Ask the Makers - gearing business

Lisa’s Answer:

This year, I created an If I Could Not Fail, I Would … list in which I listed all of the things I would do right now if I knew I could not fail. To be completely honest with you, I was only putting it out there to demonstrate how fun the blog topic was. But in response to the article, one of my previous clients said:

“You should do those things on your list even if you might fail at one or two.”

And she was absolutely right. In only a short few months, I’ve gone on to honor the deeper connection I was truly craving in that list by organizing a women’s creative retreat and focusing all of my efforts on group coaching dreamy clients.

After only a few adjustments in the focus of my career (inspired by the list), I’m not only doing the most meaningful work of my life, I’m also earning more than ever before.

Stacie’s Answer:

This has been a leveling year for my business. We have not seen the growth that we were hoping for, but are still profitable. It has been harder this year to grow our sales, but that means that we just have to get creative and begin approaching our business a bit differently.

Danielle’s Answer:

Because this year was sort of a whirlwind – and is just now settling down – I have been trying to foci my efforts on smaller things – like being more intentional about social media and things like that. So far it’s going pretty well – in the sense that I seem to be reaching more people – and I feel like things are improving. It was a simple idea but it’s not really my specialty so it’s a slow process for me. Still learning!

Megan’s Answer:

This year I decided to focus on wholesale to take my business up a gear. I wrote all about how I added 15 shops to my wholesale list last month. It’s been a real game-changer for my business and has enabled me to feel a lot more professional about my business.

Eleanor’s Answer:

This year I’m doing two and a half things, really. I’m finally upgrading my aging, breaking e-commerce platform, which I wrote about here: Proof of Concept Planning (This site/resource is no longer available). It’s a painful, painstaking process which kind of requires almost everything else go on hold but really necessary. This process has forced me to do the second thing I’ve needed to do for awhile: hire help. Luckily I’ve dug deep into Odesk (If you want to know how I did it, you can find my post HERE (This site/resource is no longer available).) and found some good people and I am just beginning to see what’s possible and wishing I’d done it sooner. The final ‘half’ thing I’ve done is switch to a project management/collaboration tool called ‘Asana’, I was a Basecamp fan and advocate (and still do love a lot of the work and products from 37 signals) but Asana is pretty amazing and the free version is just about fully functional for a business of 15 or less people. You can read all about why I love Asana HERE (This site/resource is no longer available).

What about you? How have you taken your business up a gear?

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