Find Your Why: A Twist on Business Development
Find Your Why: A Twist on Business Development
Last year, I hired Melissa of Waverly Ave. Consulting to be my business development coach, and our time together provided me with incredible value. We examined in great detail challenges I was facing in my attempts to grow Sela Vie, and I learned how to practice new business development tactics. One of my resulting moves was creating an entirely new service—our Two-Day Squarespace Website Sprint, which of all our offerings has performed most successfully since it’s launch! Yay!
But BEFORE we did any of that, we rewound all the way back to WHY I started Sela Vie. I went into our collaboration thinking I just needed some quick tips to ‘get more clients’. But Melissa helped me realize that every powerful step forward begins with a look backward.
We ended up spending roughly a third of our time together rethinking Sela Vie’s mission and vision statements, team values, culture, etc. in order to firmly articulate WHY Sela Vie exists, why I want Sela Vie to grow, and why I want to serve fellow small businesses.
I asked Melissa to share some thoughts about this strategy of reflection for growing a sustainable business, and here’s what she said—
“Building a business you love...and growing it sustainably—
“I’m a business development and growth consultant for agencies, consultants and collectives. One of the first exercises I do with every client, regardless of where they currently are, is understand what they want to build.
“A lot of times founders form a vision when they start their business, but they never revisit it.
And because of that, they continue building something they think they want…or that they think they should want, but, in truth, they are building a business they don’t want.
“This happens somewhere around the 3-5 year mark.
“Here’s the thing—you can build any business you want. You can charge whatever you want. You can work whatever hours you want.
“Start with: What do I want to do? Who do I want to work with? How much money do I want to make?
“And figure out how you can build that thing.
“It’s key to know what you want because you’ll never find fulfillment in building something you don’t. It will never be good enough. You’ll never make enough money. You’ll always have clients you hate.
“And while building any 6-figure business sounds cool, you’ll get there and wonder why it’s not enough.
“So ask yourself what you want.
“Then ask yourself “so that…”
“And keep asking yourself that until you get to your ultimate goal.
“For example, my vision…
“To build a $1m business.
“So that I can support other women in reaching that goal sustainably.
“So that I can be a positive voice for women in the agency industry.
“So that I have purpose in my work.
“So that I’m fulfilled by my work.
“So that I can be the best version of myself personally and professionally.
“So, my real vision is to be the best version of myself personally and professionally. And now I can make better choices based on that vs. the superficial vision of building a $1m business.
