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Woody Allen famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” I think he’s right.  At least that’s what my experience as a business coach tells me.

The quote pretty much speaks for itself.  But let’s get a little more granular.

What does it mean exactly to “show up” in the context of running a business?

Off the top of my head, I’ve come up with five distinct, yet related, ways in which you show up as a business owner.

As a business coach, I work with both start-ups and established enterprises.  Their needs are different, and, this month, I have a bit of specific advice for each.

Imagine this.  The growth / success of your business is represented by a line on a graph going from lower left to upper right.  Are you picturing a straight line?  If so, I get it.  That would be natural.  But, as a business coach and a business owner myself, I’m here to tell ya, there’s no such thing as a straight line when it comes to growing your business or the pace at which business comes in.

Regardless of whether you’re doing quite well or kinda struggling to get things rolling, progress usually looks more irregular, with peaks and valleys … like a sine wave … only maybe less smooth.

It’s a pattern you see over and over in nature, as well as in human affairs.

The bottom line is this.  There are ups and downs.

You might be saying, well duh, tell me something I don’t know.

And yet, I’ve worked with a lot of folks who are thrown off their game by the dips, as if they weren’t ever gonna occur.  They seem taken aback by the disappointments and the outright smackdowns that are bound to come their way from time to time.

My specialty as a business coach is working with small businesses, typically solopreneurs, to set them up for success, so they build their visibility … their client base … and their income.  

We’ve all seen the statistics on how many small businesses fail.  It’s alarming!  The odds seem to be stacked against you.  And unfortunately, I think the solopreneur or micro-business faces even greater challenges.

So, why is that?  And if that’s you … what can you do about it?

You love what you do, and people value and appreciate the service you provide. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a business coach like me or a landscape architect or a Chinese medicine practitioner, you’ve found a square hole for the square peg that is your talents and skills.

Hallelujah.

Consider yourself lucky.  Far too few people find themselves in this extremely enviable position of having found their “calling.”

So, why would you ever want to change things up?  Why would you want to expand your reach and take on new challenges?

Overconfidence.  Can it be a problem?  Sure.  Think of a time when you were really confident about some outcome and things didn’t work out the way you’d expected.  You come away disappointed and chastened.  It’s just part of the human experience.  BUT … as a business coach, overconfidence isn’t a problem I see all that often.

As a business coach who focuses primarily on marketing, I help service providers create a positive impression of themselves and what they can provide for folks as they reach out to people in their target markets. 

But it’s important to understand that when you “reach out and touch” folks in your target market, those touches can be superficial and fleeting or they can be more profoundly affecting and enduring. 

There are lots of ways to create a positive impression, but only some create a lasting impression.  Others create a flash in the pan that vanishes like a wispy cloud on a windy day … like a social media post or an email blast.

Nothing wrong with those.  They just don’t typically resonate beyond the moment.  Why is that important? 

Well, first of all, there’s the depth of the connection.  But there’s more.  What if you get the chance to introduce yourself to folks in your target market and they either don’t need you at the moment or they aren’t quite ready to move forward at that time for whatever reason? 

If the impression you create isn’t strong and lasting, they aren’t gonna remember you when they do need you and are ready.

So, guess which encounters create more deeply affecting, longer lasting impressions? 

People’s lives have been disrupted and they have concerns around money. Those concerns may keep them from using your services. As a service provider, you want to bend over backwards to help. I understand. AND, part of my job as a business coach and newsletter writer is to keep you from making mistakes.

It’s a trying time to be in business for yourself. This business coach understands that firsthand!

But what you do now … and what you don’t do … will make all the difference in the long term sustainability of your business.

So, what’s the biggest skill you need right now?

You Need to Reach Out. Don’t Withdraw!

Things are so uncertain right now. You may need to “stay home,” but that doesn’t mean you have to stop marketing your business.

I understand the tendency to pull back or slip into neutral when crises occur … to wait and see how things shake out before moving forward or at least looking forward.

It’s a good thing for all of us GE wasn’t thinking that way back during the panic of 1873 when they launched their business, or I might be writing this by candlelight.

HP got its start in 1939, during the Great Depression. Microsoft was founded in 1975, a year when the economy was deeply in the tank!

Don’t let worries about the pandemic and the economy stop you from marketing your services. Just adapt to the changing times and do it differently.

An insight from advertising man, Dave Chase:

“Those companies that not only survived but thrived during the Great Depression were those that continued to act as though there were nothing wrong and the public had money to spend.”