Anyone can have a great business idea, and anyone can start a business. But few people can easily step up to being the visionary leader for that business. To do that well, we need a different skill set entirely.

If you own a business, you are a leader and a visionary. Plain and simple, you have to step up to leading your customers, support staff, contract workers, employees, family, and the community around you to seeing and buying in to the vision you have in your heart that caused you to start your business to begin with.

Sensitive topic, right?? As a small business owner you may have spent a lot of time and money going to events, getting advice from Mastermind groups, and asking more experienced business owners how they would go about doing something.  All this is supposed to be great for your business.  And it can be – except that we have a tendency to get too lost in it, and stop listening to our own inner voice, seeing with our own visionary eyes.  

When has anyone said “forget about business strategies and business tactics, you have to become a visionary leader?” It is is rarely talked about but completely critical for success. It’s the answer to your feeling overwhelmed, overworked, understaffed, and underappreciated as the person where the buck stops. It’s also the antidote to your own perfectionism, to staff complaining that you don’t trust them or constantly correct them, and to your reluctance to delegate.

When you’re used to asking more than you listen to your own visionary voice, you start to distrust what you hear or see for yourself.  You start to second-guess, and ask for others to validate what you are seeing.  It takes a little work to get the blindfold off your eyes.  Since I was very small I’ve seen visions for myself and others.  I’m experienced enough as a visionary now to know that it is pretty easy to stop seeing and stop listening - especially when you are new at it, or tired, or not in the habit of asking your own self for advice.

I’m inviting you to a (free) virtual class (teleclass) where I’ll talk about how to become more visionary for yourself and your business.  You’ll find out about:

• How to practice visionary skills
• The things that happen in a business where the owner isn’t visionary
• Why working on your business for hours on end to someone else’s vision doesn’t work in the end.
• The signs you’ve not stepped up to being a visionary business leader.
• The signs of perfectionism that paralyze people and pickle your profits.

Here’s the sign up link for this free call.  Come join in the discussion, and get a start on “seeing” for yourself.  

Why do some people suffer from debilitating symptoms of stress while others who are under equal or greater pressure don’t? This is a question I’ve deliberated for the past 17 years as I’ve listened to countless meditation students tell me about the difficulties in their lives. I’ve learned consequently that there is a distinction between the pressure someone experiences due to the conditions in their life and stress, which is their mind’s reaction to that pressure.

Although constant pressure can lead to physical and mental fatigue and even strain, stress, which is the result of anxiety and fear, is far more likely to endanger your physical and mental health. I’ve also observed that many people conflate pressure and stress; they automatically interpret any feeling of strong pressure as being inherently stressful. But this is a misperception, and understanding the difference between pressure and stress can create a greater sense of ease and well-being in your life.

Differentiating between Pressure and Stress
Pressure is a natural response to the “weight” or “heaviness” of the demands in your life, which you experience in your body, particularly your nervous system. The feeling of pressure starts in the brain as it contemplates your situation; the brain then sends signals about whatever is happening to you to your autonomic nervous system, which manifest as body sensations, thoughts, and images in your mind. Pressure is like an internal messenger that is telling you, “Pay attention.” You experience the message as a demand; it is this demand that constitutes the felt sense of pressure in the body and mind.
Stress is a very different phenomenon. It is your mind’s fearful, anxious, and immediate reaction to the demands that you face. You may be reacting to demands that you are facing at this moment or ones that you anticipate will happen in the future. You may even be reacting to pressure you felt in the past that was so traumatizing that the memory of it triggers feelings of stress in the present. You may also be inflating how truly fearful the situation is or completely misperceiving what’s going on.

The reason stress can be harmful is because it provokes an exaggerated and inappropriate “fight or flight response.” Although the fight or flight response is designed to help us cope with threatening situations, it isn’t intended to be turned on for long periods of time. When it is, the flood of neurochemicals that are released in the process damage the heart, the glands, and the nervous system. Also, when we’re stressed we tend to take up unhealthy habits in order to combat the stress, such as overeating or abusing alcohol or drugs.

Don’t get me wrong — too much pressure for too long a time period can also be debilitating and harmful, however your body and mind are built to cope with sustained pressure and to recover when the pressure is over. But when you are under stress for a long period of time, you are in danger of becoming imbalanced or sick. Your body and mind can handle periodic or brief episodes of stress but they are not equipped to cope with constant stress and the damage it causes.

Using Mindfulness to Heal Your Stress Habit
If you tend to interpret many situations in which you feel pressure as being stressful, then you are in danger of getting caught in a vicious cycle of constantly feeling stressed. The first step in overcoming this reflexive reaction is to ask yourself, “Is this really stressful or am I simply feeling a lot of pressure?” You find the answer by assessing the particulars of the situation, clarifying what action is called for (while being realistic about what you are capable of doing), and accepting that there are times in life when you will feel pressure and the outcome is uncertain. (This is called clear comprehension in the Buddhist practice of mindfulness.) If it truly is a stressful situation and you are in danger or are unable to function, then you need to take whatever steps are necessary to assure your safety.

The second step is to be mindful of whether you are feeling stressed simply because you are under pressure. If so, you can remedy this in several ways:

• Begin with naming it as pressure and clarifying what the demand is. Then define the tasks involved and make a list of what is required of you to complete what needs to be done. 
• Acknowledge the challenge that the pressure presents and work out a system of balancing it. Allowing yourself time to rest, eating healthy food, meditating, being in nature, engaging in physical activity, receiving body work, and getting involved in activities that give you joy can all help bring relief from stress. 
• Find a support system (either a person or a group, professional or friends) to help you deal with the pressure.

The third step is to notice if a feeling of inadequacy, ambivalence, or ambiguity is causing your stress reaction. If so, explore these feelings — they are your teachers as well as your motivation.

The fourth step is to notice if you have a “story” or an identity of being stressed out and ask yourself, “In what way does feeling stressed all the time serve me? If I weren’t so stressed, what would I be feeling? What would I be dealing with?”

If you truly apply yourself to this mindful exploration of pressure and stress in your life, you will become much more mindful of what you are actually feeling. Moreover, once you have clarity regarding the distinction between pressure and stress, you may well discover that you have an increased capacity for handling pressure and are more skillful in dealing with it. You also become more adept at recognizing stress and seeing its destructive nature. In turn, you become more careful about putting yourself in stressful situations and are more likely to seek help in getting out of them.

Copyright Phillip Moffit, 2012

In 1987 Phillip Moffitt walked away from his highly successful post as chief executive and editor-in-chief of “Esquire” magazine to focus on his inner life. After leaving “Esquire,” Phillip spent most of his time studying Theravada Buddhism and practicing vipassana (insight meditation). He also became interested in the mind-body connection and studied yoga, Jungian psychology, aikido, and somatic healing techniques. After he had been practicing vipassana for seven years, Phillip was invited by Jack Kornfield, the founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, to participate in Spirit Rock’s three-year teacher training. In 1998 after completing his teacher training, Phillip established the Marin Sangha in San Rafael, Calif. In addition to teaching the Marin Sangha, Phillip travels throughout the U.S. and Canada leading silent meditation retreats and is co-guiding teacher at Spirit Rock. Phillip’s primary teachers are Ajahn Sumedho and Sri Swami Balyogi Premvarni.

Here is the video:

I’ve had an experience with that 3 times in the last month with being asked to speak at various chapters of an international women’s organization. In all cases, I was asked to travel. Two of the chapters are far enough away from my home to require airfare and hotel costs. Unfortunately, this particular organization has a “policy” of not reimbursing speaker fees or travel, no matter how far the distance. I balk at that when it requires air travel and hotels – I might be willing to speak for free because it’s a great way to get me in front of my target market, women small business owners. But adding on a few thousand for travel costs seems disrepectful to me.

Of course, the chapter leaders of this organization quickly point out that while in front of their chapter audience you can make a pitch to sell a product or service. In this way, speaking at these chapter meetings becomes a simple business transaction – is one willing to “pay” several thousand in travel and days away from the office to bet that the chapter’s audience will purchase one’s offer enough to make up for the cost in time and money? Part of the equation then becomes “how great a match is this particular chapter to my target market, how many people are usually in attendance, and how long do I have to both deliver great, useful content and make a pitch?”

I’ve learned to delve into the details of those questions instead of accepting blanket statements about how great it would be to get in front of their chapter’s members. In order to have a clue as to what ROI I can expect, I need to know those things. In the past months, upon careful questioning, I’ve found out several things that definitely impact the potential ROI.

1. A chapter in a larger city usually has about 30 people, and half of those are direct marketers (not my target audience).
2. A chapter pitched to me as “vibrant” had been in existence for 4 months and was still building core membership.
3. A chapter with a good match to my target audience admitted, when questioned, that they allowed their speaker 20 minutes (although they required the speaker to “fully cover” 4 to 5 bullet points in that time).

If you are asked to provide your expertise for free, it’s not always a bad deal. But it can be – and especially when an organization acts like they are doing you a huge favor to let you stand in front of their audience, and aren’t willing to spend even the gas money to get you there. I suggest putting a few parameters around the things you do for free. As an example, when I do speak for free I require that I am introduced by the host and provide a brief written bio both ahead of time and at the event. (This requirement got put into place when, at a speech in front of about 300 people who were a good match for me, the chapter president thoughtlessly stood up and said, “Oh, everyone’s heard of Sue Painter, I’ll just let her introduce herself.”)

Along with requiring a proper introduction, I require an opportunity to invite people to go to my website and subscribe to my e-zine if they wish. I figure for my free time and expertise, these two basic things are not too much to ask. That’s my criteria for having any chance to get a return on investment of my time. Your criteria might be different.

After 15+ years in business now, I’ve come to recognize that some people will cry poor, ask for freebies, and not even make good use of them or come close to thanking you for your time. I well remember a women a few years ago who asked to lunch with me 4 times in 4 months, picked my brain for a solid 90 minutes (taking notes as she munched her salad), and never even offered to pick up my lunch tab.  That’s my bad – I was overly generous and didn’t draw the line, and I wasted a lot of time.

On the other hand, a few months ago someone called me locally who was just kicking off a small business after several years of planning. She had heard of me and found out I had recently moved to Nashville. She was quick to tell me she had no money, and she asked if I would do a half-day workshop for a small group of her prospects. On the surface, the ROI seemed nil. But I intuitively knew that this woman is a go-getter, and that over time her customers could potentially need me along with her – in fact, I thought that down the road we might be able to do something collaboratively. So I said yes, and although the ROI isn’t there yet, I still believe it will be in the future. Meanwhile, I’ve got a very pleasant new relationship with someone locally who is bright, committed, and a pleasure to chat with. And, I might add, she did profusely thank me for my time, did a great introduction at her workshop, and continued to publish links to my website in her e-zines for a few months.

The bottom line to ROI is that is isn’t always metrics, and it isn’t always saying yes to everything because “you never know.” Those two positions are the opposite ends of a see-saw, and small business owners need to stay somewhere in the middle, balancing between the two ends. While I am often generous with my time, I at least want to be truthfully told how it will be used, and appreciated for it, too. If those conditions aren’t met, my gut feel is that the ROI will never be there, either.

If this ROI post has been useful to you, I invite you to subcribe (above) to my e-zine and my blog feed. You’ll get more content like this, all meant to help you grow your own small business.

Suddenly I noticed that the upright poles of the pier, which had pencil-pointed ends sticking up into the sun, were all tipped in white paint on the left side of the dock. But on the right side of the dock they were all painted black. What kind of secret signal to the boaters arriving by water for their stone crab is that, I wondered? Maybe sail boats on one side, motorized craft on the other? Maybe personal craft on one side and commercial fishing boats on the other?  I’m not a boater, so I couldn’t read the secret pier-pole language. I watched the pelicans strut up and down the docks and dive for fish while I thought about it and waited for my stone crab to land on my table.

Split testing is like those white versus black-tipped dock poles. Let’s say you write a sales letter inviting your customers to purchase a product from you. The elements of the sales letter include the title, the sales copy, the price point of the offer, and a picture of the product sitting on a shelf. But you wonder if the sales would be higher if you changed the sales letter around a little bit, so you develop a second version of it. In version B you keep all the elements the same except the picture – you change the picture to show someone actually using the product instead of it sitting on the shelf. You sit and wonder which version to use – A or B. Suddenly, you decide to divide the list of customers you’re going to send the sales letter to in half, and you send version A to half and version B to the other half. And you track the numbers – which one has better open rates and which one results in more sales? You’ve just done split testing.

Split testing is when you use two versions of an offer, split your customer list, and see which version does best for you. This is also sometimes called A/B testing. Version A of the offer versus version B. There’s a rule of thumb in split testing that you only change ONE element of the sales letter at a time. Why? Because, if version B does better than version A you want to know why. And if you change more than one element you don’t know why. Let’s say you changed the picture AND the title. Oh no! Was it the picture that caused the better response, or the different title? If you made the mistake of changing more than one element in version A versus version B, you have no way of knowing.

Lately, there is a new philosophy that is starting to crop up in marketing that says “let’s have two completely different versions and change several elements at a time. Who cares what the element was that performed better anyway? Whichever sales letter does better, why do we care why? We just drop the underperformer and go with the top performer.” This topic came up at a conference I was attending a few weeks ago – who cares which element made the difference? Strictly speaking, from a corporate marketer’s perspective, you are trying to “prove” and quantify what you do to put numbers on it – because corporations look all the time at their marketing costs and seek to contain them and scientifically get the most bang for their buck. From a small business owner’s standpoint, though, you do sales letters all the time, and you may just want to try two totally different ways of putting an offer out there. You are curious which does better for you but maybe you don’t care so much about exactly why.

But just to be clear, pure A/B testing (or split testing) means that you change only one element in your two different versions so that you can definitely say to yourself, “Ha! That picture that showed the person actually using the product sold twice as many as the one that showed the product sitting on the shelf!” You know exactly what made the difference so that you can replicate it and do it again with success.

So, you may be asking, what does all that have to do with my favorite stone crab claws and the black versus white paint on the tips of the pier poles? Well, you know I’m a curious person. I just about couldn’t stand not knowing what those black versus white tipped poles were secretly signalling to boaters. What if I arrived by boat next time I lusted for those delectable stone crab claws? So when my platter of claws arrived I sheepishly asked the server what those poles meant to the boaters. She laughed and said, “It’s not secret boating language. We were testing out if black tips on the poles would keep the pelicans from perching there any better than white paint on the poles. But it doesn’t matter. Pelicans are going to perch on pier poles no matter if the tips are black or white. Pelicans do what pelicans do – they perch on poles.”

There you have it – the stone crab place was doing a split test. They had version A and version B of pier poles – and that paint color was their only difference. All the poles where the same height. All the poles had pointed ends. The only difference was the paint on the pointed end. The pier poles were a perfect example of what you can do in your marketing. Split testing. A/B testing. To pelicans it doesn’t matter at all. But to your customers, it just might.

Lately, I’ve personally had the feeling that I can spend a good portion of each day trying to keep up with all the newness or I can work on my business, but I can’t do both. I talked to a bunch of entrepreneurs at the WTL conference who also have “change fatigue.”  I came home thinking about how we can all keep ourselves prepared for change.

1. Don’t try to embrace everything at once. When too many changes come at the same time, prioritize what you’ll focus on, and do that from your best guess about return on investment of your time.  As an example, let’s look at the past few months, in which we went in Facebook to the “timeline” with cover page, to changes in how you could use your Facebook business page, to the “timeline” for business pages, to changes in cover photo rules, to the new size for the “profile picture.” Add in the sudden enormous interest in Pinterest and how to monetize that new social media, and the fact that Pinterest itself was changing policies and practices even as it gained in popularity almost overnight. Now throw in the continual changes in Google’s search engine algorithms and the consequent rise of content marketing. Are you dizzy yet?  None of the time you take to understand the implications for your business does a single thing toward servicing existing customers every day – you want to keep your normal high level of service there for sure. So…..give a good long look to what you hug first.
2. Once you understand the implications of a change, systematize and delegate it. Otherwise you will totally be nothing but a secretary to your business, not the small business owner you set out to be.
3. One of the main things that characterizes the future for small business owners is uncertainty. Sooo……if you aren’t comfortable with uncertainly, think about how you can get down with it.  A coach or mentor, maybe?
4. As changes come, it’s harder for you to stand out from others who offer similar products and services. What to do? Look for holes in the market – even tiny ones – and figure out a way to fill that hole with new offers.
5. Want your brand to stick as the world changes at an increasingly frenzied pace? Make sure that your advertising is entertaining, engaging, and has a strong emotional pull. (Thanks to Patrick McCann, Creative Director of Brand Partnerships at Bell Media for that wisdom.)

I got lots of new ideas and information (and some help with how to handle it all) at the WTL conference. But if I let the water hose become a fire hose of new stuff, I’m flooded out and can’t try anything new effectively.  These are my best tips for now…..until, of course, they change.

I collect terms and phrases from other regions that seem descriptive and unusual to me. And when I work with someone from another part of the country (much less someone overseas) I don’t expect that we will have seamless communication. In fact, one of my current clients taught me a new phrase about a month ago. We were talking about her ideal clients (she is an interior designer who also owns a retail store front). She replied, “I don’t target the dolly decorators.” That stopped me! I had to ask for a description of these prospects before we move forward. In this case, the term “dolly decoration” is industry-specific. Almost any interior designer would know who that refers to.

Of all the phrases I’ve collected, none are more descriptive and endearing to me than the ones I’ve gotten from Appalachia, a region in the American Southeast along the mountains of the same name. Some of their phrases are close to many of the Southern phrases I grew up with, but many are news ones to me. (I’m Southern, but I’m not Appalachian.) Here’s a little glossary of some of my favorites.

• Swimmy-headed – Dizzy, faint
• Dusky dark – Late evening while there is still just a bit of light
• Knee deep – A bullfrog (from the sound it makes)
• Airish – Windy or cool outside
• Cackleberry – A hen’s egg (that one took me a moment to get).

Regional phrases definitely can cost you business. If you had a bodega in New York City, and I walked in looking for flour, I might say “I need flour for cat’s heads.” Would you know what to give me? I’m asking for a self-rising flour to make extra large sized biscuits, which are often called cat’s head biscuits in the South.

Here’s a few tips about using the right language with your customers:

1. If it’s someone you don’t know and their accent or phrases are different from yours, repeat the phrase you don’t understand and ask “do you mean……” 
2. Ask your potential new customer what brought them to your business, and then listen very intently. You’ll be able to pick out key words and phrases, which the person will probably repeat a few times. When you respond, use their exact words back to them instead of the words you might commonly say. Example: A 55 year old woman said to me, “I’ve been in a deep, dark place. My daughter was killed in a car wreck, and I just couldn’t focus on my business for two solid years. I was in a deep, dark place.” When I responded to her, I used her term “deep, dark place” rather than the word “depression.” Repeating the prospect’s language will help you build rapport and trust.
3. Remember that even though your accent and phrasing might be different, you are more like the person than you are different. We all have the common bond of wanting to be listened to and understood. Make your best effort to do just that, and you’ll help both your new customer and your small business.

Still, if you feel harried all the time, not only are you suffering (and it will take its toll on your health in time) more than likely your business is suffering, too. It’s too easy to overlook opportunities when you are constantly harried – opportunities to save money by reining in your operating costs and opportunities to offer different products and services to your customers, too.

Here are three ways to hone down that harried feeling that will also strengthen your business.

1. Pick one small thing you are doing that you can hand off to someone else. Do this every day for a week. I challenge any small business owner to improve her business by taking delegation to the next level. You will benefit both personally and professionally. At the end of the week you’ll have 5 things off your plate. Do this once a week every month and it will decrease your harried factor.
2. Make a list of the 3 things you aren’t getting to that are constantly on your mind. Pick one of them. Now make a list of all the reasons why you aren’t getting to it by filling in this sentence “I would get this done if only….” Keep listing all the reasons why until you can’t think of any more. This will give you a clearer idea of what you need to do to get it moving forward. Act to remove just one of the reasons why not, you’ll be surprised at how much energy that sets in motion to go ahead and finish up.
3. Carve out the time to have coffee or lunch with another small business owner. This can be someone you know, or someone new. Allow a full hour. Ask that person about their own business and what is on their to-do list that’s hard to get to. You will leave feeling less harried. You will probably gain a good idea or two for your own business. Taking time out to make a connection feeds us no matter how harried we are day-to-day. It also automatically changes our focus for an hour, giving us respite.  I recommend this time out once a week.

Sometimes you just need someone else’s perspective to clear your head and get a feeling of control again. If that’s the situation for you right now, I invite you to check out my One and Done hour. It’s a quick and cost effective way to feel supported, get answers, and decrease your harried factor.