Making It: Women Entrepreneurs Reveal Their Secrets of Success

excerpt

Accentuate the positive

You’ve got to accentuate the positive,
Eliminate the negative,
Latch on to the affirmative,
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.
- Johnny Mercer

The first questions to ask yourself when considering creating your enterprise are: What am I good at? What do I love doing?

If you earn a living doing something you are good at and you love doing, it won’t feel like work. How exciting does that sound? Do you look forward to Monday mornings? I am privileged to work with many people who do. People just like you who are embarking on their new business journey. The people who turn out to be successful pay equal attention to what they are not so good at and look at finding solutions to overcome their weaknesses.

Mentoring Moments

I am working with a relatively new drama company operating in both London and the Midlands called Lemon Jelly Arts. The two founders, Hayley Carver and Kelle Baines, have an excellent pedigree in both dance and drama training and experience. Their workshops and academies are second to none, drawing on their own professionalism and their experience. They are building up a fabulous reputation for themselves. However, this wasn’t always the story.

When I first met them they had just changed their name as their previous one was too similar to another company’s. They had failed to check this out first; all their early efforts of building up a reputation had to stop as they were threatened with legal action. Hayley and Kelle also had an ‘all singing all dancing’ business plan that looked very professional, the only problem being that it was tucked away in a drawer and neither of them understood it fully or used it as a working document to help them grow and flourish. They also knew they had money in their business account, so cash flow was good, although they avoided looking at the full financial picture.

Fortunately, they recognized that their strengths were exactly what were needed to build their business and that their weaknesses could be overcome if they asked the right people for help. They arrived at Skills for Enterprise offices with a new business name that they had checked wasn’t already being used and had registered with both Companies House and the HMRC – great, first problem solved. The next step was to create a viable business plan that they both agreed to take the business to where they wanted it to be.

Hayley and Kelle are two very creative people, so I took them through a visualization exercise in order for them to see, hear and feel what success meant to them. This was immediately put on to a huge piece of paper in the form of a mind map with pictures and words. We then turned it into an umbrella business plan (see Chapter 5). This seemed to be a real breakthrough, as they could get all the finer details down while remaining focused on the bigger picture. At the end of this exercise there was a plan in place to help them to drive their business forward. They didn’t need to borrow any money, so a formal business plan wasn’t even necessary.

The next stage was to look at the finances. Hayley and Kelle were surprised at the healthy financial position Lemon Jelly Arts was in. They were making things hard for themselves by not using easier methods of payment and recording information. I encouraged them to make an appointment with their accountant to sort these issues out. The end result was that Hayley and Kelle can now get on with doing what they do best: teaching children to be fabulous thespians, improving their self-confidence and generally helping the next generation of adults to accentuate the positive!

How about doing this kind of exercise for yourself? A good tip is to be completely honest.

First, make a list of all your personal strengths, for example ‘I am a great communicator’, ‘I am focused’. Ensure that the statements are in the present tense and repeat them to yourself often. I’ve included five spaces in the list below – make sure you complete at least three.

Strength 1……………………………Exploit…………………………
Strength 2……………………………Exploit…………………………
Strength 3……………………………Exploit…………………………
Strength 4……………………………Exploit…………………………
Strength 5……………………………Exploit…………………………

Take your list of strengths and work out how you are going to exploit them to help your business.

Now it’s time to look at your weaknesses. Complete the list below as you did with your strengths, ensuring that you use statements in the present tense and fill in at least three weaknesses.

Weakness 1…………………………Overcome………………………
Weakness 2…………………………Overcome………..……………..
Weakness 3…………………………Overcome………………………
Weakness 4…………………………Overcome…………..…………..
Weakness 5…………………………Overcome………………………

Take your list of weaknesses and decide how you are going to overcome them.

It is also a wise move to compare the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. While it is bad practice to point out your competitors’ weaknesses to potential customers, knowing them yourself means you can take advantage of them.

Fill in the chart below as fully as you can.

Once you have a full picture of what your competitors are doing it is easier to make your own business decisions.

For example, if you own a small grocer’s shop you aren’t going to be able to compete using the same strengths as the major supermarkets. Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s are all able to:

• Compete on price.
• Afford expensive advertising campaigns.
• Have celebrities endorse their brand.

Focus on their weaknesses instead:

• Their stores are large so it takes time to park.
• They are busy so it takes longer to shop.
• They are possibly not close by.

Therefore, the strengths of your small grocer’s could be:

• Convenience.
• Personal service.
• Ordering in speciality goods for customers.
• A community feel.

It’s now time to exploit your business strengths in your marketing. Good luck!