Your Business Identity

Do you know what business you are in?

Do you know why?

Have you thought about how well the design of your business matches how you like to spend your day, and the way you like to work?

• Choose a business you enjoy, providing a needed and valued product or service to people you enjoy being with.

• Give yourself a role you can enjoy over time.

• Remember: Just because you have a product or skill does not mean the people you want to work with will buy it.

• Also: Just because you have discovered an important need and you’re ready to fill it, does not mean your target market will buy it, even if they acknowledge the need.

Exercise:

1) Spend time with people you enjoy, doing activities you enjoy. While you're doing this, listen for clues about services or products they value and don’t have, or needs that aren't being fulfilled. Take notes.

2) Look at your list and take some time to consider what your favorite people need and want that you could provide.

3) Put together some ideas and talk with some of your prospects about them. Get their involvement and buy-in. If they think it’s a bad idea, ask other people. If they think it’s a great idea, ask if they know anyone else who might be interested.

4) Test by having an entry-level offering to sell that doesn't cost you very much to provide, and gives your customer an experience of your product or service. Then you can see how committed they are to actually buying the solution they said was so valuable to them.


Most of the time the work I do feels like fun to me. I work out of my home office, and I’m responsible to my clients for the specific projects I’ve agreed to do for them. It’s usually something I’d like to do anyway, and I enjoy the people I surround myself with. I know it’s work and I know I’m in business for myself, but I often don’t notice because I just wake up in the morning and start doing things I enjoy doing.

In 1987 I opened a business in a retail setting. I had a storefront with office hours. People came to my office in the morning and expected me to be there when my sign said my office opened. If there was no work to do, I stayed in the office anyway because if a customer came through the door, they needed to find me behind my desk waiting for them. If a customer came in at the end of the day and needed something first thing the next morning, I’d probably stay late and complete the work, even if I’d spent most of the day waiting for customers that didn't show up … actually, especially if there were no other customers that day, because I needed the revenue!

That experience helped me learn some things about myself. First of all, I was very bored waiting in my office. I realized I liked more flexibility than a retail storefront would allow. Second, it was more difficult to choose my customers based on who I enjoyed spending time with, and the work I enjoyed doing. It was a good learning experience, I made adjustments and now I’m happier in my business.

However, the retail storefront was a step closer to my heart than the job I’ve held just previously at a large corporation in Minnesota. I left Minnesota one winter in January. I was so done with winter that I left in a blizzard and just kept driving south until I got to Texas. Gradually I made my way to southern California, where I set up the retail storefront in a small beach town. I could see the ocean from my desk. The beach was about two blocks away, so I’d walk there during lunch.

One day during lunch at my Minnesota corporate job I told a co-worker that I was thinking of moving to California. She immediately said, “You can’t do that!” It wasn't that she would miss me; it was that our culture said our place was there in the snow to suffer like everyone else, and who was I to think I was better than they were? I don’t think I’m better than anyone else, but I did bring my nameplate from my corporate desk job and put it on my desk across the street from the beach. It turns out I could do that!

Best wishes,

Marilyn McLeod

Marilyn@PersonalizedHealthCoach.com

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