Are you unhappy with your job?

Do you dream of starting your own business?

Wouldn’t it be nice?

Being your own boss.

Setting your own schedule.

Getting paid what you’re worth.

We tend to romanticize what we don’t have. Looking in from the outside, all we see is the glamour.

Let’s talk about the brutal truth of these three commonly held beliefs about starting a business.

Hear George & Mary-Lynn talk about the 3 brutal truths on The BIGG Success Show! Click a player to listen.


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Be your own boss

No more working for “the man.” No longer having to put up with the bull. Not answering to anybody.

The fact is you will answer to more people than ever:

• Customers
  

To start, every single one of your customers is your boss.

Sure, it’s different. Sure, if you have enough customers, you can afford to fire one now and then.

But if you want to be a BIGG success in your small business, you better get really good at serving your customers.

• Financiers
  

  Your financiers are your boss. It’s the golden rule: He or she who has the gold makes the rules! They will likely set parameters within which you must operate.
  

Of course, if you don’t need outside funding, you won’t have to worry about these bosses.

• Government
  

  As a small business owner, you will answer to governmental entities at the local, state and federal levels. Once you hire your first employee, the requirements will escalate. Certain businesses are more regulated than others but every small business deals with government.
  

• Employees
  

  Employees as your boss? Are we nuts? Stick with us for just a minute.
  

  If you believe in servant leadership, you may think of your employees as your boss even though it obviously isn’t the case.
  

  We believe that it’s the leader’s job to make it as easy as practically and financially possible for each and every employee to do his or her job.
  

Set your own schedule

Can you picture it? Rolling into work late. Taking a long lunch. Leaving the office early. Afternoons on the golf course. Long vacations. What a life!

What a lie!

The reality is that, when you first start your business, you will probably work more than you ever have in your life.

You’ll have to, unless you have a lot of money to pay for help. But then, you’ll be flowing red and you’ll feel even more stress to reach break-even.

Of course, once your business is a BIGG success, you may be able to back down on the time you spend on it. But that will take years, if not decades.

Get paid what you’re worth

Finally, you will be compensated for your effort. Your true value will be valued. You can set your own pay.

The truth is not quite so pretty. You may not be able to afford to pay yourself as much as you make now.

Of course, in time, you better make more money. But you have to plant in order to harvest.

You will invest both time and money. You deserve to be compensated fairly for both.

But it won’t likely happen right away. Chances are, you will subsidize your business for a period of time. (Unless, of course, you raise more money. In that case, see the discussion above about financiers and the golden rule.)

If you no longer want to be an entrepreneur, great! We’ve accomplished something here today. You’ll be spared the financial and emotional costs of starting your own business.

If after reading all this, you still have that feeling in your gut – you just have to do it; you cannot accept not trying; you have to start your own business.

Great! We’ve accomplished something here today. You’re ready to start your own business with your eyes wide open. It leads to BIGG success!

If you aren’t sure how to get started, shoot us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com or leave a voice message at 888.455.BIGG (2444). Tell us what you’re thinking about. Maybe we can help.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00717-071211.mp3

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There’s just one problem: you only have one head.

Hear George & Mary-Lynn talk about the many hats entrepreneurs wear on The BIGG Success Show. Click the player to listen.

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• sales
• accounting
• promotion
• finance
• market research
• pricing
• social media
• leadership
• human resources
• production
• information technology
• and many more

The problem of too many hats

The two of us know firsthand that it can be incredibly frustrating. Entrepreneurs have to know a little bit about a lot of things in a world of increasing specialization.

And the world changes faster than ever. Just when you think you fully understand something, it changes! It can lead to a significant amount of stress.

For many people, the source of that stress is doubt. You may feel like you’re not smart enough or don’t know enough to make the right decision. So you question yourself.

3 tips to handle this dilemma

You see people respond to this challenge of wearing too many hats in one of three ways:

• give up
• freeze up
• step up

Obviously, the first two won’t get you anywhere. So let’s talk about how to step up to this challenge of wearing too many hats on one head.

• Become a quick change artist
  

You don’t have to change your whole outfit. Just put on a new hat.

With a little practice, you can do it quickly and easily.

• Resist the urge to always wear your favorite hat
  

  We all have a favorite hat. We’ve worn it over and over and over.

  Your hat may be sales or accounting. But as a small business owner, you have to wear other hats from time to time to know how they feel.

You’ll want to build a “culture of many hats, one head.” It’s the only way to build an organization these days. So you’ll have to set the example. Then your people will better relate to each other.

• Find people with different hats
  

  It’s far too easy to network only with people who wear the same hat as you. The conversation comes easy. You have a lot in common. Push yourself to expand out to people with different hats.

  As you get to know each other, you may find ways to work together. That’s the idea – you get to wear your favorite more often because you have people who love wearing another hat.

You’re part of a team of all-stars. And it leads to BIGG success!

Having trouble with all the hats you have to wear? We put on a coach’s hat quite often. See if one of our coaching programs might help you.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00706-060711.mp3

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Our title is not an original to us. It came from Liz Strauss, who along with Terry Starbucker co-founded SOBcon – the premier conference for Successful Online Businesses. We highly recommend it!

Listen to the podcast version of this post. Click the player to hear George & Mary-Lynn on The BIGG Success Show.

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Are you amazed by some of the things some people say on social media? It’s bad enough when it’s John or Jane Doe.

But do you ever find yourself shaking your head in disbelief when an entrepreneur complains about a customer or talks openly about cash flow problems?

You can be yourself without revealing everything. A little mystery makes your business sexier.

Don’t bare it all to funders

A small business owner came to us because he was experiencing cash flow problems. We determined he had
a timing problem, not a money problem. He was growing too fast for his capital base.

We introduced him to an investor. Unfortunately, all the entrepreneur talked about was the cash flow problem and the issues it was creating.

People don’t invest in problems; they invest in opportunities. If you can’t see the opportunity in your business, neither will your potential funders.

Don’t overexpose yourself to customers

Customers don’t want to hear it either. If you aren’t doing well – and they know it – they may get nervous. They wonder if you will continue being a dependable source of supply. So they start shopping. Overexposure opens the door for competitors.

The opposite is also true. You may be doing great. You brag about it. Your customers may question whether they are paying too much for your goods and/or services. They pressure you for better prices.

Don’t take it all off

All of your employees don’t have to know everything either. Completely open-book management requires a certain level of maturity. If that maturity isn’t there, employees tend to focus on the negative.

It makes them nervous. Nervous employees start looking for work elsewhere. Your best employees are the first to get hired away.

At least keep your hat on

Even your spouse or significant other doesn’t need to hear it all. Deal with the entrepreneurial terror yourself so your spouse can keep supporting you, the entrepreneur.

How can you be authentic without getting naked?

• Be yourself while simultaneously being true to yourself.
  

  You may occasionally modify your real opinion to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings. Do the same for yourself.
  

• Filter what you say and to whom you say it.
  

  Think need to know. Obviously, you have a duty to keep certain people in the loop. Why does any single person beyond that group need to know?
  

• Frame it in a positive way, unless there’s no other way.
  

• Find a mentor or a coach with whom you can let it all hang out.
  

  We’ve walked a thousand miles in your shows. Maybe we can help. E-mail us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com or leave a voice mail at 888.455.2444.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00686-040511.mp3

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Listen to The BIGG Success Show podcast:

In Part 1 of our interview Phil talks with us about:

• How he’s living life on his own terms: he recently left his full-time job to pursue his consulting business. How did he do it, and what sparked the career change?

• His new book #Twitterworks offers tips for a small business owner to create brand awarness on Twitter. We ask him to share a few of those tips.

• Phil shares an example of a business that is doing it right and a business doing it wrong on Twitter (hint: Phil recommends keeping an eye on @AJBombers).

In Part 2, Phil will share how small businesses can use Twitter to help with customer retention. We’ll also ask Phil what he means when he says small businesses should focus on connections, not contacts.

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00678-030911.mp3

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Let’s talk about social media strategy. Say you’re a small business owner. You don’t necessarily want to get on Facebook and have a Fan Page with only ten people. Would it be better to just be yourself on Facebook and tell people about your day, rather than setting up a Fan Page for your business?

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Yeah. I would say to first get accustomed to it. As a matter of fact, my Facebook Fan Page for the Marketing Doctor just started last week and I’ve been on Facebook for a year or two. I preferred my personal page where I described what I liked and disliked, linked to my blogs and things like that. You just have to take the first steps. Like anything else in life, once you overcome the inertia, magical things happen.

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We met you online, John. We met you through another good friend, Jim Bouchard, who we also met online. It’s amazing how powerful these tools are in placing every individual, every small business, close to par with large businesses.

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You could say that again! A small business is much more nimble to change. It’s the difference between a forty-foot sailboat and a multi-ton carrier trying to change course. If I could talk a little bit to the contact with Jim Bouchard, it was very serendipitous. I met his wife Alex on Facebook. She asked me to look at her husband’s web site and critique it. So I did, which was unique according to Alex. From that, Jim wrote back and thanked me. The point is that I didn’t think I was going to meet Jim through Alex. It was nothing like that. I was trying to assist. Through that assist, we’re here today. We never would have met if it weren’t for social media. It’s like going to a cocktail party but not leaving the house!

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Thanks John so much for sharing your wisdom with us.

We recommend that you get to know John better by checking out his site. He blogs, consults, speaks and offers great marketing tips for free in his online classroom.

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Thank you for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we’ll discuss making money multiply magically. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00475-090409.mp3

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