How to overcome business obstacles to expand your business
It’s so difficult to find clients.
I don’t know what to do to sell my services.
I can’t compete with so many people out there offering the same products/services.
My clients aren’t going to accept my prices.
Maybe it’s not worth it.
Maybe I should quit and find a real job.
Can you relate?
Every time I attend an event related to my industry, I can’t help to notice people complaining because they’re struggling with their businesses.
But let me tell you something:
[Tweet “Obstacles are good signs for your business.”]
In fact, a business that doesn’t have to face any obstacles is stuck and not growing.
We should be celebrating that we’re overcoming obstacles, because that means that we’ve got a developing business. We’re growing thanks to these obstacles.
No, this is not a motivational post and I’m not going to encourage you to overcome obstacles for the sake of it. That’s not me, I’m sorry! In fact, I’m the most sceptical person when it comes to reading these blogs that tell you that you’re the best and you can get everything that you want. (Take them with a pitch of salt!)
However, I’m going to talk about how we can benefit from these obstacles and how we should face them in a logical way.
This post is more about having a business mindset when it comes to overcome business obstacles. (And there’s a gift at the end!)
1// Why do we need to overcome business obstacles?
[Tweet “We need to overcome obstacles to become the person who we need to be to be successful.”]
A future version of ourselves.
I know, this may sound a bit farfetched. But let’s do a quick exercise to make this clearer. I want you to take a piece of paper and answer this question:
- Imagine yourself as a successful person. A person who managed to have a profitable business. Maybe you have just started to work on your business, or maybe you’re dreaming with having your own business. Then, imagine yourself in 10 or 20 years, once you’ve achieved this dream. What do you look like? (I really advice you to take a few minutes to answer this question.)
In my case, I described a person with skills that I don’t have at the moment. A person with enough experience to solve problems that I couldn’t solve now. A person with more resources that I have now, and so on.
I guess that you came up with something similar, right?
Now, imagine that the “present you” is living the life that your “future you” is living. We wouldn’t be able to cope with that. Our profitable business will go south.
Why?
Because we’re lacking the skills, experience and resources. And that’s why we need obstacles. To get everything that we need to become a successful person.
Let’s illustrate this with an example:
Imagine that you have a well-established business in the UK and you want to expand your business in Spain.
Suddenly, you come up with a lot of obstacles:
- How can I target a new culture speaking a different language?
- How can I start looking for international clients?
- How can I reach out to them?
So many obstacles…
But we need all these skills to success and manage all these new clients:
- Speak their language.
- Be able to find new clients in a different country.
- Know this new market.
- Have contacts in Spain.
Now imagine that 15 new clients contact you without having these skills.
Exactly, you wouldn’t be able to manage them and you’ll end up losing them.
We need to overcome these obstacles first to be successful.
2// How can we overcome business obstacles?
Ok, now that we know the theory, let put it into practice.
I always say that the theory is useless if we don’t do anything to put it into practice. Now that we know why we need business obstacles to make our businesses grow, let’s see what we can do to overcome them.
This strategy is simple, but very few people out there are using it.
Behind every business obstacles, there’s a reason behind it that relates to a skill that you need learn or an action that you need to take. And this is what we need to identify.
We need to turn obstacles into skills that we need to learn to develop ourselves and become this “future me”.
Following the example before:
- Obstacle: I don’t know how to attract an international audience to my website.
- Skill: Translate my website into the language of my new targeted audience.
- Solution: Hire someone to translate my website.
This is just an example. If you don’t need to hire someone and you can do it on your own, the solution could be planning the translation of your website.
3// Why is this exercise so important to overcome business problems?
We are addressing the skills that we need to learn to solve problems.
Normally people tackle isolated problems. Once they’ve overcome a specific problem, they forget about it.
However, if we address the skills that we need behind each business obstacle, every time that we come across a new problem related to the one that we’ve already solved, we’ll have the necessary resources to tackle them.
So, I would recommend that for every obstacle that you’re facing at the moment, identify the skill that you need to learn to overcome it, and then split this skill into small steps to achieve it.
To make things easier for you, I’ve prepared a PDF called “Road map to overcome business problems”.
It’s ready to download and fill with your business problems, solutions and steps to take. If you are already subscribed to my email list, you’ll have received an email with the link to download it!
If you’re not subscribed to my email list –go and subscribe now! 😉 -, you can download it here:
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