Newton’s First Law of Motion:
An
object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object in
motion tends to stay in motion.
Running your own business, especially alone,
you’re bound to get stuck and feel like you’ve
reached a plateau or worse still, you feel as if
you just can’t gain forward-moving motion. The
danger is not in getting stuck, but in prolonged
inactivity — inertia. This phenomenon is
frequently observed in entrepreneurs starting a
new business.
Common causes can be:
- isolation, lack of support, negative
environment
- overwhelmed with all the work involved in
running and marketing a business
- no money coming in, no clients, the loss of
a client
- unrealistic expectations
- out of ideas
- it’s harder than you thought
- your services are too general, saturation of
the industry, fierce competition
- inexperience
- sending out the wrong marketing message,
attracting the wrong type of client (or none at
all)
- lack of clearly defined short- and long-term
goals with a plan and timeline to achieve them
- [insert your own here...]
Loss of momentum is one thing — at least you’ve
experienced it. But the situation is amplified if
you’ve never experienced any sort of progress or
advancement in the first place. You may feel
hopeless, seeing no light at the end of the tunnel
and are ready to throw in the towel on this whole
running-a-business thing.
So how do you break out of a lull?
The first thing to realize is that this is a
normal part of the business cycle. Ask any
entrepreneur, even the successful ones — we’ve all
been there and we still experience it from time to
time.
Secondly, remember that this is temporary
— but for how long depends much on you. The
harsh reality is that as an entrepreneur, you are
the one solely responsible for getting yourself
unstuck.
The secret? Keep on keeping on. If you
are still in the marketing research phase, this
may be an especially difficult time, because you
may eventually feel like you’ve tried everything
and nothing’s working. That’s when you must tap
into your network. If you don’t have a
supportive network — find one. Living and working
in a remote area is no longer an excuse. The
internet is full of free online business support
and networking groups. If you feel like you’ve
lost your perspective on the big picture and need
someone to give you that gentle push in the
right direction, you may consider hiring a
coach.
Another important factor to getting out of your
“stuckness” is to do what one of my colleagues
does. At the beginning of each day, she asks
herself “What can I do today to make
money?” Now, this doesn’t mean that your daily
action list has to contain money-generating tasks,
but your list should keep you focused on doing
FIRST the activities that will directly and
positively impact the success of your
business. Activities may include: invoicing,
following up with key referral contacts, joint
venturing, networking, giving a referral,
finishing a client project, or securing a speaking
engagement. Once you’ve scratched those things off
your list, then you can do “busywork” like reading
e-mails, searching the internet, writing, etc.
If you take anything away from this, I want you
to (1) not give up, (2) reach out and (3) work at
one thing every day that directly contributes to
the success and advancement of your business. Out
of ideas? Ask someone to brainstorm with you. The
more you get out of your comfort zone, chances are
the greater your results will be, the better
you’ll feel and the sooner you’ll get out of
your slump and regain momentum.
Copyright 2006. Cristina Favreau. All rights
reserved.
