Read these tips to grow a BEYOND common business!

Wanna know the secrets to make your business grow beyond common?

Maybe you are a hairstylist, and you work in a posh salon, loving the creative freedom that comes with it. Knowing full on that you are a business within another business. As a Hairstylist you essentially write your own paycheck. Or maybe you have a photography business, a yoga studio, or you sell arts and crafts in your physical store. It doesn’t matter what business or industry you are in. We all need to develop a system so that your business can go from so-so and average to beyond common. Showing up in a Beyond Common way, will allow us to thrive and avoid becoming starving artists. We will need to be open and have that entrepreneurial mindset so you can operate as a real business. We will dive deeper into the mindset of an entrepreneur because ultimately, you need to know you are solely responsible and will write your own paycheck for the rest of your life. I think that is true no matter what business you're in. 

Listen up because I am going to spill some tea so prepare to have those “Aha moments” as you read along. 

So, without further ado, I will spill the tea aka share the secrets to make grow beyond a common business: 

This is of utmost importance. Your client is the lifeblood of your business. If you cannot connect with your client in the most authentic way, your business will run dry. So make sure to follow the “Beyond Common 12 Essentials for Success in Life and in the Workplace ” of interacting with your client, and make the interaction an actual worthwhile connection.

Whether your business operates online or you have a physical store, branding is EVERYTHING. I can’t stress that enough. We need to make sure that your brand truly resonates with what you stand for out there in the market. If people would look for your business, they can feel your message being conveyed in your brand. And that messaging should resonate consistently throughout the way you greet your clients, how you treat them while you are providing service and selling your products, at every interaction, and even after the sales. Your branding should be carried through throughout every touchpoint in your entire business. When you set up a warm and personalized touch in every aspect of your business, it will be easier for your customers to build a real connection to  your brand.

While branding is a great way to stand out from the sea of sameness, you still need to be truly visible online and put yourself out there in the marketplace so your customers can find you easily, and you can even reach more potential new customers. A great branding strategy plus an optimized online presence will make your business’ growth become unstoppable. 

What do I mean by this? This talks about the processes that are involved in running and operating your business overall. You could create a more powerful and strategic marketing plan, a more effective training program. Even a more impactful client attraction strategy and long term retention program. Make sure you include an upleveled hiring and recruiting strategy if you want to stand out in this market. How you train your team, and how you handle challenges, complaints, how you celebrate, even your contingency plans whenever surprises come along the way need to be mapped out and streamlined so every team member knows what to do too. You can’t just sit there and say, “Oh well, I’m an artist, or I  just do hair.  We all know that, unless an artist has a great strategy, they’ll go hungry, because they won’t be prepared for anything that life throws their way. This is so true for so many businesses (we can even apply this principle in our daily life too). Make sure you have a winning and powerful strategy behind your systems. If you are wondering how you could strengthen your strategy and don’t know where to start, my Beyond Common Success Essential Course will walk you through how to set these types of systems up. You can find great systems and strategies to get you started on  setting up a strong business strategy, so you will soar with confidence in your business. 

Your company’s success relies on every team member working behind the scenes, so it only makes sense to empower your team. You need to set them up for success and give them the opportunity to have education; to learn to grow, to seek out further education of their own, anything to support and motivate them. Because the truth of the matter is, you cannot motivate anyone.  Motivation comes from within. That’s the plain truth. However, you can delegate and empower your team so they become a powerhouse even when you’re not looking. This is one of my hard-learned lessons and I didn't realize this until way into my leadership career that you really can't motivate anyone. So those two words are entirely different. You can empower your team to want to do it, and you can work with people that have the willingness, but you cannot motivate them. You can hold them able, but they must do the work. Motivation is a subjective thing and it comes from within. Motivation means self, so we can empower people. However, if they are not getting it, and if they’re not open and willing to learn, that’s a whole different story for us to discuss on a different day.

Be authentic. Be you. Show up for people with no false pretense  and then invite people into your story. Most oftentimes, in business, we try to mirror what the most successful people are doing. It’s perfectly natural because we are looking up to them and we want to be like them. But the thing is, If that's not who you aspire to be, or not what you really do. Don't be that. You’re just setting yourself and your business to blend in with the crowd. Take the time to really clarify who you are, what you do, and then invite people in. People are starving for authenticity, and they steer away from all forms of fakery (except for the Housewives reality tv). Staying true to yourself  and your brand promise will help you attract the staff that you want and that will love to work with you. Staying true to yourself helps repel the ones that don't. So, never show up as anyone other than yourself. 

Now more than ever, people need to know that you care about their well-being. One of the ways to really set yourself up to be a Beyond Common Business of any kind is that you make a strong healthy  mindset a priority. This first starts with you as the leader. Once you have a solid positive mindset, it will then resonate well with your team and your clients. You want to make sure you make mindset matters a priority more than anything else. And we need to keep ours healthy, strong, and able to weather the different obstacles, roadblocks, and storms that are constantly being thrown our way. But you know, everybody is facing different struggles and challenges all the time. Hence, well-being needs to be a primary focus.

Take care of yourself. You need to do this before you can take care of something else. Take time to do something in your downtime, something that feeds your soul. Things that align with your  true sense of purpose are going to be what really feeds and nourishes your well-being.

So those are the 7 ways that have worked for me to grow a few BEYOND Common Businesses. I hope you find these insights helpful because there are so many ways to build and start growing a business that’s beyond common. Try to find one that fits your mission and your vision. 

To Start achieving the life and business of your dreams get my BEYOND Common Essentials Course. 

Happy Business Building,

Tracey Watts Cirino

As always, love to hear your thoughts and how this resonates with your personal and professional goals.