Are You Treading Water or Are You Swimming?

We were all taught that if you learned to tread water, you’d never drown. I guess you’d stay afloat, but the question is for how long?

Learning to tread water is a survival method until someone comes to save you, but if no one does come, you will get tired and eventually drown. Learning to swim on the other hand will always get you closer to your destination, while still providing opportunity to be rescued.

As a little fish in the pond of big businesses, it’s easy to get stuck in old ways that are safe and familiar, and although there may be immediate comfort in that, your inactivity will inevitably keep you from moving forward.

So what is it that keeps you from learning to swim in your business?

Fear, hard work, impatience, insufficient knowledge, lack of coaching and leadership…

Whichever it is, get over it. Here are some tips:

1  -  Put on your water wings and jump in

2  -  Get a business coach that will guide you

3  -  Find a mentor that you can learn from

4  -  Take some courses and workshops

5  -  Continue to read books to build you knowledge

6  -  Attend networking events and conferences  

7  -  Look for opportunity to share your story with others

8  -  Rid yourself of negative people and negative situations

9  -  Have a business plan and stay focused on it

10 - Keep up with news and changing trends

Once you learn to swim, you’ll find yourself in new waters that are exciting and profitable.

Keep Swimming Little Fish!

What’s Your Business Cooking Up?

Analogy

You’ve been inspired to make a scrumptious dish that your saw in a magazine earlier, but didn’t have time to write down the recipe and now all you can think of, is making this dish.

Cooking a delicious dish that you’ve never made before requires much more than just inspiration and determination. It requires a plan that includes:

A Recipe

A carefully laid out, step-by-step process that will include the list of ingredients, preparation methods, measurements and cooking instructions.

Ingredients

A ‘tastefully ‘executed recipe requires the very best ingredients. Fresh, flavorful, high quality and sometimes-exotic ingredients, deliver on the recipes promise of magnificence.

Equipment & Utensils

Certain recipes call for specific tools. For example, it’s hard to make pie without a rolling pin for the crust and it’s impossible to ‘eye’ one cup of rice and two cups of water without an actual measuring cup.

Someone Who Wants To Eat It

Other than yourself, who else would want to eat what you are making? Part of the joy of cooking is to prepare a dish that others will love and will want to share with you.

Without this plan, you could waste a bunch of time, money and effort producing a poorly executed recipe that no one will want to eat.

Reality

A business is no different. Whether you are a start-up or an existing company, you have to scrutinize your ideas to ensure their viability – especially if you are a Little Fish in the pond of big businesses.

Firstly

Do you have the business plan to support this idea?

Secondly

Do you have the resources to be taking on this new idea?

Thirdly

Do you have the infrastructure to execute this idea?

Finally

Do you actually have a market that wants your idea?

Cooking up ideas are crucial to the longevity of your business, so don’t burn them up or under develop them because of poor planning and execution.

Keep Swimming Little Fish!

..

What’s Your Snowball Made Of?

At first you start with a small snowball made of carefully packed, pure white snow fallen fresh from the sky. You mold it, shape it and size it to fit perfectly in your hand, where the heat of your palms, continue to perfect your spherical sculpture.

In nature, a child would set down their snowball anywhere and begin to roll it around, in hopes of making the first and largest ball, as the base to their snowman. In time, it becomes too large to push, so they let it gain momentum on it’s own, by pushing it downhill. The challenge is that this very large and out-of-control ball of snow is not only gathering more freshly fallen snow, but it is also gathering what is superficially beneath that new white blanket. Now the unstoppable and massive snowball has also gathered debris of sticks, rocks, dog surprises and just plain old dirt making it an unrecognizable and messy spectacle at the bottom of the hill.

Much like the beginnings of a new business, you create a perfect offering, take on only what you can handle, making sure that the details are planned and carried out with perfection and where the result of such nurturing is new business!

This flood of new business eventually forces you to put down your “snowball”, so that you can tend to the newly converted, but now, your unattended snowball starts to roll away, growing fearlessly, gathering everything in it’s path, forcing the obvious question, “what’s your snowball made of?”

In business, things can often “snowball” out of control and that’s not always a bad thing if you first start with a “snowball” made of essential market research, quality product development, realistic sales forecasting, financial planning and exceptional service.

Not only is the initial and precise planning of your business essential to success, where you lay out your business to roll around, is as equally essential. When you put something down for a minute and your back is turned, you want to be sure your business is not only gathering momentum, but also gathering healthy and uplifting support from external influences that bring, expertise, value, clarity, respect, and most of all integrity. 

Don’t let your precious business gather harmful and wasteful debris while it grows!

Keep Swimming Little Fish!

What Do You See When The Tide Is Low?

Just as sure as the gravitational forces from the sun and the moon, and the rotating earth cause the tides to ebb and flow, your business will also experience regular high tides and low tides.

Metaphorically speaking, you would think that low tides represent a lack of business and other negative factors that impact your company. However, it can also represent a myriad of opportunities if you look for them.

4 Things You Can See When Your Business Experiences Low Tides:

1 Little Fish Fact:

Low tides bring clearer waters.

1 Little Fish Philosophy:

As a little fish in the pond of big businesses, a low tide represents the ideal opportunity to examine and make sure your company is living up to your brand's promise of quality, value, service, results and integrity.

2 Little Fish Fact:

Low tides wash up debris

2 Little Fish Philosophy:

Low tide is a perfect time to take a serious look at the things that drag down your business. You can finally see the piles of bookkeeping and administration, tend to other unresolved matters and see for the first time, the issues you never knew even plagued your company.

3 Little Fish Fact:

Low tides wash up unlikely fish and vegetation

3 Little Fish Philosophy:

Don’t despair, because low tides also present opportunities that you never realized were within your reach. Appreciate those moments and look around at possibilities that can grow and evolve your company to something greater.

4 Little Fish Fact:

Low tides allow you to walk out further.

4 Little Fish Philosophy:

Low tides in your business force you to walk out further than ever before and the reward for such bravery is finding new business.

Next time the inevitable low tide comes, take the time to appreciate the clarity, success and secret abundance that can come from it, if you look for it.

Keep Swimming Little Fish!

Can You Get Past A Burnt Bridge?

All humans make mistakes and business owners can make even more mistakes and some times even burn bridges. Burning a bridge doesn't mean you can't move forward and be successful.

Little Fish Philosophy Tips For Success

1 Be Humble

1 Little Fish Philosophy:

Have an awareness that you actually burnt down the bridge

2 Gather Knowledge:

2 Little Fish Philosophy:

Learn which of your actions led to burning down the bridge

3 Act With Wisdom:

3 Little Fish Philosophy:

Have a better understanding of fire prevention

4 Go Forth With Courage:

4 Little Fish Philosophy:

Build new bridges - you're allowed to

You just have to remember that if you have burnt a bridge down, you can gather the rubble (the lessons learned) into a pile and walk over the rubble to the other side because no one can stop you but yourself.

Keep Swimming Little Fish!

Own Your Business Or It Will Own You

As a little fish in the pond of big businesses, you feel the financial pressure to get going with your new venture almost immediately without having spent time planning.

With that sense of urgency, the good news is that you'll probably make some quick money at the start, but the bad news is that you won't be able to sustain it. Owning a viable business requires more than just excitement or flying by the seat of your pants, it requires a plan that will help you determine:

• Your value proposition

• Who your customers are

• What type of relationship you want to have with them

• How you want to communicate to them

• How you want to sell or deliver your product or service

Once you've been able to answer these questions, you'll then be able to put some policies and procedures in place to help execute your plan, thoroughly and consistently without guessing.

If you don't put a plan in place at the beginning, you will spend most, if not all of your time and energy being reactive. Being reactive means being owned and being owned means you'll soon loose passion for what got you to start your business in the first place.

Keep Swimming Little Fish!

How Often and How Much Do You Water Your Lawn?

When you're a little fish in the pond of big businesses, you have to concentrate your marketing efforts. A large company will have larger funds and therefore will have the privilege of marketing far and wide because their brands are already widely known and powerful.

A smaller company will have a smaller advertising budget and will have to be careful not to spread their marketing efforts too thinly. For a small company, thin marketing efforts are shallow efforts and shallow efforts will fade long before any impact is made.

Analogy

Watering your lawn is a necessary chore if you want beautiful green grass. If you water a couple of times a week for a couple of hours each time, the water will have the opportunity to penetrate down to the roots and promote a healthy lawn.

If you water your lawn daily for 10-15 minutes, the sun will evaporate the water that sits on the blades of grass, long before the water has even had the chance to make it down to the roots, rendering your efforts useless.

Don't advertise in everything that comes your way. Be selective and plan to do it for a while.

Keep Swimming Little Fish!