When your business seems to be floundering amid the success of those around you, it is natural to feel a loss of self-esteem, to think that maybe you are doing something wrong while everyone else seems to have a knack for making the right choices.

It is how you react to these feelings that will make the difference in your business and whether it will continue on a downward spiral or you will use your animosity toward other business owners to get your business back on track.

First of all, the success of others has no bearing on your ability to run a business. Your accomplishments will always be greater than some business owners and lesser than others. Focusing on how well a competitor’s business is doing takes the focus away from what you should be doing with your own business. Take a good look at all that you have done and how far you’ve come since you first started out. Instead of thinking of what you lack, take some time to go over all the great points of your business ability and how much you’ve grown since its inception.

Sometimes the feeling of envy can provide that boost that you need to make improvements in your business. A little competition tends to push people to do things they should have done earlier and to try harder. Instead of that low energy feeling of “I can’t do anything right”, it makes you say to yourself, “I think I can”. Once you start thinking you can do something, the wheels start turning and soon enough you’ve figured out the way to do it and you’re on your way.

Envy can be used as an energy booster, instead of the other way around. It can strengthen your resolve to do something well, instead of making you think you are dependent on everyone else’s opinion. Once you start to achieve more, you receive more recognition and so the cycle repeats itself, on and on, until you realize that your business is every bit as good, if not better, than those who are competing against you.

Believing in yourself, whether you are at a low point in your business or the pinnacle is how you put envy aside and have the “not so good” feelings work for you instead of against you. Identify what isn’t working for your business, take a look at what works for others and try to incorporate it for your brand. Decide what your unique points are and make sure to market them. They will make you stand out from the other businesses. Distinguish between what is important and what is superfluous and get rid of the excess.

Once you are knowingly making an honest effort to improve your business, you’ll find that you no longer have the time to worry about what everyone else is doing. By this point, they will envy you.

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

image courtesy of sowhatsallthebuzz

Many businesses and companies, comfortable in their previous and present growth tend to be leery of changing their present methods of doing business, afraid it may upset the balance that they have achieved so far.

Caution is commendable and makes sense when a stalled economy has you concerned that your business may not survive, let alone thrive. But there are several methods that obviously help businesses to expand and by believing the myths surrounding them, you may make one of your biggest mistakes.

Myth No. 1

I don’t need a website with a shopping cart. My products and services sell very well right now, so why would I bother selling them online also? As of last year only 11% of Canadian companies sold online, yet the value of what Canadians bought online more than doubled. Canadians spent 18.9 billion dollars online in 2012 and a lot of that went to companies outside of Canada, due to the unavailability of what they were looking for in their own country. Businesses need to look at what consumers are asking for and provide it, if they wish to continue with growth, otherwise they will be left behind by those who will provide it.

Myth No. 2

My relationships with my team and original supporters are not or no longer important, as long as the job gets done and there is money coming in. While team members (or employees) in some cases are one source of relationship problems, the original relationships that you brought into your business should always be taken care of. These include financial and marketing experts who may have originally helped get your business started and gave you advice that kept you from making mistakes that would have been the downfall of your business. All businesses, even those where the sole proprietor wears all of the hats, have supporting members and those members should be taken into account as your company expands.

Myth No. 3

Details don’t count. Most business owners have no idea from month to month, let alone week to week, how they stand in comparison to previous months. You need to know your numbers and the numbers are in the details. While working with a team can help your business expand faster, if you aren’t keeping track of the little things, that expansion can quickly slow and even start to contract. While no one likes a control freak, the smart business owner does his or her homework and takes care of any outstanding issues before they can cause major problems.

Managing and pinpointing the key areas where you need help – either from the outside or from learning more, are the stepping stones of a long term, financially viable business. Understanding the underlying details and determining what needs to stay and what needs to go will help you avoid the myths above that will keep you from growth. Keep your vision for your business intact by always being aware that there may be something you are missing, new ideas you could apply to your business and changes you could make that will help you avoid major business mistakes.

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

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In most businesses, small business in particular, setting goals is applauded and usually taken for granted. We mark out our good intentions for the month, year, 5 and 10 year marks and even more.

The problem arises when after setting the goals, our sense of accomplishment seems to end there. Our feelings of security and satisfaction just from having completed the to do list and having the ability to look at our goals on paper doesn’t last for long. After that a sense of tension and worry set in as we look at these goals every day, wondering how we will ever achieve them.

We all fall victim to our goals for different reasons. Besides setting them too high and not giving ourselves an appropriate time frame in which to accomplish them, we also don’t realize that as everything else changes, our goals will need to change also.

Most of our wants, needs and aspirations are combined deep within our goals and really should be labeled as dreams. We spend a lot of time on our dreams, which tend to have no base or foundation upon which we can build them. We do ridiculous things in order to realize them and for those that do, once we’re there, we have a huge feeling of being let down and dissatisfaction and wonder why we wanted these things at all.

The largest hurdle is in setting the right goals and having a definite step by step method to achieve them. We have to be motivated to achieve them, otherwise the time we spend worrying about them takes away from what we really could be accomplishing with our time. Goals need to be extremely specific, realistic as to when they need to be reached and also practical. If we set the bar too low, we won’t have any reason to try hard enough to reach them and will just forget about them but if the bar is too high we’ll feel we aren’t doing enough, aren’t smart enough, don’t work hard enough to get where we want to go.

Every one of these things, as it puts your attention on something else, keeps you from working on other aspects of your business and slows down your progress in everything, leading to most of us giving up on ever reaching those goals we spent so much time writing down and looking at each day. Instead of rewarding ourselves each step of the way as our business grew, we forget about rewards and start to back pedal and redo what we thought what went wrong, since we didn’t reach a specific named goal. Whether through over simplification or letting things get out of control as we realized we would never reach a goal in time, we allowed our goals to control us, instead of the other way around.

We didn’t realize the difference between needs and wants and act accordingly. Knowing the difference between the two can help keep your business from backsliding and instead help you with your progress. Knowing when to set aside something that just isn’t working for your business can be a big decision, one that some business owners never make.

Let go of your plans and see if you can form new habits instead. Habits which aren’t rigidly adhered to but those, when kept in mind instead of a list of goals, will day by day increase how well your business is doing and also increase your ability to run your business proactively, rather than by following a set of instructions; instructions which may have outlived their usefulness. Our fear of uncertainty leads us into making goals that may not be what’s best for ourselves and our businesses. Small business owners have always been known for their unique methods of reaching their goals, their willingness to take on change at the drop of a hat and more than anything, their fearlessness – all qualities that don’t involve setting goals.

© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014

image courtesy of adammichaelbrewer