Are you broken by your business?

This year I am celebrating 40 years of running my own business. Running a small business is extremely stressful. 40 years in I still wake up every now and then and wonder if anyone will ever pay me again or book me again!

I often see small business owners losing confidence and wondering how they will cope, or whether anyone will ever pay them again. It may surprise you to know how often I feel the same! But I have learned some coping and managing strategies I can share with you.

1. If you are staring at the computer and getting nothing done - move away from the machines. Take yourself off for a brisk walk. Even if it is only a quick run around the block it will help you meet your deadlines or get back to focus. Sitting and worrying is the worst thing you can do.
2. Find yourself some business buddies you can call. I have been known to ring and say "Just tell me I can do this" when I have needed motivation. Keeping it all to yourself can be a recipe for mental and physical health problems.
3. Keep a file of all the lovely thank yous and feedback you got from clients. Keep it somewhere you can find easily. Read it when your confidence is low.
4. Reach out to those clients and say - I was feeling a bit flat today and I reread your lovely testimonial/comments and I thought I'd say thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.
5. Ask them if you can share their thoughts on LinkedIn - you can but and paste them into a testimonial request if you are already Linked so they don't even have to type them out again. Ask if you can Link with them at the same time!
6. Reflecting on past successes will make you feel more confident about handling today's challenges - and reaching out to people who already rate you can often result in them remembering to give you more work. You can always gently ask them - do you know of anyone else who would love what I do?
7. Don't let poor payers ruin your life and your business. You don't have to put up with that. Increase your prices for slow payers to take account of the hassle of waiting and chasing and put in enough of an increase to pay a lovely Virtual Assistant or Bookkeeper to do the credit control for you. Begging for money is not good for your self-esteem or your bank balance.
8. Set some credit terms of your own in your terms of business and start having a strategy to get paid on time. That may involve finding out if your client has a fast track payment system for small businesses (many do but they don't seem to tell anyone), making sure you can take credit card payments for smaller amounts, asking for deposits or staged payments, or ceasing work until a client comes up to speed.
9. Create a business model that gives you time to do what you love, and enough margin to pay someone to take care of the necessary bits you don't love.
10. Look at what you enjoy and what made you start your business in the first place. Are there ways you could do more of that AND charge more for it?

Whatever you are doing today - if it's working like mad under a pile of deadlines, or staring out of the window wondering if that phone will ever ring or anyone will ever book you again - remember this life, this day, is never coming back again. You'd be surprised how quickly forty years can pass by. I hope you take the time to enjoy it.