In the A – Z of Marketing, X is for … Finding Your X Factor

To celebrate the forthcoming launch of my virtual book tour on 1 October, here is a section from the book for you to enjoy!

Running your own business can be very rewarding; it can also be extremely hard work. The small business market place is particularly crowded, with more and more people deciding to set up their own companies. If you’ve been made redundant, become frustrated with the long hours and expensive commute that leaves you no time for your family, or you just want to be your own boss, you might be one of these people. You’re not alone. Almost 500,000 new businesses are formed in the UK every year, so you need to develop the strength to keep going, no matter what. The lure of working shorter hours can all too soon turn into very long hours just to keep afloat. The desire to have no one else to answer to means you actually have to cope with having no one else to talk to and no one to turn to for advice and support.

If your business is just you, you need to develop an even higher level of resilience and persistence, as you take responsibility for the entire business. You need to get really clear on your strengths, because they will keep you going and keep your business ahead of your competitors. You need to find your X Factor.

One of my clients, Elizabeth, wrote an issue of her newsletter about the importance finding your X Factor. She advised that one of the best ways to discover it is by asking other people. “So what is my X Factor?” I asked her. Her reply surprised me. “It’s your drive, focus and ambition.” It surprised me because I’d never associated myself with those words. In the previous section of this chapter I wrote about the importance of rewards and celebrations; acknowledging your strengths is just as vital and was something I didn’t do very well before.

What is drive? Drive is what gets me out of bed in the morning. It’s a desire to do something and get somewhere. You could also call it self-motivation. It’s a vital ingredient required for running your own business, because unless you have an investor pushing you to grow your business and pay back their investment, you’ll need to rely on your own drive. Unless you have a mortgage to pay, children or animals to feed, or holidays to take, you won’t have the drive you need to really go places. A few years ago, the term ‘lifestyle business’ was coined. Some people love admitting to running a lifestyle business – one that earns them enough to live their lifestyle, a company that is just them and will probably just close when they retire or decide to move on. Other people take offence at being branded this way. They are the ones with the drive to do more with their businesses, be that building a company that can be sold or taking on staff and providing for their lifestyles.

What about focus? Without focus you lose your way in your life and your business. It’s about having clear goals and targets to aim for. In 2006 when I first saw my new home, Appletree Cottage, it became my goal; I focused on it for the twelve months it took before we could move in and take on staff in the office in the garden. Then I lost my way for a while, as I didn’t have another clear goal to aim for. Things changed when my new focus became reaching ten years of business. The way was lost again in 2010 when I put too much focus onto one project and took my eye off the main business, as you’ll read in the final section of this chapter. Now my focus is very clear. We have monthly and annual targets for sales, profit, number of members of staff and days of holiday. Breaking the large, long term goals down into medium and short term ones gives us a really clear focus in the business, from one month to the next. The results speak for themselves as we hit each target!

Are you ambitious? Personally, I had never seen myself as ambitious, until Elizabeth identified my X Factor. Throughout my life I’ve been competitive, which could be considered similar. However, being competitive for me was actually about proving to other people that I was good at whatever I was doing – it was the physical proof I needed. Whether it was the number of staff I had working for me, the turnover of the business or the colour of the dressage rosette I won, it was always a comparison against someone else. I needed more staff, a higher turnover or an enhanced placing to show that I was better. Running a business that nearly fell apart twice – once because I worked so hard in an effort to prove how good I was and a second time because I would not consider ‘failure’ – has taught me the difference between being competitive and being ambitious. With the former you’re always up against someone else; with the latter it feels like doing things for the right reasons. When I ran my first London Marathon I decided that I would run my own race. It was not about competing against anyone else on the day; it was about my ambition to finish in one piece.

So what’s your X Factor? What core strengths do you have, that will help you succeed in your business? It might be just one main strength, or it may be a combination of a number of them. To find out what it is, ask the people who know you. Then write it down ? put it on the wall by your desk so that you can see it every day and remind yourself what it is that makes you and your business great. Your X Factor is what will keep you going when times get tough. It’s what will help you build a great business.

Find your X Factor to keep your business going.