Diversity is important in small business

Is business as linear as you’ve been told, or is it more diverse?

In this reality, business is thought to be about one thing – niche, subject, offer, or theme. You’re supposed to figure out your ideal customer or your ideal market, where you have all the answers. What if you could use that information to your advantage, without limiting your business to just this specific market? What if diversity in yourself as well as your business meant something different?

Is business as linear as you’ve been told or is it a lot more diverse? I always knew there were more possibilities, and yet it was driven at me from such an early age to pick a career, stick to it and create a safe haven.

What if business was the adventure of living? Are you using your age, gender, and society to stop what is possible? Remember that saying; the world is your oyster? Well it is.

Diversity is important because you have a variety of possibilities to choose from. How diverse are you willing to be? Here are a few tools to use:

Are you willing to surround yourself by capable people & listen?

One of the greatest mistakes people make is when they think that nobody can do the business as well as they can. I did it, I know. I would hire people who didn’t know the job as well as I did, which just meant I had to work harder. After acknowledging I had this point of view, I changed it. I started hiring people who were better than me, who knew more than me, who could organise, connect and sell more than me.

I once heard a successful businessman comment that his key to success was to surround himself with capable people and listen. If you have a diversity of people in your business, it just may get easier and you may have more time to create.

 If you have a diversity of people in your business, it just may get easier and you may have more time to create.

How many businesses/projects are you willing to create?

If you’re willing to let go of control, hand the reins over to other people without micromanaging and clear the space for more possibilities, then you can create more revenue streams.

How much money have you decided your business can make? If you start asking questions, then you can start to play with your business. A question will always open you up for more information, whereas an answer and a conclusion will shut down any future possibilities. Take the time, ask, ‘What revenue streams are available here that I have not yet acknowledged?’ And be grateful for them all. Some may start out small and then turn into something much larger.

My book Joy of business is translated into German, Polish, Spanish and Croatian. I am now travelling and facilitating seminars in these places, which opens up more revenue streams from one book.

The willingness to change, sell & move on

How many businesses have you decided you are allowed to have in one lifetime? Just because you start a business does not mean you have to stick to it, like a relationship. You’re allowed to change it. What if one business inspired another one and another one and another one? But if you have the limited point of view that you have to stick to what you started, then you cut off all the future possibilities for more revenue streams.

Find out what you enjoy the most. Do you like creating the business? If so, then create it and move on. Sell it, get someone to manage it, take on business partners; there are choices. This will leave you more space to create another business, another revenue stream. What if business was about the joy and the fun of it all? Money follows joy. Joy does not follow money.

If you embrace diversity in the business world then greater possibilities can show up. If you embrace diversity in your life then you can have many adventures. How many revenue streams can each business create for you? Have you asked?

It starts with a choice and then a question.

 Simone Milasas, Business mentor, author, Joy of business

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