Do you relate to the word leadership? It seems kind of like a masculine term but, boy oh boy, is this a powerful term today for me as a business owner. The more I immersed myself in the understanding of what a true leader is and how important it is for me to be a leader to double, triple and quadruple my revenue over and over–the more my business began to soar.
I think a lot about the following six ways to lead your industry and how impactful they have been for my business. Without leading as a business owner today with these tools, I would suffer over and over financially, not achieving the desired results for my business.
Hence, I have laid out these tools to make them easy to consume and, I hope, easy to practice over and over with hugely profitable returns.
1. Knowing The Road Ahead: You see, great leaders/entrepreneurs know that every business goes through cycles, and every successful business plateaus to ultimately be reinvented when the market shifts.
A leader’s job is to foresee the changes ahead when the market shifts and when she does, she needs to take pride in three things:
- To see things as they are, not worse than they are. Did you see things worse than they were when the economy shifted? ‘Cuz most people do–well, at least the ones who are not leaders.
- To see it better than it is. Leaders have a vision. When everyone else is complaining about how bad it is, they are seeing possibility, hope, evolution, and much more.
- To make it that way. Leaders go first, and then they bring it to others who are fearful. Tony Robbins said to me last spring, “The challenges we are facing now are HISTORIC but not insurmountable.”
You see, as a business owner in today’s marketplace, to thrive you need to create a new muscle of “leadership” in practice. So even when the market, business owners around you and your clients are in tremendous fear for their financial livelihood, and they have lost perspective and are seeing things much worse than they really are, your job is to LEAD today and to embrace your newfound leadership role through your conscious daily understanding that as a business owner you must see it better than it is and make it that way. You must lead.
2. Solving problems. A leader’s job is to solve problems. In fact, a leader may not have to always solve the problems herself, she can delegate solving these problems to someone else. But she does have to solve problems.
As a small-business owner moving into a quickly growing business, I used to really mentally beat myself up, ‘cuz it seemed like I was always solving problems and, once I solved one, I had another one.
But once I learned this leadership tool and kept it in my back pocket, I could run with the ball and be a LEADER, leading my industry. Why? I understood that this was part of my role as a leader–to solve problems.
In truth today, the more my business revenue soars, the more problems I have. However, when the problems show up, I don’t berate myself or feel victimized. I instead embrace whatever problem is on the table and, in fact, often revel in my ability and responsibility to lead. I think, too, because I have clarity as a leader, it makes it easier for my team to have me be their leader.
I think today “Team Vanessa” feels truly invigorated by my ability to lead, as we are always moving to new successes, which creates new opportunities for them as team members. And of course, this energy and excitement trickle over to how our clients feel, how the business is represented and the great many opportunities that arise to do business!
Embrace your problems, embrace being a leader and knowing it is your job to solve them and watch what happens!
3. No Risk = No Goodies. This little jewel is deceptively powerful. A leader takes risks. If you look up entrepreneur in the dictionary, it is defined as someone willing to undertake projects and risks to produce a profit . . . or something to that effect. When I reflect on my early years of struggling as a business owner with little or no leadership qualities to speak of, I wanted all the rewards with taking zero risks.
I wanted lots of clients, big sales, along with tons of revenue . . . but I wasn’t willing to invest my own money to learn how to be successful in my business by hiring others who had gone the road before me (e.g., mentors, coaches, seminars). I wasn’t willing to invest in my marketing (e.g., pay for a lead or even referral fees), and I didn’t want to step out of my comfort zone. I wanted guarantees every step of the way.
In hindsight, when I reflect on this stage early in my entrepreneurial days, I didn’t want to take any risk, I didn’t want to pay for anything and I attracted prospects and clients who were exactly like me.
Today I take risks, I celebrate being a leader, I invest money in myself–sometimes slapping down tens of thousands of dollars to learn the best possible tools for my own growth and the growth of my business. I pay for marketing whether it be vendors, mailers, referral fees, venues, etc., and I work with clients who are the same caliber. I think often that because I deeply understand that leaders take risks and if I am unwilling to lead that means I don’t take risks–I don’t grow, the business does not grow, and there are NO GOODIES in that scenario for myself or anyone else for that matter.
4. Personal time. Leaders take time for themselves. I have clients who tease me about my short-term ideal vision being eight weeks of vacation a year. Hey, I did live in France as a teen fashion model way back in the day and that is somewhat standard, right? But seriously, leaders know that if they burn the candle at both ends and do not pre-book and pre-schedule their down time as a part of their daily routines, they will not be able to successfully lead.
Many of you know that I am a mom, a wife and a busy business owner. Taking time for myself and also taking time with my family is a priority that does not get downsized, nor do I allow myself to feel guilty about scheduling family luxury vacations or even personal spa days.
If for some reason I do succumb to a momentary lapse of guilt over leaving my son with the nanny for too long or for taking a quick trip to see a family member for a long weekend, I remind myself that God and the universe are working for me and my business overtime while I am away. And you know what? I see all the time that they really are.
Funnily, getting to the new stages of business growth I am experiencing has really helped me understand how important letting go of all the things you don’t need to create more space for the things you do desire.
If I am not in a peak mental, emotional, physical and spiritual state, how will my business grow robustly and lead my industry? I always say, it’s not about working hard, it’s about working smart. As a leader today, are you giving yourself ample downtime to be a vibrant leader?
5. Mental mindset. Did you know business success is 80 percent psychology and 20 percent having the right business tools? We have a policy in my office that when something goes wrong or not according to schedule, we ask three simple questions. What is good about this? What is great about this? What could be better? And you know what, we are always practicing CANI.
What is CANI? Constant And Never-ending Improvement. There is always a silver lining no matter what is happening and, as a leader today, I am always asking myself these three questions to help myself, my team and all around me focus on CANI along with improving my mental mindset.
You see, most people focus on what is wrong, bad, not good enough. These individuals never quite get into leadership gear, and leading their business into ongoing successes is almost impossible. Write it on a sticky note. Write it on a bulletin board. Write it somewhere you can see it every day as you do business. What is good about this? What is great about this? And, What could be better?
It’s funny, my good friend and biz partner Jairek Robbins (he taught me this tool, by the way) and I are always pre-framing all of our chit-chats with this type of questioning, and it makes for such a deep quality connection that is infectious for growth and positive advance–plus amazing results in your business.
What do you do on a daily basis to upgrade your mental mindset for yourself and your business?
6. “When it looks impossible, victory is near.” Don’t you just love that? If you do what’s easy, if you do what’s comfortable, how much growth are you going to really get? You must remember that to succeed in business today, you must be a leader: to not see it worse than it is, but to see it better than it is, and make it that way.
Think about it, whatever you focus on is what you experience. As a leader, it is vital that you focus on the right things; growth, innovation, possibility, opportunity, technology, flexibility, falling in love with your clients and much more.
I too loved the reminder that we have seasons in climate, just like we have seasons in our business. When you know what season your business is in, you can take advantages of opportunities. What season is your business in? If it’s winter, remember there are still sunny days in winter and after this season comes spring.
I know that getting to your next level with your business and as a leader sometimes feels impossible. But I have had enough great successes in business to date to know that it is in the extremely challenging moments when the greatest shifts and gifts are about to be given to you and your business. So keep going.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
