Number One Thing You Need To Focus On If You Want Business Growth

Do you read a lot? I read LOADS and I love to collect articles and snippets from things I’ve read. I have a ‘Data Bank’ of info that I use when I need inspiration.

Last week, I came across a snippet from an old Psychologies magazine. Yes, I’m sad, I scan some of the articles because I love them. I can’t help myself. It’s going back to February 2013, and it got me thinking about mindset. Let me share it with you;

Think about what you’re telling yourself on a daily basis

Are your thoughts positive or negative?

When I first started out in business I needed to learn everything from scratch. Yes, I’d worked as Head of HR and I was on the Strategic Team in my company, but business in the corporate world is a million miles away from running your own business.

I’d run my own HR consultancy for a while, but a lot of my clients came from referrals, so I really did need to start learning business all over again.

What I didn’t learn properly until about 2.5 years into my business, was that it’s not just about working on your business, you HAVE to work on your mindset

I made all of the mistakes I see my clients make now, where they say;

_”I can’t get clients”_

_”Nothing is working for me”_

_”I’m doing all of the right things, but I can’t get the clients”_

You need to take a look at what you’re telling yourself. Instead of thinking, “I can’t get clients”, you need to think about what changes you could make to get clients, why your strategies aren’t working

Sometimes it can be a simple fix, one little thing needs a change. Other times there’s a lot of different elements that just aren’t working together as they need to be. Telling yourself what you don’t want though certainly isn’t helping you to get into a place of how to fix the problem.

There are so many components to running your own business …

made up of things like; how clear you are on your ideal clients, what you’re offering in terms of pricing and packages. Then there’s the messages you’re putting out there with your marketing, the conversations you’re having with your potential clients that will lead to them becoming paying clients. The way you nurture the people once they are on your list.

Since working on my mindset, I’ve discovered lots of ways that I was holding myself back. It wasn’t necessarily about the nuts and bolts of the business, but with things I was doing. I didn’t have enough clients because I wasn’t confident enough to ask for sales, I wasn’t clear on my niche, so I didn’t explain myself very well or what I was offering. I had few clients because I was afraid to be visible, I was scared to have conversations. I used the label ‘introvert’ in my head as an excuse not to go out there and shout out about my business.

Working on your mindset is MASSIVE. That’s why, in my Rock Your Visibility Bootcamp, we have 6 modules dedicated to that alone, and then another 6 on the business side of things.

So, here comes the tough love, please take this in the right way! Stop complaining about what’s not working, and start to work on your mindset. Get that right first, and then you’ll find everything so much easier. So because I wasn’t clear on my niche I was doubting myself. I was putting out a message of ‘Why would you work with me, I don’t know what I’m doing?!’ I’d be too afraid to go out there and be visible and so of course people didn’t even know I existed. I just used that label of introvert all the time. Not great.

You’ll be able to see the wood for the trees, you’ll start to understand what’s working and what’s not.

Your call to action this week: Start to notice your negative thinking, and find a better way that empowers you to move forward. Check the business elements to see if there’s something that’s not working, the many components I’ve talked about, and so many more besides those. Check the ones that are working, and for the ones that aren’t – start to think about how you can do them differently.

Maybe it’s worth trying out the Psychologies magazine tip so that you can start to clear any negative thoughts.

Remember;

The number one thing you need to focus on for business growth is your mindset

I remember speaking to people in a group asking what was the biggest difference, the biggest breakthrough they’d had in their business. About 95% of them said the biggest difference was changing their mindset.

Negative thinking won’t inspire you to take action. I love this quote, by Abraham Hicks I think it is, ‘When focusing on solutions I feel good’. What do you need to be focusing on?

If you can’t seem to get on because your mindset is holding you back from being visible, then get someone to help you. (I’m standing here waving at you, ready to help if that’s you!)