You Are the Key Ingredient!

Featured Guest Blogger: Phil Richards

Creative Business Strategy

Effective Ideas in a Changing World
Connect With Phil on Linkedin

I would like to welcome a first time guest blogger Phil Richards.  Phil is a business strategy consultant with 17 years experience helping small business owners create effective strategy, develop wonderful ideas, have fun and make profits. Phils’ article, although written based on his small business experience, also relates 100% to your career development as a professional.  Enjoy!

Five reasons why you are the key ingredient for your small business success

In a recent survey I conducted amongst small business owners I asked them for the top five ingredients for A Recipe For Small Business Success. The key ingredient came out after careful analysis as the skills, attitude, personality and mindset of the business owner.

There were five reasons that were clear from the survey as to why it is you, the career person or business owner that is in control of your own success, and the good news is that when we accept this, we have the choice and the power to do something about it.

The interesting fact is that of course, inside, we know this. It is after all, fairly obvious if some thought is given to the subject. The difficulty is with taking the responsibility to do something about it, and these five reasons give you a base from which to build. 

Five Reasons why you are in control of success.

1. Passion

It was clear from the survey that passion plays a large part in success. Passion gives you energy, focus, determination, resilience and desire. So one of the key messages in the survey was do something you are passionate about, and stick to your passions. If you are unsure about what you are really passionate about, a first step to really getting some control over your business and your career could be to take a step back and see what it is that really gives you energy; and then develop career and business opportunities around that.

2. Expertise

In business we look at what can make one business different from another. In career terms this may be looking at how you can apply your expertise in your own personal way. Once we accept there will be more than one expert in our chosen field, we are in control over how we manifest that expertise, how we use it, and demonstrate it. This is what makes us different, and as a business owner it makes your business different. We are in control of our own expertise, and the first step is recognizing what that expertise is, what sector or area it is based in, and how much we can learn about the subject.

3. Commitment

Our commitment to anything is purely our choice. A business or a business career requires commitment, and it just takes a decision; that’s all. When we look at the matter in such a simplistic way, avoiding the need to make it complicated; then things can fall into place. Make the decision first, and then take your first committed steps. This comes up as the third reason, because passion is the energy behind your commitment and expertise gives you an area to commit too.

4. Looking after ourselves

If there is one person that we could rely on to look after us, it is ourselves. We may of course want others to take their part; see the next section; but if we could always rely 100% on one person, well that could be ourselves. In a similar way to commitment, this involves one simple decision, just to do it! I think it is important to remember that looking after ourselves fails to be effective if it is at another person’s expense, so let us be clear, that looking after ourselves is about taking steps to ensure that we are fit, fed, have the right mental attitude, that we make decisions and let other people take care of themselves too. If you struggle with this reason for why we are really in control of our own success then perhaps take a step back and think that it is only when we are truly looking after ourselves that we can be looking after others.

5. We are in company

The last reason is the very human perspective that we are in company on this planet. We may have the passion, expertise, commitment and self care as a focus for our activities, but at the end of the day we can always reach out to friends, colleagues, teachers, coaches and mentors for help along the way. This is good news; there is no requirement that any of the other four reasons above give to say we have to do this all alone. This makes the situation easier to accept and work on; we can make our decisions, take our actions and we can have help where we choose to ask for it.

Of course none of this is rocket science, and may be old news for some people. But experience reminds me that quite often we forget these things, and lose our perspective over what really matters. When we lose our perspective, it feels as if we have lost our way.

You can download the full report “A Recipe For Small Business Success” at Creative Business Strategy , the report is based on the survey completed in March 2010 and details the five key ingredients suggested by successful small business owners.