March 2009 Working from Your Strengths in Small Business

March 5, 2009 Written by Frances Schagen

I believe in working from your strengths.

Everything I’ve read about it is focussed on a work environment; usually a corporation. Not a one-person shop, not a 2 or 2 1/2 person business, net even a small group.

Here’s how you can use this if you are just you, or you and a few:

1. Change the focus of your business. This is the most aggressive use of this concept and it is the one I opted for. Of course you must keep in mind your market, but you may find that you were doing this anyway. We tend to slide towards doing what we are best at doing. For example, if your business is baking pies, but you really love teaching about baking pies; you may find you were giving your customers hints and tips to make their own pies, all the while wondering if you were killing your business by empowering your customers to make their own pies instead of buying them from you. If your strength is teaching, then start teaching – offer classes and workshops.

2. Hire strengths. Most of my bookkeeping business comes from people who are great at what they do, but don’t like (or even hate) bookkeeping. We love doing it. That’s one of the things that makes this such a wonderful world: we all love different things.

3. Reframe it. Maybe you hate calling customers for late payments. Change the way you think about it. You could use it as an opportunity to connect with your customers and offer support (while still asking for the money). You could make a contest of it by seeing how much money you can collect in 1 hours worth of calling. You could decide on a reward for yourself based on how much you collect such as give yourself the rest of the afternoon off.

There will always be things you have to do that are not playing to your strengths. Take a breath and do them. Be happy that overall you are the boss of you and you love what you do, or you wouldn’t be doing it.

Develop Strong Teams, Your Effortless Business
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1 Comment
  1. Anonymous Anonymous
    March 5, 2009    

    Exactly what I needed to hear. It feels lonely being the only one in my business sometimes.