How Tenacity Helped a Business Grow 200%

We’ll share a story today about a business owner whose tenacity helped her company grow by 200%!

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On The BIGG Success Show, we discuss when you should be tenacious, and when you should not. Here’s a summary of that discussion…

Our entrepreneur success story comes from an article on Entrepreneur, written by Julia McCoy, Founder of Express Writers.

She says back in 2015 her company was struggling. They weren’t turning a profit and it was hard to see if and when they could scale.

In the face of hardship, McCoy was tempted to shift the main focus of her business – content marketing – to other bright, shiny new marketing strategies that were emerging, like list building and social media advertising.

She thought maybe they could try one of those out, and if it didn’t work, just return to the focus of content marketing.

But McCoy believed in content marketing as a key service for businesses, and she knew it was her company’s strength. So, she decided to not make any changes, and that tenacity paid off as McCoy says her company ended that year with 200% growth!

What a great story! We conclude: The greenest grass may be on YOUR side of the fence.

Tenacity is a critical skill for the entrepreneur mindset – in life, work, and business. Let’s understand it better so we can use it for growth in our lives.

What is tenacity?

Definitions include: Mental or moral strength to resist opposition, danger, or hardship. A synonym is courage, which is firmness of mind and will in the face of danger or extreme difficulty. Another synonym is resolution, which stresses firm determination to achieve one’s end.

We define it as a force of will which creates a determination to NEVER fail. From this mindset, you develop the heart of a champion. You may not win, but you will have NO regrets!

How do you cultivate tenacity?

You need to be clear on your purpose. Without purpose, you won’t be able to hold on when things get tough. Tenacity is all about having persistence in purpose.

Now, it seems in the entrepreneur space, we’ve adopted this mindset that it’s good to fail. Fail faster. You’ll even hear the two of us say it from time to time.

But it’s better to not fail at all.  So, make sure you don’t give up too early. Keep pushing until it feels like you’ve given your all, you’ve shown the heart of a champion.

What’s the difference between being tenacious and being stubborn?

Tenacity can also be defined as: Stubborn persistence and unwillingness to admit defeat.

But when we really look at the nature of stubbornness – it’s really about being unwilling to change in the face of a good reason to do so.

We’ve been told, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” So, if you don’t succeed, try again. If you still don’t succeed, try something else. Now, don’t look at this explicitly. Try twice, then pivot. Just be aware that, as you press toward your goal, you will gain new insights which may suggest it’s time to move on to something else.

In the story we told… was the business owner stubborn?

After all, her business wasn’t making money and she saw there were other avenues to revenue, but she didn’t change.

We say she was NOT stubborn. While there were good reasons to change, she knew there was a market for her service, and she believed in it. She was tenacious.

There are times to be tenacious and times not to be.

Don’t be tenacious if:

• there is no market for your service/product
• there is disruption in your industry and it’s in decline
• you have no passion for what you are doing

Do be tenacious if:

• there is a market for your service/product
• there is growth in your niche/industry
• you believe in what you are doing and are motivated to find a way to make it work

Tenacity is a skill you need in your life, career, and business. When your purpose is crystal clear, it gives you the ability to hold on, with persistence and determination in the face of adversity, to push through and achieve BIGG Success!

Here’s to your BIGG success!

George “The Professor” & Mary-Lynn
Co-Founders, BIGG Success

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/biggsuccess/01044-020121.mp3