A bit of a deviation from the usual marketing posts, but an important one nevertheless.
We all hit bumps in the road of life and at those moments we can choose to wallow or we can choose to grieve for what’s lost and then walk forwards to face the future – come what may. Many of the bumps life presents us with offer us the opportunity to stop, reassess and if we choose to, build a better life.
Being so badly bullied at work that I hated my otherwise great life offered me a great moment of choice. I could stay in an environment where frankly death was becoming increasingly and tragically an option or I could choose to do something else.
My business was born from that choice. I chose to leave and start a business. Even though my confidence was in the toilet, whittled away by 18 months of bullying (and my manager who prided himself on being ‘nice’, looking the other way) – day by day, tiny action by tiny action, I did the things that a business owner would do.
And the clients came. Never before (not in 15 years of consulting) had I had clients just turn up on my doorstep asking to work with me. Okay, so I actually had to do some work in working out what they needed to be done and then doing the work, lots of work, but I had closed the door on the bully and the ‘nice’ manager and lo and behold another, better one opened.
On this blog, I talk a lot about answering the WIIFM (or what’s in it for me?) question from customer’s perspectives. But if you’re thinking about starting your own business at this point in time and lots of people do, you might be wondering WIIFM in terms of making the choice to start a business – everyone talks about how hard it is, how many fail, the long hours, etc.
Yes, there is no denying the hours can be long, the paperwork seemingly insurmountable and the certainty of being paid regularly kind of goes out the window.
BUT I have loved my life for the last year (and yes, there were times when I wanted to rip my hair out), but by and large, 2011 was an awesome year. One that I wouldn’t have had without having made that very scary choice to move forward.
To my clients – a huge thank you for the work that you allowed me to do for you. To all the wonderful people I’ve met along the way – thanks for your support, offerings of help, ideas and company on the road to building my fledgling business. Here’s to 2012.
