Happy Equinox everyone!
Whether you are celebrating autumn or spring today, we’re all gifted with the wisdom on finding balance in our lives and in our business.
A few ideas come to mind:
🌱 Balance between expansion phases and contraction phases. When you look at Mother Nature, you can see that sustainable growth happens in cycles, not the continuous, relentless growth demanded by shareholders and private investors in the corporate world.
🌱 Balance between working ON your business and IN your business. Too much on one side makes you feel out of control, constantly fire-fighting, with no long-term plans and forever on the back foot. Too much on the other side prevents you from generating the income that will sustain you during the contraction periods, and for living your dreams.
🌱 Balance between in person connections and online connections. It’s been a joy to be able to connect with so many amazing people all over the world, at a time it was the only way to interact. It’s also been a real pleasure to (re-) connect face to face with a few lately, for a cuppa and a good natter!
🌱 Balance between automation to engage regularly with your clients without drowning in admin, and spontaneous and totally unique conversations with your customers.
🌱 Balance in the relationship between you/your business & brand, and your customers.
This one is a favourite of mine, I talk a lot about this in my group, when networking, or running workshops and courses.
I often use the analogy of a date, or a longer term relationship between two people.
When there is an imbalance in the relationship, it’s not healthy. One over-gives, the other takes, takes, takes. One is feeding off the energy of the other, to levels that can become unsustainable for the relationship and damaging for both parties.
Now transpose this notion in your relationship with your ideal clients.
Yes it’s vital to make the understanding of your customer needs a top priority.
How can you come up with products or services that they will want to buy if you have no idea of what makes them tick, and what pain point(s) you will address with your offering?
However, I still believe that too few businesses have put enough emphasis on the other side of the relationship: having total clarity about what they’re about and articulating this in their communications with existing and potential clients, but also with their own staff, suppliers and other stakeholders.
If people don’t know what makes your business/brand unique, how your offering has been crafted and why, they’ll never come to the realisation that you’re their number one choice.
As many of you heard me say before, business owners project themselves - consciously or unconsciously - in their business and their brand.
But if you’re not clear on who you really are deep down, what you stand for and what makes you unique, how can you explain this to your clients in a way that will make them want to come back time and time again?
How will you be able to find your tribe, the people you want to serve to your highest ability with your business, if you only have a vague idea of what your business/brand is about?
You might be tempted by one group of customers, because on paper they’re the source of a promising revenue, or because they happen to be featured heavily in the media at the moment, or because another business that you admire has a lot of them buying their stuff.
But what if you’re not the best placed to serve them because at the end of the day, no matter how hard you try, the type of brand/business that attracts them will never be you?
If your heart is sinking reading this, do not despair! I’m here to help.
Helping you find your true SELF and infuse your brand with it is my passion.
I can support you one-on-one, or you can join my Branding Mentorship Programme
Whichever way suits you best, we will co-create your truly unique brand - a brand rooted in YOUR purpose, in YOUR beliefs, in YOUR values, in YOUR personality.
In doing so, you will build a brand that is authentically aligned with YOU, and you will be able to connect with customers that YOU want to serve and people who genuinely want to engage with YOU.
On top of having your unique Brand Kit, to use with all third parties and when creating your marketing and communications, I will give you the confidence to put yourself out there, without any imposter syndrome lurking in the background, or any sales-y or spammy feelings when you talk about your products or services.
Imagine that feeling, the freedom of being yourself wherever and whenever you spread the word about what you do, with whomever it may be?
You have made one of the biggest decisions in your life by setting up your own business.
Honour this decision by going the distance and invest in YOUR brand.
This is one of the best balancing acts you can do before the end of the year.
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