Stop Accepting Business Advice

According to the weather app it’s 57 degrees and mostly cloudy.  I was hoping to sit outside, get some work done and soak in some vitamin D.

I looked outside.  Not a cloud in the sky and the sun was warm.  Obviously the weather app was wrong.

Can you guess where I am right now?  Outside on the deck!

I’m glad I didn’t take that expert advice at face value.
 
There is so much expert advice being offered to business owners.

It could be about a “sure fire step-by-step system” that absolutely needs to be followed or you will never fill your next workshop.  Or the 5-key elements that every single website must have and if not, don’t even bother having a website at all.  Or the exact script to use in a sales call because if you don’t use it nobody will ever buy anything from you and you will be broke.

Most of these experts, unlike the weather app I was using, know what they are talking about and absolutely offer valuable advice.  The question to ask yourself is: is the advice you are being offered right for you AND your business right now?  

Did you notice that I highlighted the word AND in that last sentence?

Let me explain.  Sometimes there is something that you could do for your business that is exactly right for where you want your business to go, but it doesn’t work with who you are or what you are willing to do at that time.  Sometimes the reverse is true.  Advice is offered to you that works with your schedule, what you want to be doing, how you want to be doing it, but won’t yield the results you want.

It’s vital that whatever you decide to focus your time and energy on is what’s right for you AND your business, and if it’s not that you rethink your priorities and shift your plan and expectations so that it does.

Here’s a suggestion to help you check in with your own reality and decide what advice to follow and what to let pass you by. Take a few minutes to create a vision for yourself of what you want your business to look like and especially get clear about what you want to be doing on a day-to-day basis.

Once you understand that assess all of your decisions based on that vision and determine if accepting that advice, doing that program, attending that event, marketing in that way is what’s right for you and your business.

What advice is it time for you to rethink?  Let me know by posting in the comments section below.