Do you ever wonder if your business is playing small?l
There are a few indicators that will tell you if you’ve hit the right size:
- You’re responsive to your client needs.
- You’re saying YES only to your ideal clients.
- You don’t feel overextended.
The quest to avoid playing small can be consuming: constantly chasing the next achievement; the next goal. Climbing that ladder, and moving up.
Many people who do just that find themselves empty, and hollow. They made it – but now what? What are they supposed to do next?
I understand how that feels! When I started FITzee Foods, I had huge goals. I wanted to be in The Vitamin Shoppe; I wanted to be in nationwide stores. I wanted to change the way that people ate healthy food!
But even when we got into Costco, and into The Vitamin Shoppe, I felt empty. I had achieved success, but I wasn’t happy. When I closed FITzee Foods, I completely changed my business, focused on who I served, and made my business strategically small, my world changed.
I’ve taken back control, to have the business that I want to have, and say YES to only my ideal clients. I’m not climbing the ladder like I used to, but I am so much happier with what I do, and I know that my work, both through my coaching business and my podcast, is helping change the lives of others in business, and that is what I wanted to achieve!
Why did you get into business? What purpose do you want to achieve? Who do you want to impact, and how can you best do that?
How big does your company need to be in order to achieve that goal?
Katherine Wintsch, a guest on the Success Unfiltered Podcast, capped the Mom Complex at $2 million in annual revenue. She knew that it was her sweet spot: grow any bigger, and she’d be saying NO to herself and her ideal clients!
Are you playing small? Or are you being strategic in your business growth and who you say YES to?
Who Do You Say NO To?
Wondering if your business is the right size? Start with looking at a basic question. Who are you saying YES and NO to?
Are you saying YES to yourself, and the reasons that you started your own business? Or are you saying NO to your ideal clients, and working constantly, chasing the next goal? (These are the key questions to ask!)
Choosing freedom and working for yourself is NO good if you’re not finding ways to achieve satisfaction. Constantly chasing success and growth means that you will look like you have it all together: but that is often an illusion and you’ll feel empty inside.
When your business grows beyond your capabilities, are you overextending yourself to get everything done? That could mean that you are saying NO to ideal clients, because you feel like you have to! Need to make payroll? There’s a client that’s less than ideal, but they have cash now!
If you’re saying NO to yourself and ideal clients, I’d like to challenge you to say NO and start asking the following questions.
Does “Playing Small” Serve Your Ideal Client?
Katherine turned down a huge client, and lost a lot of potential revenue.
Why would she do that?
Easy! They weren’t her ideal client. She knew that her business was best served by working with moms. But when a company asked her to “tweak her curriculum” and train women, it was easy for Katherine to say NO.
Her ideal client has a very unique set of needs, and Katherine has worked hard to make sure that she can meet those needs and serve her ideal client.
If she didn’t choose to focus on her ideal client, she could be tempted to take the money. She wouldn’t want to be playing small!
But in this case, playing small in business allowed Katherine to have the control and the option to say NO to the potential client, and NO to changing her training.
Because Katherine had already chosen to keep her revenue at $2 million annually, she wasn’t tempted to change her ideal client, and change how she served that ideal client.
How to Know Your Business is the Right Size
But how do you know that you’ve hit the right size for your business? Or, if you’re letting fear hold you back?
I’m going to ask a question that you may have heard from a therapist or a life coach: how does it make you feel?
Us entrepreneurs started our businesses because it was something we felt passionate about. We knew that we weren’t destined for a J-O-B; we had something different in our path!
But sometimes that passion can get lost in the quest for achievement and success.
The day-to-day work can block that out. I mean, just think about these things:
- Payroll
- Human Resources
- Marketing
- Working with investors
None of these things are actually the business! These are all supporting roles, and they can easily take up all of your time.
When you focus on the business itself, how does it make you feel? Do you feel like it’s giving you the freedom to choose yourself?
You might feel like you’re playing small, especially when you compare yourself to other entrepreneurs, but at the end of the day, if you’re choosing what you’re passionate about, and focusing on serving that ideal client, then you’ve achieved success.
Whether it’s $2,000 or $2 million, if you feel content and satisfied with what you have done and accomplished, you’re not playing small: you’re being strategic!
In Conclusion
Do you ever wonder if you’re playing small in business, or do you think that you’re staying strategically small and agile so you can best meet your ideal client’s needs? Have you chosen to cap your growth so that you can focus on your clients?
If YES, tell me about it in the comments, or send me a message on Instagram – I’d love to learn more about how you chose to stay small, and what the results have been!
