Build A Business You Love With These 10 Questions

Building a small or micro business takes a lot of time, effort and passion and there’s nothing worse than realising partway through that business journey that you’re not 100 per cent committed. While this process can often be very reactive, the secret to continuing your passion for a business is to engage in what entrepreneur Andrew Griffiths describes as ‘conscious decision-making’.

Businessman photo via Shutterstock

Flying Solo has both examined why this might happen and put together a list of questions for you to keep on your phone, your computer and printed out on your wall to make sure that you’re always working towards something you love. So if you’re thinking about — or in the process of building a small business, here are some points to define early on in the process, and continue to refer back to as you expand:

•What type of customers do I want to attract and work with?
•What type of customers do I want to avoid at all costs?
•What type of projects do I want to attract?
•What type of projects do I want to avoid at all costs?
•How much money do I want to make?
•What poverty actions am I going to stop?
•What will I do and what won’t I do for money – my moral compass.
•What type of people do I want in my life?
•What type of people don’t I want in my life?
•What do I want people to say about me and my reputation?

It’s about defining both what you want and what you don’t want, using the two in tandem to clarify the direction you want to head in.

The idea of ‘poverty actions’ is a particularly evocative one out of that list, putting a plain name to the all too common practice of taking on work below cost or in circumstances that don’t benefit you at all. Taking your moral compass into account is also an element often forgotten in business, which is just as important when making sure you can maintain the same amount of passion in a particular project as it grows and matures.

While it’s always good to be adaptive and receptive to new ideas even if they don’t align with your vision, Andrew says that these questions can come of key importance when making big decisions or when you need to make a hard call.

[Flying Solo]


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