked about how an economy in a recession is the best time to start a business. It’s because in the life of an entrepreneur its always a make or break time. Every new business has to start with a basic focus on bringing in revenue, all else is secondary.

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Tech Truth: No one cares about your business. Your website, as a business channel, matters when it solves your markets’ specific problems and needs.

When you’re looking for ways to make the most out of your website the first place you go is not to your designer. It’s your marketing arm who can tell you in detail about your buyers and client profiles. It’s the go to person is the person in your company or the part of you that can paint the picture of your best customers and what makes them tick. That’s where you start when you want your website to be a way to seriously grow your business. If you don’t know that much about your typical or ideal customer, answer these questions and you’re on your way.

The buyer profiles are made up of the answers to questions like:

1. What are your buyers looking for?
2. What do they do, what responsibilities do they face every day?
3. How do they find and process information and value that fit their needs?
4. What are their concerns and worries?
5. How do they like to be engaged and reached?

The reason why a buyer profile or buyer persona is the starting point for having a business website that matters is that a plan to make everyone happy makes no one happy. Into business terms, it means that if your website is meant to make bigger business improvements in sales, new clients, visibility and beat out competitors and you don’t have a strategy that breaks up that success into paths and roles, you won’t be successful.

Move Away From A One Size Fits All and Into the Divide and Conquer Business Website

A great example of a company that turned around their website into a business growth channel is RightNow Technologies. David Meerman Scott posted a great write up on what they did to create buyer personas, build their website and marketing around those and the results that came pouring in quickly. Results like quadrupled conversions inside three months.

Failure is the streets version of a formal business education. Have you been schooled?

Often, I reward and encourage success so single-mindedly that I don’t always see and embrace the lessons in business that only come from my failures.
Those failures are the business lessons that I hold closest to my heart to shape my actions in helping build small businesses today.

When I came across this presentation by Taylor Davidson of Unstructured Ventures I had to share it.

What’s your biggest lesson you could only have learned from failure?