Learn This One Skill to Grow Your Business

What is the one skill to grow your business? Is there something we need to be focusing on to get results faster?

As an entrepreneur, you're typically far more enthusiastic than most people. You're a great starter because that's what entrepreneurship is ultimately all about. You're somebody that probably says yes to a lot of things.

I know that to be true because I certainly used to say yes to everything myself. But...

Learn This One Skill to Grow Your Business

If you want to be super focused, the one skill to grow your business that you are going to have to learn is the skill of saying NO. 

Learning not to get attached to offending or upsetting people if you say no. That's their choice. If they choose to be upset or offended. What's so important for you is to understand what are the activities, the projects, the commitments that you can take on. 

What do you need to be saying YES to?

What should you be saying NO to?

I'll give you a couple of examples, as we've seen a lot of this through our clients.

We, women, we're not always as good at saying no, right? Guys can be a little better at this than we can. And they say no as if no is a sentence. Right? It's simply a no - one word. They don't need to give any justification or excuses.

I think women can get into a lot of storytelling, feeling we need to justify saying no. Then, we almost say yes again in the next sentence! Perhaps, I'm just talking about me, because that was certainly me in the past.

Some people got too many roles on different boards. They might be serving in an advisory role. They might be volunteering for an organization or several organizations. Or perhaps, they're helping out a friend and they're taking on extra responsibilities.

They may be doing a lot of different things that are keeping them distracted and away from the core activities of growing their business.

Here is an example of a client of mine.

Her business has doubled recently. She's got a ton of energy. She's very enthusiastic. She loves to be involved in the community. All of a sudden, she's on a call with me and she's saying, "Vanessa, my calendar has gone crazy. Now we're getting so much new work in, so many new clients. This is wonderful. But take a look at my calendar. Let's see what's happening there."

Immediately, we had to go through her calendar. I asked her what are the things now that she will have to say no to? Right away she saw a few things that she has been involved in for years. She actually enjoyed doing these things, but the truth was, they were not helping her in her business. Even admitted that lately they caused her stress and overwhelm.

Remember that when you start to say NO to things, your YESes become a lot more valuable.

Make your yeses count and make your yeses become a lot more valuable!