by I’ve been lucky enough to meet, hang with or work with some fascinating entrepreneurs and business owners over the past 3+ years, and I’ve noticed an interesting trend.
The happiest ones –
(And by “happiest” I don’t necessarily mean they’re smiling 24/7 or posting lifestyle updates that are all “look at me I’m so happy! Look at me here being all happy, LOOK AT ME”…
I mean they’re people who run into challenges like we all do: crappy days and business snags, bumps in the road etc, but deal with them competently without losing faith that what they’re doing is the best thing they can do with their time…)
– these people almost always run a business that revolves around or at least reflects WHO they are, not just what their talents are.
And that’s no coincidence.
For these happy folk, day-to-day work involves more than just filling a gap in the market, or finding ways to outmanoeuvre ‘competitors’, or maximizing profit for profit’s sake.
The business founders and product-makers aren’t just investing in physical or digital assets as cheaply as possible to sell their widgets at the highest margin (though in business, that can work)…
The entrepreneurs and consultants aren’t just combining Skill A they learned in college with Skill B they paid to learn in a masterclass (though in business, that can work too)…
These people are doing something more.
They’re doing something different.
They’re doing something unique.
They’re going home happy (sometimes tired) at the end of their day, because they’re doing business on their terms.
And it’s working.
People are paying them or their companies to benefit from it. Because nobody else is doing what they do in the same way.
For these people, it’s not about being the most expensive (or the cheapest)…
It’s not about being the most visible (or the best connected)…
It’s not even about being the most successful. Biggest, best, fastest-growing, whatever…
Instead it’s about being truly themselves.
That’s why they’re succeeding – by their own personal definition of ‘success’. When you get to express your own unique value through your work, I’d call that success.
Yes, it’s also about being unique in a way that helps others, and satisfies a demand of some kind.
No business – happy or otherwise – exists in a vacuum…
But the best businesses are unique in the way they offer value
And the people I talk to, work with (or in other cases just keep my beady eye on!) have figured out how to communicate their unique value to the people who want it.
That’s essentially what I’ve been helping many of my clients and partners to do, these past few years. But it’s developed into something else…
Something quite powerful, and – dammit, I’ll say it – something pretty exciting. Yes, I’m excited.
Excited for them, for me, and potentially for YOU too.
And I’ll be telling you more about that over the next few weeks.
Nope, that doesn’t mean you’ll be hearing from me twice a day until some “big launch day”, and then every hour until “the doors slam shut” or anything like that…
I’ll just be posting here (and writing to my email list) once a week for the next 6 weeks with some deeper insights into how you too can ‘sell unique’, and increase your value to the people who want what you have.
And I’ll also be asking your opinion too…
Because as a valued reader, I’m interested in YOUR take on this
So to kick things off, I’d love to know what the personal qualities are that you bring – or would like to bring – to your work.
I’m talking qualities like honesty, humour, stubbornness (yep, that can totally be a good thing), listening skills etc…
…qualities that can usually be summed up in a couple of words each.
Think about the personal qualities that the people who know you best say you have…
Did you build your biz or your service offer around these qualities? Or was it a little further along when you discovered they’re a good match for what you do when you’re ‘on the clock’?
There are no wrong answers here…
I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts, and I’m keen to know more about how and why you translate the things that make you really YOU into your biz.
So, fire away:
What are the personal qualities that most influence your work, or that people seek you out for – and how have you been able to build your business around them?
The comments are open below if you’d like to share.
