If you run a small business you’re likely making decisions all the time. If it’s not what product to develop it’s where to publicize your business. Or perhaps you’re considering hiring a virtual assistant or looking for a joint venture partner. Either way, you’re business is forcing you to make choices all day long.

But to be successful, you’re ultimately not the decision maker. And if you want to be successful, you shouldn’t be.

I know what you’re thinking (other than this Dawud cat is crazy), “Then who makes the decisions if I don’t?”

Your market does, of course.

You can sit back everyday, all day and make decisions about where to steer your business. Sure you decide what emails to respond too, what phone calls to take, and where to put your marketing efforts. You decide to develop this product or refine that service or to build this relationship or that one.

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People ask me all the time how do I grow my business?

The answer is always quite simple, really. So simple that it can be answered in one word – change.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.“

Yet how many of us can say that we’re not doing something insane with our business? How many of us keep trying the same things again and again hoping that somehow the results will be different than before?

Well, the only way to different results is to do things differently than before. If you want to grow your business, you have to introduce something new into it. You have to do something, even ever so slightly, different. In other words, you have to change.

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So much of the branding, strategy and marketing advice I see around the web answers two questions – what and why. What do you need to do and why do you need to do it.

But there’s a third question that I see rarely answered. That question…how! How do you actually do what and why?

For instance, if you have a business, you need to market your business. Perhaps you learn what types of marketing would work best for your business. You even learn why those types of marketing can help you be successful. [ continue reading & share your thoughts → ]

Business is not just about what you do.

Yet, as business owners, we spend so much of our time focusing on how to do what we do better. We read, we blog, we train, we attend workshops and conferences, go to events, network and so on. All under the guise that we can gain some edge in how we do what we do.

But what if the edge isn’t in what we do for our clients and customers?

My grandmother buys a new car every four years. And for the past three decades, she’s been buying her cars from the same guy at the same dealership. Is it because the Buicks they sell are somehow better than the Buicks at other dealerships? Or maybe it’s that this specific salesman does his job better than the other salesmen do.

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Business is about relationships. Relationships are about people. So it should be obvious that people do business with people, not businesses.

Yet I’m always surprised how many small business owners miss this. Somewhere in all their efforts to develop their business plan and marketing strategy they seem to forget that it’s about the people.

Maybe it’s using terms like target audience or niche market that somehow dehumanizes their thoughts, I’m unsure. Or perhaps it’s the way we think about business in general as being a cold, cut-throat world where business owners are always trying to gain an upper hand on the competition. I know it’s hard to see people when we’re thinking like that.

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So many people I know are hesitant to sell. They’re hesitant to sell themselves. They’re hesitant to sell their products or services. And they’re hesitant to sell their business.

It’s easy to understand, right? As soon as I mention the word ‘sell’ what goes through your mind. For me I think of the pushy people in the appliance store. You know, the vultures hovering around waiting for the next carrion to fall through the door. Or the guy at the car dealership who goes through some pavlovian response the minute you have a question.

We just don’t think well of selling, do we? Which means we probably have some idea that stand in the way of us selling, as well.

But we don’t have to be obnoxious to sell. The obnoxious ones are not the best salesman. The best salesmen sell you without you ever knowing they were selling to you. They engage you, understand your need and help you fill it. That’s it.

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What does it take to have a successful blog for your business?

Denise Wakeman of Blog Squad fame asked that question of Chris Garrett. The conversation that grew created a bed of blogging tips. Watching the interview (5 1/2 minutes) Chris makes it pretty clear that a successful blog, like a successful business, is built on planning, focus, clarity and knowing your audience.

Whenever a client or prospective client ever asks me about marketing, I always begin my answer by finding out what they’re clear (and unclear) about in their business. I’ve learned the hard way of the years that you can only market, hence you can only sell, that which you’re clear about. And the greatest clarity I’ve found has come through understanding what problems my prospective clients face.

From the interview…

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