Business Keys To Success: You Are Responsible For Your Attitudes

Life is full of surprises, and the adjustment of our attitudes is a lifelong project.  Think about your destiny in business and life.  It will never be determined by our complaining spirits or high expectations.  In my business coaching practice and in my own life I had to come face to face with my attitudes.

For myself, self-employed business owners, entrepreneurs, solo professionals, corporate managers and all individuals our attitudes are what will determine in large part our destiny.

We Choose The Attitudes We Have Now

And it is an ongoing choice.  And it surprises me, the large number of adults who fail to take responsibility for their attitudes.  If they are unhappy they may something like, “I got up on the wrong side of the bed.”

If failure begins to repeat itself in their lives they often say, “I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.”

When their lives aren’t progressing while others and their family are still on the rise they may say, “Things would be different if only the birth order was different in my family.”

Whether you are running a small business or starting your own business it is a continual challenge to adjust your attitudes.

Attitudes 

In all of the above examples there was one common thread.  There is blame for everyone else or circumstances for their problems.

When a marriage fails they believe they married the wrong person.  When someone else gets a promotion they wanted, it’s because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yes, in the words of Rose Ann, Rose Anna Danna, “It’s always something.”  It’s always something except for them and their attitude.

Attitudes-A Summary 

When John Maxwell talks about attitudes he has a great summary.

The pessimist complains about the wind.

The optimist expects it to change.

The leader adjusts the sails.

To be the leader in your life you must adjust your attitudes.  The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes.  That is the day we truly grow up.  When you grow up you choose to be responsible for your attitudes and how you view your circumstances.

To have small business and personal success be the leader in your life.  Adjust the sails.  With the right attitudes you will create the circumstances to have the business and life you desire.

From The Business Coaching Chronicles-A Little Extra Change

Most people are resistant to change.  They desire improvement but they resist changing their everyday routine.  That’s a problem because, as leadership expert Max DePree says, “We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”  To sharpen your talent through practice, you need to do more than just be open to change.  You need to pursue change—and you need to do it a little bit more than other achievers.

Change-Understand Why You Are Changing

In my personal business coaching practice I had a client, for a very short period of time,  who was in the financial services business.  He had just purchased another very successful practice.  He brought me on to collaborate with him and to build the future he envisioned when he purchased the business.

Every person or entity that purchases a business does not purchase it for what it is doing today.  What it is doing today dictates in large part the terms of purchase.  Businesses are purchased because of the better future the buyer or buyers feel that it will bring.  And, once purchased they want to make changes to start molding the business into helping them have the future they desire.

Unfortunately, many times in their eagerness to put their immediate imprint on a business they make changes that are not good.  This is what happened to my client.

Change For The Worse–Process 

In a period of a year, he managed to take a very profitable business and turn it around to where it was very unprofitable.  How did he do it?  Running a small business is a lot of work but when you can’t get out of your own way it becomes overwhelming.

The first thing he changed were some of the core processes without consulting the client base.  Why?  He wanted to make it more convenient for him.  He started with a strong client base of 40 clients.  A year after his changes he had 10 clients.

Change for the Worse—People 

He also managed to alienate every employee.  How did he do this?  As a self-employed business owner coming from the corporate world he believed that the business was all about him.  For years he had to adhere to what’s right instead of who’s right.  But now that he was a business owner it was all about who’s right.

Employee turnover was great and attitudes fell and in the process so did customer satisfaction.

Change for the Worse—Brand

Now that the process and people were headed in a negative direction the company brand which had been extremely positive in the area now became a negative.  The leads for new clients that used to roll in completely dried up.

The business is now gone.  It was sad to watch something that was so good and vibrant die.  And it all happened because of a little bit of change in many areas.  And a little bit of change without understanding why make the change, brought one large failure.

The Business Coaching Chronicles Who Is Running Your Business

Who is running your business?  For this one particular client, a self-employed business owner, the answer or the truth was a revelation.  As a personal business coach I have collaborated with and supported business owners, executives and managers in various stages of business and personal growth.

The business in this story was entering its third year.  It had grown steadily and developed a good reputation in the design and construction areas.  The business owner had added employees and believed he was on his way to future small business growth and success.

When I entered the picture I could see the positives.  But there were some major concerns.  Running your business is similar to painting a picture.  As the picture changes you are going to have to use different brush strokes, colors, shading, etc.

Running Your Business—Keep The Brush In Your Hand!

My self-employed business owner client had hired the best people.  He was proud of that and rightfully so.  But in running your business, as the business owner, entrepreneur or solo professional, you must keep the paint brush in your hand.

He was making a critical mistake that many business owners make.  He had become busy to the point where he trusted that things were getting done.  He trusted his employees but he increasingly found that things were falling through the cracks.

And, they were starting to design a business around their wants and needs and not his.  They had the brush in their hand and he didn’t like what he was seeing.

Running Your Business—Take The Brush Back!

He wanted to take the brush back but he didn’t know where to start.  Running your business is supposed to mean that you have control.  But without good systems, that are written, it is hard to hold people accountable.  If you can’t hold your employees accountable through systems and processes then ultimately they will run the business and you, the self-employed business owner.

Our first step to taking the brush back was to create job descriptions.  With the descriptions came processes and accountability.  The next part was the most difficult.  The business owner had to retrain himself in how he did business.  He had to monitor the process and hold his employees accountable.

When you are used to winging it this is a huge challenge.  Also, his employees didn’t like the fact that the business was now being run first and foremost for the clients, not them.  A couple of them quit.

Running Your Business—You Paint The Picture

Now my client took the brush back.  He had systems in place.  He started to understand that running your business is based on process.  And that process determines outcome.  His business started to improve and experience new growth.  And here’s the key point.  It was experiencing growth that it could handle.

Whether it is online training, business training, business courses or business skills training there is no substitute for the actual experience of running your business.  I strongly encourage my clients to be involved in the forms of education listed above plus anything else that can accelerate the process of their successful performance.

Why?  Education and training gives you perspective and awareness of the pitfalls you may encounter in running your business.  Running your business is a continuing self development course.

Focus on process.  Keep the brush in your hand and your will enjoy running your business.

Business Keys To Success Become More Solution Oriented

Coming up with a solution, as any self-employed businessowner, entrepreneur or solo professional knows is the key to advancing in small business.  Small business by its very nature is about successful problem solving.

Yet, as a personal business coach I see clients from time to time get an answer confused with a solution.

An Answer Is Not A Solution

Whether you are starting your own business or running a smallbusiness your small business success will depend on coming up with a solution when a problem presents itself.

First of all, problems are inescapable.  Having said that, very often when confronted with a problem, most business owners know the answer.  Unfortunately, that is where they stop.

An answer to a problem is the first step to a solution.  To see if the answer is valid to solve the problem we must be able to come up with the process, or solution, to make sure that the problem doesn’t reoccur or at least is minimized.

Be Solution Oriented

Most of us at one time or another have taken businesscourses, business training, business skills training or online training.  The goal is not only to learn but to be able to apply what you learn to come up with a solution when you face a problem.

As pointed out earlier, many people come up with an answer to a problem  An answer comes first but a process or solution comes next.  Too often, it is easy to keep learning about a problem without taking action.

Learning without application is nothing.  Learning without application is a form of procrastination.  And procrastination means that not much is going on to come up with a solution.

A Solution Only Comes Action

To have a solution you must take action.  Thinking about it is a necessary step.  Talking about it with those to be affected is necessary.  But, until your thinking and talking is implemented into a process there is no action and therefore, no solution.

But, many will hesitate taking the action for fear that the solution they have come up with is wrong.  When we understand that making mistakes in coming up with the solution is part of the process then we are more open to take action.  If we fail with our solution then we have not only found a way things don’t work but we are one step closer to finding a solution that will work.

Steps For A Solution:  From John Maxwell’s “The 17 Essential Qualities Of A Team Player

Refuse to give up

1.      Refuse to give up

2.      Refocus your thinking

3.      Rethink Your Strategy

4.      Repeat the Process

To move forward, keep this question in mind.  Do you see a problem in every circumstance or a solution in every challenge?