Beyond the Noise: Finding Your Unique Path in Business

Feeling overwhelmed with the amount of info out there? In my latest episode of The Water Trough, I share insights on navigating the sea of advice and finding what truly works for your unique business. Dive in with Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor! 🌊📈 #SmallBusiness #BusinessAdvice 

Transcript

Ed Drozda: 0:10

Welcome to the Water Trough where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've always wanted. This is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and I wanna welcome you back to The Water Trough. As small business people, our work is cut out for us. There are so many things to consider, so many things to be done, and naturally things are moving at a very fast pace. They never slow down so that we can take a deep breath and kind of figure it out. Obviously that leads to the need for support. The first place that we typically look are trusted advisors, our partners, our employees, people with whom we have a relationship, people who can provide us support by virtue of their own experience. People that we know and that we trust enough to listen to. We have a conversation with these people and that two-way communication allows us to glean very useful information, ideally information that will satisfy the needs that we have at the time. But when that fails, when that is not enough, we turn to a variety of external sources of information. This is where things get a little bit more peculiar. Did you know that Amazon currently has tens of thousands of books on topics about starting a business, small business management, and related categories? Moreover, in the year 2023 over 2.6 million self-published books were released. Of course all of these weren't about starting a small business, but it gives you a sense of what one is faced with when they go out in search of guidance as to how to start a small business, how to maintain a small business, how to improve your small business. Let's face it, the information that is available is overwhelming. Hey, I get it. We live in the age of information, and now with the advent of artificial intelligence, heck there's nothing out there that has ever been recorded or identified that you're not gonna have access to. Overwhelm is just the tip of the iceberg, but in reality, if you're starting a small business, working in a small business, or trying to maintain and grow a small business, you can't look everywhere for answers. It's not just a matter of the sheer volume of information you'd have to sift through. And yes, AI can sort it out for you in such a way that you might find the best of the best, which is out there. But here's the deal. Your business is unique to you. Unless you've already done it, unless you've already been successful, and thus find your own information through an AI search or what have you. You're never gonna find anything that is precisely what applies to you. To resort to searches, artificial intelligence, how to books, and so on is certainly a valuable adjunct. But I do believe, and I am concerned, that many people rely upon these things to the exclusion of their own instinct, to the exclusion of their own intimate knowledge of what they're doing in their business. We've all seen examples of people who have succeeded, who've done amazing things, or as is often the case, what seems to be too good to be true probably isn't true. But in any case, things like that motivate us and excite us, and we come away with the impression that if they can do it, most certainly I can do it. If they did in fact do it, they did it on their own terms, under their own circumstances. But more often than not, attempting to mimic or to duplicate what these others have done leads to frustration and disappointment because in fact, they don't apply very well to what we are doing. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of information out there and there's a lot of very useful and important information out there as well. What I'm suggesting is that we have to first know what we are doing and understand fully how the support and help fits in. Consider looking for help in small measure. For example, you may be having difficulty with certain elements of your business. Let's take marketing for example. Looking in a particular facet of business for support, and then more specifically looking at a particular function within that facet is a really useful way to go. This allows you to be very clear on what you're looking to fix, what you're looking to improve, and so when you seek out information, when you seek out support, you are able to winnow it down to things that apply directly to what you're looking for. Moreover, that process of sorting out what you're looking for allows you to more effectively screen the material that you receive. Because you will receive a lot of material, a lot of information, and while you're spending time looking for answers that which brought you here in the first place continues to have the impact that it has. So you want the process of seeking support, seeking information to be both expeditious and specific to your needs. So for example, in the case of marketing, consider a new business. Having been in business for six months, the ABC corporation has built a very strong website that engages in e-commerce, and have found it to be very successful. However, they have an older cohort of clients that is not particularly adept at online access and management. The company is curious as to how they can move forward and be more effective in this realm. They are in the marketing facet of their business. They have specifically identified that their concern lies with this cohort of potential customers. Having identified the facet of the business and a particular function within that facet, they're in a better position to go out and seek either advice from trusted advisors, friends, partners, and so on, or to seek information online. When doing so, they can be very specific about what they're looking for. Keep in mind, they're not looking for marketing guidance per se. They're not looking for anything to do with websites. They're looking specifically as to how to reach a older population. By doing this, they have expedited the process of resolving the challenges that they face. How about you? How do you get your information? How do you get your support? Do you go through a process of winnowing it down to very specific things, then going out and looking for that? Do you look for broader information? Do you find yourself overwhelmed by all the things that are out there and literally find yourself in a position where there are just too many options to support the challenges that you face? Whatever position you find yourself in, I do hope you'll consider that taking the time to know what challenges you are facing, to understand them better before you seek support will be a benefit to you and to your organization. At the very least, it can both expedite and increase the acuity of the support that you receive. This is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and here at The Water Trough, I wanna wish you a healthy business.