Making Sure You are in the Right Business
• Do you often talk about ways to make your business, product or service better?
• Would you buy your own product or service?Life is simply too short to be doing something you don’t like doing. This is particularly true when it comes to your job or business, since most of us spend the majority of our waking hours at work.
But how can you find out if you are in the right business? This is actually fairly easy to determine. The bigger and more difficult question, if you determine you are in the wrong business, is how to find out what is the right business for you.
The first indicator that you are in the wrong business today is passion, or more correctly, a lack of passion for your current job or business. Do you remember when you first started your job or business…..how excited you were to be going out on your own…..and how much you enjoyed talking to customers and suppliers and fixing their problems? Where is your passion today? Do you care as much? Do you still lie awake at night thinking how to improve your product or service for your customers?
If you no longer have the passion for your business that you once did, ask yourself: “What do I need to do to get back the passion I once had for my business? If you can’t come up with a good answer, it is time to move on.
You really don’t have a choice. In today’s competitive world, if you are not passionate about serving your customers, someone else who is passionate will soon appear and take away your business. Moreover, if you don’t love your business, you are doing a terrible disservice to your customers and clients, your team members and business partners, your family and yourself. If you determine you are in the wrong business, put in the extra hours to bring it to the highest level you can short-term, then put it on the market and sell it.
Here’s another test for whether or not you are still passionate about your business. Do you experience mental conflict between your business and your personal life? Do you think about the business meeting scheduled in an hour while talking to your children? Do you think about your business when you are out with your family, or do you just “tune out from work” when you get home? If yes, this is actually a healthy sign that you are in the right business. It’s making decisions between two things you love to do. If you don’t have this mental conflict, something’s wrong. Keep your wife and your kids–just change your business.
It’s actually easier than you think. I outlined how to determine if you are the right business in an article to be published next month in the October 2009 edition of Success Magazine. (Click Here for a free preview of this article).