What are the biggest challenges you face as a small business owner? Of these challenges, which do you feel you need support with?
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These are two questions I ask in all of my strategy sessions with clients. Regardless of profession (I’ve worked with florists, photographers, cake artists, graphic designers, calligraphers, stationery artists, painters, fitness instructors and more)… everyone lists one or more of the following:
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▪️There’s so much to do that I don’t know what should be the priority.
▪️How can I market myself without feeling “yuck”?
▪️I can’t seem to find and attract the right clients willing to pay my rates.
▪️I need to grow my audience to get my business / product /service in front of the right people.
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Answering these will take more than one blog post so I’ll try and tackle them over a few posts (and link to them above)! For today, let’s start with a few quick tips for the first one:

There’s so much to do I don’t know what the priority should be

▪️Write a list! Very often when clients raise this as a concern, the “to do” list is all in their head. Once it’s down on paper it instantly relieves a fraction of the overwhelm.

▪️Divide the list into the tasks that have the potential to have an immediate impact on your business, and the ones that are part of longer-term plans.

▪️Take these two lists and look at the items that are easier “check-list” items, compared to ones that require a bit more strategy, and put time estimates to them.

▪️Based on the available hours you have, schedule the items from the “short term” list into your calendar over the coming month. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

“But what about the long-term items. They’re important too, right?” Yes, absolutely! But you’ll probably find you have more time and freedom to work on them when you start seeing the returns (both financial and other) of executing on your short term list.

Next up: How to marketing yourself without feeling “yuck”.