Communication is one of the most effective ways to creative a meaningful relationship with customer and to ensure that the experience they recieve is always top notch!
Read moreThe Lonely Game Of Entrepreneurship
Have you ever felt like you weren’t always sure the way you’re headed is the right way?
What if you didn’t have anyone to reassure you that what you are doing is the right path for you or what you're doing is even right or wrong?
Welcome to the game of entrepreneurship.
It’s a world where more often than not you’re by yourself, making decisions that can impact your entire business and life and you have almost no one who has walked in your shoes to talk to on a daily basis.
With decisions that can so profoundly affect you a helping or guiding hand is often something, you would want or need and that's why there are so many mentoring groups and consultants out there.
But as an entrepreneur you make these decisions, formulate new ideas and develop strategies all from within your own head and these ideas are CONSTANTLY flowing.
With this, you are left thinking about everything from A to Z often in a continuous way with a seemingly night and day focus and often no way to actually turn it off.
From the moment you wake up these things are on your mind and when you go to bed all the information you need to process is still racing through your mind and it's your ultimate responsibility to execute on these ideas,
With all of this comes an extreme amount of stress and pressure to learn to live with and to be comfortable with and even start to embrace. It's quite the addicting experience!
Because through all the pressure and loneliness there is no better feeling than acting on your thoughts and ideas and along the way not really having a clear idea as to whether any of it will work. Because you are LITERALLY forging your own path.
When it comes down to it entrepreneurs are the ultimate executors.
We think, act and analyze on a constant basis. Chances are while you’re still thinking about doing something an entrepreneur has acted on several of these things.
And we’re lonely because we don’t have other executors with us, we’re often the founders of our companies who bear the burden of growing something akin to our child.
No one else can possibly understand how important this game is to us.
And because of that, we live this life to where we forge our own paths, create new industries and do things most people would only dream of doing.
The excitement, the anticipation, the thrill, the loneliness, the sadness, the stress all culminate to create an epic lifestyle that leaves a legacy for generations.
To me, it’s always worth it though sometimes I’m riding high and sometimes I’m a little down I always end up proud of what I’ve accomplished and built and amazed that my thoughts have been turned into reality on a consistent basis and that so many people believe in what I do as an entrepreneur.
Thank you to the risk-takers, the doers and the people who build industries we all wish we could be part of!
How To Approach Local Businesses To Work Together
Working with local businesses and developing strategic partners should be a critical aspect of any business. The fact of the matter is that you’re always going to be stronger together than you are apart!
The hardest part is actually going out and developing these relationships because we’re afraid the other businesses might say no or they won’t like us.
But the fact of the matter is that if you don’t actually try, you’ll never get anywhere!
So how do you go about approaching other business in a way that isn’t salesy or will be looked at with frustration from other business owners and then leading to them point to a no soliciting sign?
The good news is that I’m going to walk you through the process of developing a relationship with other businesses so it turns into a mutually beneficial relationship that everyone is happy with!
First off pull out a map or use something like Google Maps to pinpoint all the businesses you want to work within your area. Map out 5-7 of them to approach and being the conversation with. This will be your base as you start.
Once you get this done what you want to do is walk into the businesses you mapped out. Let's say one of them is a coffee shop, what you're going to do is walk into the coffee shop, buy a coffee, sit down close to the counter and you're going to talk to each one of the employees and learn a little bit about them and the place as a whole.
Then you are you going to leave, this is because you're not trying to sell or offer anything right off the bat. Remember we are playing the long-term game here.
Then you're going to come back again weekly and continue to talk with the employees and learn more and more about the place and more importantly you’re going to begin to build and develop a relationship with the staff members and hopefully the management in your time there.
Make it a point to talk to all the employees each and every time you go in, get to know every one of their names and make sure they know yours.
Start to get them to understand what your name, what you do and who you are. What you're doing is essentially developing and building a relationship with these people inside this facility so the being to trust you and feel comfortable around you.
You're going to do this for several weeks and eventually you get to that point where they all know you really well, they all know your name and they are incredibly comfortable around you. The staff should be excited when you walk in the door because you’ve become a regular.
Then at this point, you are in a good position to ask them for something and that something is the potential to work with you and your business.
Now what you're going to do is say hey guy’s what do you think about taking your stuff and let's combine it with what I do and let's do a joint workshop together, let's do like a coffee tasting at my facility and I’ll give you and your staff and your customer’s a fitness day at your place or do a combined event every month where you alternate facilities.
Workshops are the best in that you can get their customers and use their network in addition to yours to get people inside your facility. Now that you set yourself up with a local business and a good relationship with them.
It’s important to maintain that relationship and work to always be in contact. If you don’t maintain contact the relationship will fade and the work you put into building it will be for nothing. So invite these business owners you start working with for coffee or breakfast once a week and then build that into a little networking group that you created all on your own!
