Finding Your Business Sweet Spot

Since each of us has unique desires, values and strengths, it follows that each of us also has a unique business in us that we could build better than anyone else. Discovering that business, and then developing the confidence to launch it, is what stops most folks from enjoying the fulfillment, freedom and prosperity that was meant to be theirs. The absolute sweet spot of your business is where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.

Vocation is where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need. Frederich Buechner

Risk, self-created pressure, marketplace demands and the lack of financial reserve are all factors that raise the new business bar high. You can lower the bar by understanding exactly which areas need attention, adjustment and strengthened before you make your move.

Al at 7P Productions recently asked an excellent question that’s worth considering in light of a new business launch. What’s Important: Who You Are or What You Do? I vacillated answering until I realized that it’s not “either/or.” These are only two of three spokes in the wheel to really get your new business rolling. In entrepreneurship and business success all three are equally important.

1). Personal Growth is what you know, understand and are willing to engage in about yourself.

2). Business Mastery is your proficiency in utilizing what you know and understand about business.

3). Personal Productivity is what you commit to and take action on to bring it all together.

Will you turn into Superman by identifying these three components of business success? No, but you will have the confidence of Superman – and the lack of inspired confidence is often what stops folks from living their dreams.

Looking at these three, where is your ideal point of adjustment for either growing your existing business or launching a new business? Adjusting simply means to bring into proper relationship with one another – and the closer we get to alignment the easier the business runs. Identifying and adjusting the right path represents our operational sweet spot.

Here’s an example of a misdiagnosed adjustment. In a 23-year sales career, often I would see new sales people struggling with lackluster results. Many needed to go deep within and examine their feelings around personal rejection. Yet Stupido, the sales manager, would give this brilliant advice. “Just make more cold calls and you’ll be okay.” Stupido pushed his timid new reps to adjust in the area of personal productivity when their true adjustment was in the area of personal growth. How long do you think they lasted?

Cath Lawson recently wrote an insightful post 7 Questions To Ask Before You Launch A Business.
Each of her questions falls under one of these components. Read her post and see if you can tell which goes where.

Personal growth could also be called awareness or development. Hold on now; before any of you spiritual purists start a debate on this, please let me explain. I agree, at a core level there is no development necessary because we already are whole and complete. Yet a funny thing happened on the way to maturity; we rubbed up against a whole passel of folks who didn’t see themselves as whole and complete. Because of this conditioning, to successfully launch a new business, some growth is necessary.

Everything worthwhile requires more of us than we originally imagined. This is a given, and no one gets a free pass. Eventually we’re all challenged beyond our point of development and we have the choice to work through it, stall out or quit.

Bottom line, the choice is yours to recognize the extraordinary person you already are. You can listen to your excuses or to the drumbeat of freedom. You’ve proven that you have the wisdom to consider the freedom of self-employment or you probably wouldn’t be reading this post.

Adjusting for optimum personal growth is not a matter of becoming anything – it’s more a matter of choosing to live into your preexisting greatness by facing your fear and moving through it.

Using blogging as an example, you may need to become more vulnerable and share more of yourself on each post. You may have to work to find your authentic voice or even your real purpose in blogging. But whether you look at blogging as a business or not, your sweet spot exists and you will enjoy greater fulfillment and help more people by finding it.

Business mastery is made up of methods, strategies, systems, concepts and processes. How well you understand and utilize the right components at the right time determines the effectiveness and efficiency of your business. There is an optimum way for everything, and struggle is only valuable as a lesson. Struggle is not a strategy.

Business Mastery is your proficiency in utilizing what you know and understand about business. It’s often the “how to” of business. Budding entrepreneurs used to say, “I don’t know how,” and it used to be a credible lament. But now the Internet has made that excuse obsolete. As little as 10 years ago, start-up knowledge was difficult to access. Now we have so much at our fingertips that the challenge is deciding what sources to use. But it is all out there somewhere.

Adjusting for optimum business mastery is deciding on the right business model and identifying exactly what you need to know that you may not be aware of. An experienced business coach or mentor can provide extremely valuable counsel for this adjustment.

Personal Productivity is taking commitment all the way through taking frequent actions that are the right actions at the right time, while tapping one’s resources to the maximum. The personal growth of awareness and the knowledge of business mastery are useless without action. Generally it boils down to a matter of doing what you can do today, and then taking action again tomorrow.

For most, the optimum adjustment point in personal productivity is to ramp up the frequency of meaningful actions.

Whether contemplating a new business launch or building an existing business, you would be wise to consider the location of your optimum point of adjustment.

What is your optimum point of adjustment right now?

 

Comments

  1. I love that old saying that sales is a numbers game. It is but more importantly it’s a social event. Remembering back to my days of being a sales rep, the best sales I made were due to genuinely connecting with the people I was selling to. If people don’t trust you it doesn’t matter what you’re selling or how many times you try to sell it!

    “Everything worthwhile requires more of us than we originally imagined.”

    That statement holds immense truth to it Tom. If the things that are truly worth our time and effort were easy and quick everyone would be happy and satisfied!

    You’re written a great post here Tom and I’d love to keep discussing it but it’s time to get back to work (yup at 6:45 AM).

    😉

    Adam Pieniazeks last blog post..Meet the Members: Adam Pieniazek

  2. Adam I’m happy to see your up and Adam, doubly so. 🙂 I couldn’t resist, do you know where that saying comes from?

    Yes growth is a given. The opportunities to be more than we once were keep coming at us. Once we make the decision to take things in stride and take action, life does get easier because we are fully living it.

  3. “Adjusting for optimum personal growth is not a matter of becoming anything – it’s more a matter of choosing to live into your preexisting greatness by facing your fear and moving through it.”

    Absolutely true. Self-limiting thoughts and beliefs are amazing, aren’t they? I mean, why do we have them? Why do people limit themselves so much? And I’m not even talking about non-supportive friends. I’m talking about that little voice in our own heads that keeps saying “I can’t”.

  4. Excellent points, Tom! I like the sound of finding our business sweet spot. The problem with many of us is that we are driven by external factors such as what is in trend, what our neighbours are doing or what products sell for the highest margin. We do not spend enough time understanding ourselves and finding out where our strengths lie.

    Evelyn Lims last blog post..Blessings For Healing

  5. Hi Tom – Good points. I used to know a lot about business and I thought that was enough, but it made it a whole lot easier once I got to understand myself better.

    Thank you for linking to my post.

    Cath Lawsons last blog post..Inspiring And Interesting Happenings

  6. Sara at On Simplicity says

    “Everything worthwhile requires more of us than we originally imagined.” So true, as I relearn this every day. If we’re not extending ourselves, that’s probably the first indicator that something isn’t worth our time.

    I fully agree that there’s a sweet spot. I just hope I find mine sooner rather than later!

    Sara at On Simplicitys last blog post..Keep the Clutter from Returning: Five (Mostly) Easy Ways

  7. Great Tom – I love “The absolute sweet spot of your business is where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”

    And too many people put off being self-employed because they are afraid of dealing with the tax questions, etc – but as you said, the information is there is you want it, or you can ask someone to help.

    Robins last blog post..Insects Versus Mother Theresa

  8. Hi Tom – there were a couple of great points you made in the post that really stood out to me.

    First, that was a great breakdown of how personal growth, productivity, and business mastery are separate components of success. The line about the sweet spot being where deep gladness meets the world’s deep needs was great!

    Second, I’m a firm believer with the notion of success being a result of being persistent. If we continually keep doing the right things through frequency of meaningful action, success will ultimately result.

    Al at 7Ps last blog post..What’s More Important: Who You Are or What You Do?

  9. Everything worthwhile requires more of us than we originally imagined. This is a given, and no one gets a free pass. Eventually we’re all challenged beyond our point of development and we have the choice to work through it, stall out or quit.

    Tom, just wanted to share my take-away from this post. Excellent!

    Slade

  10. Vered you asked a bang-up question. Why do we have so many self-limiting thoughts? I think it’s because we are remembering parts of our pasts where we made limited, erroneous assumptions and conclusions about our ability or worth. It’s all because of that damned conditioning that still makes us think we are less than we could be.

    Cath absolutely, I agree all business growth begins with personal growth especially for us solo-entrepreneurs.

    Evelyn you also make an excellent point. It’s easy to fall prey to the prevailing winds however determining the sweet spot is a a very individual quest. Check and follow your own excellent intuition and all will be well.

    Sara I know that you like to stretch yourself and I admire you for it. We’d all like to find that sweet spot sooner. But at least you’re in active pursuit of it. I like your odds!

    Robin you know I stole the guts of that quote from Buechner. But I’m sure he wouldn’t mind since I also credit him. 🙂
    Yes there are more excuses put forth for a lack of going for it then we have time to list. But it’s all there for the digging like most gold.

    Al I can’t argue with you about the wisdom and effectiveness of being persistent. I’m glad you noted the frequency as well. That’s where many fall down.

    Slade it’s always an honor to have you visit and share your take-away. That felt good writing it too.

  11. Good info Tom. Right now I am dealing with both the past and working toward the future as I deal with a lawsuit before I even get out of the gait while I continue to move forward with my business. The whole law suit thing- it is a bit overwhelming. For someone to file saying I have done something so wrong is hard. Especially when I know I haven’t and that the person is so dishonest. I look forward to your class tomorrow. I can now confirm the guy has filed. It’s the only truthful thing he has said.

  12. An excellent article, Tom! Very thorough and full of insights and illustrations.

    >There is an optimum way for everything, and struggle is only valuable as a lesson. Struggle is not a strategy.

    This bit struck me strongly, as I think people equate success with hard work/grind, more so than they should. I tend to think that as you business mastery grows, your machines get well-oiled and you stop struggling at the lower levels. You are constantly challenged, of course, as you grow — growth pain is always a given — but that’s not the same thing as struggle. We work hard, of course, but straining or stressing is not necessary and too much of those are to be avoided, as that makes your endeavor unsustainable. You’ll burn out.

    >For most, the optimum adjustment point in personal productivity is to ramp up the frequency of meaningful actions.

    This bit is right on, as well. In my experience, it’s so easy to take care of meaningless tings. Making meaningful progress on regular basis is a tough habit to build, at least for me. It’s OK to grab the low-hanging fruits to get the productivity going, but if all you do is easy, menial stuff, you’re really not being productive at all.

    ari

    Ari Koinumas last blog post..Bliss vs. Logic: Understanding Our Emotional Nature (Digest)

  13. I’m not sure where the saying comes from Tom, I think it just developed over time and got passed down because on the surface it makes sense. Google didn’t return any info on the original quoter.

  14. I like your diagram for this. Actually, I’m pretty well aware of my own issues and where they come from. (Thousands of dollars of therapy later.) What I’m not aware of are the world’s deep needs that mgiht match mine.

  15. Laurie that’s an interesting misspelling or is it? A lawsuit would through anyone of his or her gait just as they get out of the gate. 🙂 I know that this must be very challenging for you – just keep your eye on the good ball. He’ll get his. Everything counts.

    Ari I’m please to meet another guy who doesn’t mind taking the easy way out. Life can be a breeze, there are effective shortcuts and sometimes everything does just fall into place. But not for those who believe they have to earn everything through hard work.

    Making meaningful progress regularly is tough until you just decided to commit one day and put a couple good days together. Then momentum comes and you really get a lift.

    Adam thanks for researching it. Someone knows the origin I’ll bet if you ask every other Adam you meet someone will know.

    Dot welcome, one way to identify the world’s deep need that you can fill, is to take your business ideas and list all the ways money is already being exchanged for anything close to what you have in mind. It’s very helpful to see the combinations that develop that way. Give it a shot! Or you could join my Business Discovery Group and know in 5 days time!

  16. Suzanne Bird-Harris | vAssistant Services says

    For most, the optimum adjustment point in personal productivity is to ramp up the frequency of meaningful actions.

    What continually amazes me is how quickly I can lose sight of this and think I’ve had a productive day full of meaningful actions when I really haven’t. Busy does not equal meaningful actions. Meaningful actions, and lots of them, however does equal busy. I need to remember meaningful actions is but a subset of all actions available and do more of them and less of the other actions that merely keep me busy.

    Another thing that struck me this morning is that I need to not only be aware of what constitutes meaningful actions, but pay attention when a deep need is being expressed to me. It happened just 30 minutes ago on a call with one of my clients – she expressed a deep need for a service that I can, but do not currently, provide and the light came on! I heard her, and immediately heard your voice saying, “Hey Suzanne…in case you hadn’t noticed – that was a deep need that she just expressed, and you’re more than capable of meeting it. So…how ’bout we make that an agreement?”

    Yes, Tom, you talk to me even when we’re not on the phone. LOL And yes, I’ll make that agreement.

  17. Great catch on the deep need. We have to match up our services with what people are asking for. Once working with them we can often get our deep gladness expressed as well.

    Suzanne I’m really not omnipresent, that’s a blessing and a benevolent curse that many of my coaching clients remark on. 🙂 It’s all good. I really do appreciate you making an agreement without being asked. What a wonderful client you are!

  18. Suzanne Bird-Harris | vAssistant Services says

    Omnipresent? No, probably not. A strong voice above the cacophony in my head? Definitely. But that’s a good thing. 🙂

    Suzanne Bird-Harris | vAssistant Servicess last blog post..New Site: nobleMother.com!

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