Be on Air

When it comes down to it, there is really only one person who stands between you and your Thing and that’s you.

Of course, you can get help to find your Thing—help to shape it, help to package it, and brand it, and sell it. But only YOU can decide to do it—actually go out there are do the Thing.

It’s about jumping in with both feet to do your Thing and knowing that that’s what you’re here to do. There is no “Ohh, I’ll dip a toe in”—that’s never going to convince anyone… if you’re not 100% certain, then why would anyone buy from you?

I was reminded again at the weekend (I am being Masterminded by Jonathan Jay) how important is it to be unique in business. We were talking about USPs, and why a business owner must know what their USP is before they can market their business with success.

USP stands for Unique Selling Point, or Unique Sales Proposition. I was reminded how hard it is to define these — to really make them totally unique.

It is quite easy to come up with a USP only to realise under scrutiny that it’s not, in fact, unique and could easily be applied to other businesses. So it was good to have the Mastermind group of business owners challenging each other to be unique.

Looking out the window gives you time to think and ponder. I use it productively to come up with ideas and solutions. For me sometimes thinking too hard about something doesn’t give the best solution. A watched pot never boils and all that :)

If you spend a lot of your time being busy you will miss your best ideas. You will be too busy looking ahead that you may miss what is right in front of you.

It’s always good to ask questions if you’re stuck—after all, you’re not likely to get an answer if you don’t ask a question. But make sure you’re asking the right questions.

And if you’re not sure what the right questions are then find someone who will challenge you so you’ll ask questions you didn’t even know needed answering.

I often issue a challenge to my clients. It goes something like this… “that sounds good—so why don’t you do it now?”

Yes of course you can plan and over plan and do it ‘perfectly’ in a few weeks (ahem, months) time, but you could also do it now.

Don’t believe that everything you see and hear is because someone is ‘lucky’. There’s that famous saying “The more I practice, the luckier I get.” With practice and work you get luckier. I know I do. This is how you get successful at business. It’s not a magic trick.