A few years ago, I sent out a 1-question survey to a local women’s group in San Jose. Thirty-two entrepreneurs shared their answers with me. Here is what they said was their number one challenge to growing their business this year:
- 53% answered with some form of marketing or selling challenge, such as finding clients, prospects, and leads given tighter budgets, more competition.
- 22% answers fell into planning/strategy: higher level biz dev, partnering, finding opportunities, resource management
- 9% mentioned time
- 9% mentioned staffing issues
- 6% of the answers were mindset-related - focus, self-discipline
Over half of the entrepreneurs, mostly women, considered marketing to be their greatest challenge, and only six percent of women felt they needed to work on mindset. I’m going to make a bold statement here and say that those two percentages should be reversed.
In other words, most people should be working on mindset, and for very few is the issue really marketing. The problem is they can’t see it from where they are in their business.
It wasn’t until I took a giant leap and joined a very expensive, high-end coaching problem that I saw what I needed to do in my business to gain a quantum leap. After I got behind the scenes and studied how these women got a net change in revenues of anywhere from half a million to two million in one year, I finally figured it out. I would never have figured it out on my own. And so, even though I do want more clients and I’m learning new marketing techniques all the time, mastering mindset is where I know I’ll get the quantum leaps.
Only a coach or someone much farther along than you in your business can help you take that quantum leap; I feel that it’s almost impossible without help.
What will you do to make your quantum leap this year?
Want to learn more about marketing opportunities from Sandi Smith Leyva? She will be presenting a free webinar with Insightful Accountant on May 1. Click here to learn more about it and how to register.
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Sandi Leyva
Author Bio: Sandi Leyva, CPA, CMA, MBA, and founder of Accountant’s Accelerator, has helped thousands of tax and accounting professionals earn more, work less, and serve their clients better through her innovative marketing, training, and coaching services. Author of 30 books and hundreds of CPE courses, Sandi has won 12 awards for her thought leadership. Visit her at accountantsaccelerator.com and acceleratorwebsites.com.