Finding Your Business's Sweet Spot

Depending on how long you’ve been in business, the chances are you’ve thrown lots of things at the wall, to see what sticks and what doesn’t. Sometimes, what sticks to the wall doesn’t work in the long run, and in hindsight you wish it hadn’t. But that’s business. You live and learn, especially when you are bootstrapping your way through with not an awful lot of business experience.

How often do you sit down with your various business functions and analyze what is making money, what isn’t and how much effort you’re putting into each area? Are you hanging onto some outdated models that made sense at the time but haven’t grown the way you anticipated? Is your business still giving you the emotional charge you had in the very early days?

In Chapter 3 of Smart Business Stupid Business, we explored something called the eCenter. That’s the place where three things intersect:

• Entrepreneurial abilities (something you are good at, even GREAT at)
• Emotional Charge (something you’re passionate about)
• Economic Marketplace (something your customers want and need)

You may not know what these three things are when you start your business. That’s okay. Businesses grow and develop, just like people do. But if you find that you’re bored and unmotivated, chances are you know where your eCenter isn’t. That’s when it’s time to really examine what is and isn’t working for you, and work on changing things up. And, if you need a little more motivation, consider this: how much money are you potentially leaving on the table because you’re out of sync with your business?