It happened for the umpteenth time.  I asked THE first and most important question in our conversation but got no real answer. If you don’t get this nailed down—your business simply cannot grow. 

This is Business Building Basics

This happened during an exploratory phone conversations. Love them and hate them. Why anyone would just want to connect without a purpose is a little difficult to understand for me. Then again, I have had now a few of these conversations and some have taken exciting and unexpected turns. Of the good kind. 

My point is, we need to remain open to opportunities even when we don’t know what they may be. Hence, the exploring but I digress.

The last one was from a lovely woman, a creative, relatively new to the West Coast. I asked her what she specialized in. She did share what she had done, what she was passionate about, and what she was doing for money. After she took me through it, she paused and said, “I need to hire a copywriter to help me figure this out.” She knew it sounded all over the place and she struggled in making it sound cohesive.

That’s when I took a deep breath

It is a huge misconception that you can hire a writer to help you figure out what your business is all about. A writer can only wordsmith what you’ve told them. 


Use the Business Umbrella Statement Instead

Here is how it works. When you offer what seems like a variety of services, you want to find the umbrella description that you can put over all of them. 

For example, in my own business I work with individuals and corporations. Either business owners or business leaders. So how can we put this under one business umbrella statement?

Describe your mission 

My company is a training company that supports women leaders. That could be in a variety of different ways by either working with women 1-on-1 (owners and high potentials) or businesses (small or large.) 

The trick is to avoid making your business sound like it’s a number of different things. You want to simplify the mission of your business. When it comes to describing the HOW, you can now say we do this by…. And then list your services or delivery methods. This is the clarification step of your Business Health Checklist. 

Foundational elements

If you cannot describe what your business is in the most simple terms, then you want to get to foundational elements. What are your mission, vision, and your core values? Does this describe what you do and why you do it? Sometimes the reason you do it is enough to make a powerful impact. 

A lesson I learned from Pamela Ipson is to say it boldly. Pamela runs a safety training company and she says this about her business: “I make sure people don’t die.”

By focusing more on the end result and not so much on the individual elements of your business, you might find it much easier to find your umbrella statement.

Let’s Grow,

Beate

 


Beate Chelette is the Founder of The Women’s Code and serves as the Programming Chair for the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO-LA). Once $135,000 in debt and a single mother, she successfully sold her business to Bill Gates in a multi-million dollar deal.

Beate’s supports Business Owners and organizations who want to reach them two-fold. As The Growth Architect she creates training, outreach and sponsorship programs through customized Entrepreneur skills training following the 5 Star Success Blueprint that shows step-by-step how to grow, build and scale businesses.

In addition Beate provides leadership development programs for organizations that want to implement the ROI of Balanced Leadership through The Women’s Code, her signature system that educates leaders and helps companies achieve gender equality. The Women’s Code creates and implements programs that improve organizational culture, foster productive work environments and help companies improve their people ROI.

Beate is a respected speaker and mentor and is the author of the #1 International Amazon Bestseller “Happy Woman Happy World – How to Go From Overwhelmed to Awesome”, a book that corporate trainer and best-selling author Brian Tracy calls “a handbook for every woman who wants health, success and a fulfilling career.”

If you’d like to book Beate as a speaker on Leadership or Entrepreneurship for your next event please connect here.

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