Running, Confidence, Dressing Nicely and Business Success

Hello. It’s been a while since I posted, and although I regret that it’s been a while, there is a good reason. We’ve been super busy at work. And let me say, when you own your own business, busy is way preferable to not busy!

We are having high sales this month. But the even better news is that we have been creating opportunities which could lead to ongoing increased sales. Some of these opportunities haven’t panned out yet, so I hope I’m not jinxing things by mentioning them!

So, there are a number of factors contributing to us being able to create opportunities, but I just want to talk about the ones related to running.

Confidence Through Running

I started running several years ago. And one of the best things about running for me is that it makes me feel strong. I’m sure it’s the same for you. But once I realized I could run x number of miles, or race in a variety of distances, it made me see that I’m pretty strong. This gave me more confidence. I learned that I could do more than I thought. And the every day work problems lost significance .

Dressing Nicely 

As my body transformed through running, I had to start buying new clothes. I’m too cheap to spend much on clothes. So for years, even though I was now in good shape, I didn’t dress nicely. Instead of dressing like the owner of my business, I dressed like the delivery lady. 

That all changed a few years ago when I got a second job at a women’s clothing store. Through working there, and helping ladies with their wardrobes, I began to see that dressing nicely is another way to build confidence. The fact that employees are entitled to shop at the “company store”, where everything is $5 or $10 helped me transform my wardrobe quickly and frugally. 

Now, when I go see our business customers or prospects, I’m not preoccupied with feelings of inadequacy. I know I look nice, so I can concentrate on building our business.

Petty I know, but I’m convinced that dressing more nicely is helping me build our business.

Goal Setting

The other way that running is helping to build our business is through goal setting. I think all of us runners can easily appreciate the process of setting a goal – like  running a marathon – and following the steps to achieve the goal. But as business owners, I’ve got to confess that we’d become a bit lazy about setting goals.

We had a tough month in July, and it made me refocus on the goal setting. At first, I didn’t have any concrete goals. I only knew that we needed more sales. I got a pen and paper and wrote “we need more business” over and over on the page. (Did I mention we were slow?)

Now I’m not going to say that we magically got more business because i wrote that sentence four times! But I will say that  actually writing those words made me focus on ways to go about getting more business.

We strategized and came up with a real plan to help us get more sales.

All this, thanks to running!

Now wish us luck!!