My clients ask me every day what they need to do in order to take their business to the next level. Often these questions are about external things, like, “How do I market [insert totally awesome product or service]?” or, “How can I convince X to do Y?”
Sure, these questions have their place, but so many of my clients make the huge mistake of failing to examine themselves first.
If you don’t know yourself, then you don’t know your business. If you don’t know yourself, you don’t know who your ideal client truly is and you don’t know how to best serve them.
In order to double your practice by doing the work you love, you must first know yourself.
Here are the 5 mistakes I see health and wellness entrepreneurs making again and again when it comes to knowing themselves. Are you guilty of them too?
You don’t manage your energy levels
Do you know what time of the day you are most productive? Do you get more done between 9 and 11 am than you do for the rest of the day? Build the most important, high-energy work into these times. Don’t waste your prime time on emails!
You don’t know what you love doing
Who do you want to serve? You need to have a laser focus on who your ideal client is and what solutions you can offer to their problems.
You don’t know what you’re not good at
This one requires some brutal honesty. If accounts are not your strong point, don’t turn yourself into the world’s most disgruntled bookkeeper. Know what you need help with and find support for these tasks so you can focus on the stuff you’re good at.
You don’t know your pressure points
What in your business drains you? My most recent Linkedin Pulse article discusses this point in depth. If you don’t know your personal signs of burnout and how to manage them, you’re on a path to self-combustion.
You don’t know what you want your business to do for you
As a health professional, you gain great joy from serving your clients. It’s why you do what you do. But making your clients the sole focus of your work is a recipe for disaster. Ask yourself, what do I want my business to do for me? What is the lifestyle I want my business to fuel? Once you have this clear, you can begin developing business goals around what you want your work to do for you, as well as your clients.
If you don’t know yourself and the why of what you do – all the questions about how to best market, sell, network, you name it, are meaningless. Building your business around you, your quirks, pressure points and your goals is the answer to a practice that best serves your clients.
Here’s to your success!
