Daring to do

Posted on | November 30, 2006 | Comments Off

One of the things about running your own small or microbusiness that falls under the category of Not For The Faint of Heart is the way it constantly challenges you to go outside your comfort zone.

In fact, in many ways, running your own business is an ongoing act of courage.

For many of us, the greatest challenges come in the form of snagging business because so many of the tenets we grew up with — the things they told us make the difference between whether we are good people or not-so-good people — work against us.

As children in the households of wage-earning parents, we are taught that it is egocentric and selfish to think too highly of ourselves; that it is generally un-good to brag or speak too complimentarily about ourselves; that asking people for money is either begging or stealing; and that there is very little difference between selling and conning.

And as adults living in a world in which we are constantly bombarded with ever more shrill marketing messages that seem to get more manipulative every year, the thought of having to do our own marketing is often enough to turn out stomachs.

Then again, sometimes, the issues isn’t anything that profound. Sometimes, we conceive of a potential market for our products that we find so intimidating that it can take us a week or two to work up the courage to simply pick up the phone or send the email. (I have a feeling that’s how a lot of us feel about approaching the corporate or government markets.)

Of course, if we don’t get over this stuff, then our business fails. In fact, with all due respect to the learned types who have weighed in on the subject from various perspectives, I think the biggest reason for the high rates of small business failure is simply because a lot of what you have to do to successfully run a business requires that you un-train yourself from those values you were given as a child that get in the way.

And that is incredibly difficult to do.

So, if you find yourself in the midst of that struggle, try not to feel too badly. Cut yourself some slack; people spend years and thousands of dollars on psychotherapy trying to do what you’re doing (around a different set of issues, obviously) without professional help.

And if you have managed to conquer all those imposed obstacles without coming to hate yourself, congratulations. You should feel very good about yourself and the success of your business. I salute you.

[tags]marketing, sales, small business, microbusiness[/tags]


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Category: Marketing, Rants and Ruminations


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