The universe has a way, sometimes, of piling on. You know the situation: you'll have separate conversations with three or four people in the same week, and they'll all tell you the same thing. Or you'll read an article or two, by chance, with the same message and then see a movie that tells you the same thing. It could be easy to chalk this up to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, but I think it is more than that. I truly believe that sometimes, the universe takes care of you, as it did me this past week.
I've been working hard lately, refining my service offerings, creating my collateral, etc. All the stuff you do when you start a new business from scratch. And, to be honest, I kind of felt like I was all over the place. I was struggling to find what I thought was my core business, sifting through the things I'm good at, the things I enjoy, and the things that I think people would be willing to pay for (that last one is important in a business.)
Until I spoke to a series of women who are way smarter than I am. (This is the secret to success—having a group of people on speed dial who are brilliant, who like you, and who are willing to talk to you even when you are ugly-crying into the phone.) All three of these women told me, in separate conversations with no prompting from me, that I was doing it wrong.
They were, of course, more kind than that. But the message was clear. I was trying to be all things to all people and missing the opportunity to be really, really good at one thing. (Maybe two.) And they all said I should focus on the same thing—sales strategy. It makes sense. I have twenty years of sales experience. I've taught sales at the University of Cincinnati for five years. I've run more than one successful sales team. I'm passionate about sales. And people need help (oh Lord do they need help) with their sales strategy.
So that's that. I'm now tightly focusing my work on sales strategy and process, and very excited to be able to do that. (I'm still doing overall strategic planning, as well, but more on that later.) The universe made it clear, and I'm not one to argue with the universe.