Small Business Strategy 101:

Every entrepreneur has to be their OWN small business strategist. Period. Whether you've been an entrepreneur for ten seconds or ten years, you've got to get used to wearing a TON of hats and they're not always easy to wear, or even find. In fact, they're practically never easy, now that I think about it.

Short Cuts:
Quick and easy small business strategy tips to paste to the fridge.

Net/net: Measure, measure, measure.
Oh, and measure.

The 4 Step Process:

1. Measure. What's measured tends to grow.
2. Glean. What's measured becomes more predictable.
3. Tweak. The habit of regularly measuring gets our numbers moving in the right direction. No matter what kind of numbers - Twitter numbers, Facebook, Instagram, profit...JUST the habit itself.  So goes the old adage: "Measure it and it will improve." It will! Same goes for your pricing, too - got to measure your potential profit before you even THINK about hanging out your shingle.)
4. Do it. Forget to measure, and you're toast. It's like setting sail without a compass. You can't know how many supplies you'll need or how long you'll be gone if you don't chart your course. But how many of us really actually plan??

But, if you're like me -- and a billion other creative women out there running their own small businesses-- there are times when we avoid "measurement". Hellloooo weighing yourself, or like my little pancake bathing suit adventure from the other day. We avoid the scale, opening our bank statements, checking our credit card balances and everything else we feel we're not excelling at in the moment. And, if you're like me -- the times when we MOST want to avoid the scale is when we need to drop a few. Right? Otherwise, you're not even thinking about the scale.

Well, actually, I'm always thinking about the scale, but that's for another blog.

I mean, c'mon... when we know we're losing, we happily hop on to cheer ourselves onto the next super lean, lemon juice only chicken breast. Ole! When we know we're "winning" in business, we love to check our balance and watch it rise! Right? It just doesn't seem to happen often enough.

Exactly.

So how do you stay the course?

• Keep your foot on the gas pedal.
• Show up. Slow and steady wins the race vs. all kinds of grandiose ideas that fizzle out. Creative entrepreneurs often get carried away and make too many ginormous resolutions nor matter the time of year. Once they realize how much energy it takes to sustain the plan, all of their "gas" has already run out.
• Do it differently this time. Instead of throwing a million great intentions out there and watching them come crashing down one by one...set a handful of realistic plans that you can manage on a daily/weekly basis.
• Make a short, but inspiring list of what this next quarter means to you. Stick with your goals, keep your foot on the gas pedal, and stay upbeat. I know it's hard, but there's tons of inspiration out there if you just stick with it. Plus, you can vent below.

Which small business strategy tips
am I missing?

Which are your tried and true small business strategy tips that you've mastered along the way? If you could give all of us your one plum bit of advice, what would it be?  Give me your comments and feedback below.

xx,

Marley

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