Thanks to a friend who connected via Facebook, I’ve put together another “Q and Ava”
Q: What are the three main reasons that people aren’t happy or content in their businesses?
Ava:
“1. One reason that a person may be frustrated with their business is because they aren’t earning the kind of money they’d hoped for. It may be that they’ve just opened the doors, and they need to focus on networking in their community, so that people know that the business is open.
Sometimes a businessperson also needs to better highlight the tangible benefits that they can bring to their customers, so that customers see the value of buying from them. For example, an entrepreneur with a background in health, wellness, or therapy may create an offering that is initially called “Love and Light.” While Love and Light are both good things, they don’t create a tangible name for a service, and can leave a potential client wondering what the service actually does for them. “Love and Light” as a name also doesn’t tell us how it will benefit the customer. Depending on what an entrepreneur offers, a few alternative and more tangible names could be: “Lower Back Tension Be Gone,” ” Peace at Home: How to raise more cooperative kids,” or “Moving Forward After Heartache.”
2. Another reason that a businessperson may feel stagnant around their professional life is if they have grown beyond their work. Things are feeling repetitive and stale. Maybe they’ve been saying the same thing to clients for years and years, or have been offering the same product or service, with little innovation. They may wonder, “Am I going to be doing this same thing for the next 40 years?”
If an entrepreneur is in a place like this, one option is that they could video record or voice record the guidance they tend to repeat to their clients, and then either sell the recording as a stand-alone product, or package it up with individual services for a client. Or, maybe it’s time for something new! It’s completely fine to discontinue a product or service that you don’t feel in alignment with anymore, and to replace it with something fresh. (It’s also okay to discontinue an entire business.)
3. An entrepreneur may also become discontent if they have identified something new that they’d like to do in their company, but they aren’t sure how to go about doing it. Perhaps they want to offer a new service, to start getting paid as a public speaker, to write and publish a book, or get on television so that more people know who they are. Luckily, no matter what you want to do next in your business, there is always someone you can hire to teach you.
Back when my intuition said that it was time to write a book, I knew nothing about book
Ava and Jack Canfield in Los Angeles
structures or publishing. I could have let my lack of knowledge stop me from writing, but instead, I paid to take a series of writing classes, hired 2 writing and publishing consultants, and also attended a book marketing course co-taught by Chicken Soup for the Soul‘s Jack Canfield. There is always someone out there who is ready to teach and train a businessperson as they head into new territory.”
