Know Your Business Card

The fifth in a series of articles entitled ‘Know Your Business’, which explores how to identify the perfect business to run and is written by entrepreneur and multi business owner James Keightley who runs his own ecommerce business and business coaching consultancy and explains how to succeed in running your own company.

In the previous articles you have spent quite a bit of time in identifying your three preferred environments, behaviours and skills and capabilities that are the best match for running your own business.

Now it is time to consolidate on these and add some more meaning to them so that you have a clearer vision of what sort of business these fit in to. By the end of this article you should be able to start to sense, feel and see what type of business your environments, behaviour and skills are leaning towards.

Start with your three preferred environments and one at a time try to put each of the environments in to a sentence that describes to a stranger how the environments connects to some kind of business activity. For example, if the environment is the ‘inside of a vehicle’ you might describe it with a sentence such as, ‘the inside of an executive car containing wealthy business executives’ or, ‘the inside of a 4 x 4 travelling around open country side with x, y and z in the boot and the sound of a two way radio in the background’.

You really need to close your eyes and immerse yourself in to each of the three environments that you have described and to day dream about exactly how each of those environments looks and feels. Describe the smells, the temperatures, the surroundings and anything else that is present.

Go For A Walk – if it helps get your boots on and go for a walk on your own to really think about how you would describe each of these environments in as much detail as possible.

Remember, you are not describing your behaviour in the environment, that bit comes next. All you are doing is describing how you as an individual are positioned in the environment, how do you occupy the environment and what material things, feelings, sounds, smells are surrounding you in that environment.

Once you have done this for each of your three environments move on and repeat the process for your three preferred behaviours. Look at each one and describe to a stranger in a sentence exactly how you are behaving. What is it exactly that you are doing, how are you doing it and who are you with, if anyone. For example if one of your behaviours is planning, what are you planning and how are you planning it. Are you drawing something out, using a spreadsheet on a computer or discussing it as a team?

Go For A Walk – again, go for a walk if it helps and reflect deeply on the three types of preferred behaviour to really drill down and identify how you are behaving. Be as descriptive as possible, think about how a bystander would describe your behaviour if they were observing you doing one of the behaviours that you prefer!

Finally, we are going to repeat the process for your three preferred skills and capabilities. Again write a sentence describing to a stranger exactly what skills and capabilities you are demonstrating. If it is coordinating or painting, what and how are you coordinating or what and how you are painting? Are you painting with brushes or using computer graphical software. Are you painting makeup on a face or painting a figurine.

Go For A Walk – to complete the final step finish by going for another walk and reflecting on these skills and capabilities to see if you can describe them any better or in a clearer way. Really immerse yourself in the moment and notice in as much detail as possible what it is about the skills and capabilities that make them unique.

By now you should have 9 sentences, three for each; environments, behaviour and skills & capabilities.

Have a few days off and then return to these and see what kind of businesses these 9 sentences suggest to you. Email them to your family and friends and see what business ideas they come up with.

Eventually, you will start to see a business for yourself, some will see it straight away and have a very clear vision about what it is they see themselves doing and for others it may take a little longer and need some more colour and clarity adding to it.

Remember, when you are placing a descriptor to your business, ignore the issue of money. For now it is only important to see and feel what is a good business to do, that matches your preferred environment, behaviour and skills, because if you do what you enjoy, the money will follow. Many people make the mistake of trying to think of a business that will enable them to survive and pay the bills, which is important, but that is something that needs to be thought of later, otherwise it will restrict your thinking and potentially result in you missing opportunities that might be very lucrative when developed. It is a case of first finding that something that is right for you and then looking at how it can be developed to generate the income you require.

In the next article, Know Your Business Know Your Beliefs’ we will explore the importance that beliefs have on shaping the businesses we run, how we run them and how successful they are.