How to Find Clarity as an Entrepreneur

This article shares how and where entrepreneurs can find clarity in their day-to-day work. Spoiler alert: it is not where you would expect!

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Hey entrepreneurs, are you overwhelmed with running your business? There are so many things to do and you wear all the hats. So where do you start? Where do you place your daily efforts to have the maximum impact to grow your business and move it forward?

I am with you. I'm there with you every single day doing all the things as a solopreneur. I'm also a business strategist and I've learned some tips and tricks along the way that I want to share with you to help you find clarity when you feel overwhelmed.

Do these statements resonate with you?

You have a deep desire to help others and share your gifts with the world
There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything
You’re constantly questioning yourself about whether you're doing the right things every day to move your business forward
You’re tired of being scattered and you're tired of throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks
You’re seeking clarity of thought and clarity of action each day to manage your business
You wish someone would just give you a roadmap hand you the road map to follow
You want to feel more confident and more secure in your actions, knowing that you're focused on what's most important every day to be successful

As an entrepreneur, your success equation depends on these four quadrants.

Quadrant 1: Your Unique Abilities and Value

One of the mistakes that I see entrepreneurs make over and over again is they aren't specific enough about who they serve and what they offer. Your offer(s) and your value proposition need to be stated in ultra-clear terms. Clients can’t buy from you if they don’t know what you sell. A confused mind does not buy.

You have to be crystal clear on who you're serving, what problem you're solving and what tools, services or products you bring to the table to meet those problems or to solve those problems. It has to be clear in a pathway or in a road map so that your potential customers can see the transformation or the value that you're providing.

Even if you’ve done this exercise before in your business where you have identified your ideal customer avatar, I would encourage you to do it again. As you work a little longer in your business, you hear different messages from the clients that you're serving. You can start to hone your message and your value proposition and can tweak it to make it really crystal clear.

One of the first areas I like to work with our clients on is making sure that their value proposition is strong so that their messaging can be clear as can be.

Quadrant 2: Entrepreneurial Mindset and Success

I talk a lot about how important it is that we have positivity to run our businesses. As an entrepreneur, you need the correct mindset and habits to support your success and this work is not often taught in the entrepreneurial world. It is beyond having an optimistic mindset. I believe sometimes we need to identify our limiting beliefs and remove blocks that are holding us back. Some of the most common blocks that hold us back are imposter syndrome, comparison, fear of failure, fear of being seen, and lack of self-confidence. As a business owner, you really need to identify and be able to work through these blocks and get to the other side in order to show up and own your greatness.

You got into your business because you want to share your gifts with the world. Whatever is holding you back needs to go away, you can learn to address that in your work and know-how to deal with it when you feel those limitations or those blocks coming up. This is an area that I work with clients on through transformational coaching.

Quadrant 3: Streamlined Operations and Systems

As an entrepreneur, I bet you want to have a big impact with your business and by serving people. This means that you need your business to be as streamlined and efficient as possible so that it can be as profitable as possible. Profits equal the impact that you are able to have by expanding your message and services and/or by giving back in a charitable way.

And you may think that your business is small enough that you can manage it all. As the CEO, you can send the invoices, collect the money, serve the clients, do the marketing, do the website, do the email, communicate with clients, etc.

The reality is that today you may be able to manage all of these tasks, but at some point in the near future as you grow, you will have to delegate some of these tasks to a virtual assistant or other contracted or employed team member. It is best to start thinking about how you can delegate certain tasks while ensuring that these tasks are done in a manner that meets your quality and timeliness expectations.

Something you can do today is to begin to document the different processes that you have in your business. As an example, let’s take your social media posting. How do you create social media graphics, do you have established templates, what schedule do you use, and what social media planner(s) do you use? Could you turn this over to an assistant today?

Creating standard operating procedures is work that we usually put off until we have to do it, but I would encourage you to start that process of documenting now before you get too busy. It will save you time in the long run. Take an inventory of your systems and processes, document those processes and procedures and use flow charts wherever you can. You will be happy that you did!

Quadrant 4: Strategy and Execution

This quadrant is about crafting a vision of where you want your organization to go and a roadmap to move your business in that direction. As the CEO of your business, your highest priority is knowing where you're taking your organization, owning that vision, articulating that vision, and making it happen.

I walk my clients through a process called vision scripting or creating a vision narrative. That vision becomes your destination on your roadmap and then your roadmap is the strategy and goals to get towards that vision and execution is key.

As a CEO, you need to plan strategic time which is time set aside that is separate and distinct from your operational work such as serving your clients, marketing, the website, email, communications, blogs, and podcasting. Strategic work is time to build your business; it's the work that's moving you on that road towards that destination.

Another big mistake that I see entrepreneurs make is that they don't carve out time to work on their strategic work. You can’t work ON your business while you are working IN your business.

Your company’s vision and strategic roadmap provide the foundation for the Clarity Funnel. We all want clarity in our business but many are looking in the wrong place. The “Vision” in the Clarity Funnel relates to creating your three-year vision narrative, which becomes the destination for your roadmap. We have a great freebie on creating a vision narrative. You can draft one in about 30 -60 minutes. Better yet, create your first draft today and then come back and tweak it over a couple of days.

Next, we're going to build the road map toward your destination. In order to move toward that three-year vision, you need to know what you need to achieve in year one. Now you have two to four annual goals. I don't allow clients to have more than four goals because as the saying goes, "when you have too many priorities, you have none."

Now I have a year ahead of me, even if it isn't a calendar year, I plan ahead for the upcoming four quarters. I personally don't like only being held down by calendar years. If it’s April, I’m not going to wait until December or January to plan my goals again. I am going to start today and look forward for the coming four quarters and what I have to accomplish in each of those 90-day periods.

The next step in the process is to craft quarterly goals. There are 13 weeks in each quarter so you break down your quarterly goals into tasks for each of the 13 weeks. The great thing is that you generally only end up with one or two weekly tasks that you need to accomplish each week on your strategic roadmap -- those tasks become your strategic work for the week.

You can take a half-day or full-day during the week and set that time aside to complete these strategic tasks. Now, they're usually meaty tasks. I don't want to say they're just easy things to check off, but it becomes more manageable when you only have two strategic tasks for a given week.

Next, you want to set your daily goals and I actually don't plan into daily buckets until I'm planning for the week ahead. I have a great weekly planning process that you may want to try. It is detailed in my “Win the Week! Planner” video and free download.

When I do my weekly plan, that's when I look at how my week is going to layout and when during the week I will have time for my strategic work.

Strategy and execution go hand in hand. As an entrepreneur, you are executing every single day. But if you don't have a strategy to guide your execution, you may not be moving toward your destination or moving on your roadmap toward that vision. In fact, your execution may be taking you off course.

If you have a strategy and the execution working together so that they are aligned, everything that you do is moving you towards that vision.

I'm excited to share with you that I've created a self-directed course called “Align Your Impact: Build a Vision and Strategy to Guide Your Business” where I guide you through the process I just mentioned. You will build a vision, strategy, goals and scorecards to guide your business. This course includes my guidance in six video modules and a workbook that will walk you through this process step-by-step.

The best thing about the workbook and the videos is that this is a repeatable framework. You can do this process each quarter in your business, and can always be updating your goals and your strategy to move you along your roadmap.

There are some great bonuses that go with the modules including a productivity pack, a scorecard template and training video and a set of motivational quotes.

My purpose is to share my expertise with you so that you can get further, faster and have a bigger impact in the world. This Clarity Funnel process and this course will help you build and grow the business that you envision, even if you have a family at home or if you are working full-time and building your business as a side hustle. This course will help you be more streamlined so you can have that impact. Whether you choose the self-study course or not, I stand ready to support you!

Categories: : Focus, Goals, Strategy, Vision