Motivation for the Creative Small Business Owner

By Rhonda Campbell

Stay in business through one down cycle and you’ll gain a new appreciation for motivation. With motivation, you can sharpen your vision and forge ahead circumstances shout “quit!”

As previously mentioned, operate a business and you’re going to experience significant change. Get in the middle of change and don’t be surprised if you can’t see what’s coming next, despite how desperate you feel. Hence, motivation.

Imagine traveling to the 1930s and talking with someone born in the 1920s or earlier, discussing business world advances that had taken place in his generation. Can’t you hear the man bragging about air mail service, phonograph records and boarding airplanes to travel internationally? He wouldn’t mention television, computers, fast food restaurants or microwave ovens. Goodness, he wouldn’t even know what they were.

He might think multi-tasking is one of the worst, most non-productive, habits any human could engage in. And answering mail each time you heard a “ding” noise cross your computer, that might be simply absurd to him. To the man, it could seem as if, instead of you, computers and technology controlled your life.

Now imagine that the man born in the 1920s is a billionaire, as if you were talking with Howard Hughes in his heyday. Would you take any and all advice on how you could grow your business the man gave you? Or would you consider changes that had taken place in the business and technology worlds since the 1930s?

Hopefully, you’d take the changes into consideration. If you’re regularly taping into the right motivation, you do this now, as you map out business goals and plans for your company. After all, what worked for your business, possibly helping you generate thousands or millions of dollars in sales, years ago (perhaps even last year) might not yield the same results today.


It’s not just your business or industry. Journalism is changing. The music business is changing. Marketing is changing. We are changing. To continue to offer customers products and services they want, products and services people believe will improve their lives, you’re going to have to continue to accept change. This means, that instead of holding annual business review meetings and discussions, you might have to hold quarterly or monthly meetings.

You also have to regularly connect with your customers, asking them to let you know how your products and services are meeting their needs and wants. Some customer feedback you receive might make you blush, shower you with heaps of praise. It’s this type of feedback that can make owning a business feel tremendously rewarding.

Other customer feedback you receive might find you feeling as if you’ll never get it right. However, just as it is when you’re talking with another person face-to-face, there are clues in both types of feedback that you can use to continue to change and improve your business. Have the motivation to take advantage of these opportunities. If you don’t, you could end up thinking an electric typewriter, fax machine or website is the best business tool ever invented.

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Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvorkin/2012/11/29/inside-forbes-the-path-forward-for-the-news-business-requires-free-thinking-new-leaders/ (Forbes: Inside the Path Forward for the News Business Requires Free Thinking New Leaders)