Becoming a Willing Student® Small Business Growth Model.
A Fresh Approach to the Issue of "Small Business Development Fatigue"
Too many small business owners busy themselves with chasing their daily meanderings in “leads”, “total signups”, “website traffic”, “social media likes/followers”, “arbitrary percentages”, “total registered users/downloads”, “raw page views/impressions”, “viral launches/buzz”, “number of employees/PR mentions”, “total money raised”, “total email subscribers”, and other immediate but pointless metrics, but ignore a metric that is essential to the long-term success of their small businesses – Becoming a Willing Student.
If leads, total signups, website traffic, social media likes, page views, total money raised, or total email subscribers was all there was to building a successful, lasting and competition proof small business, then a lot more small business owners would be happy. As this isn’t the case, we don’t adhere to this approach.
The global marketplace isn’t what it used to be. The conventional outside-in small business growth models which are based on first building a product, generating leads or defining a business goal and then performing a series of tasks sequentially to achieve that goal don't work that well anymore. The Becoming a Willing Student® Small Business Growth Model challenges so-called “vanity metrics” that dominate so much talk about small business development with the "Becoming a Willing Student" approach.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
— Buckminster FullerBeyond Business Development to Authentic Engagement.
Becoming a Willing Student® describes an approach to small business development, founded on the underlying principles of authentic engagement. It is an exciting small business growth model that gets you past small business development fatigue and on to becoming a willing student - using your unique brand voice to start intelligent and genuine conversations that actually add value to your customers and makes them fall in love with you.
Traditional small business growth models are based on crafting a single plan for your small business, then working tirelessly and single-mindedly to bring that plan to fruition. This approach to building your small business can work in a static world or under conditions of relative stability, but things have changed. In today's global marketplace, this conventional approach can be severely limiting and dangerous.
To survive in today’s marketplace, you need to stay nimble, evolve, iterate, and always be in the learning and growth mode. I call this mindset "becoming a willing student". As a willing student, each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, and grow more in your small business journey. Becoming a Willing Student is essentially a lifelong commitment to continuous learning and growth. It's about growing your small business smart, expanding the reach of your network, gaining a competitive edge, and attracting the most lucrative of opportunities.
“Becoming a Willing Student is a transformational way to think about small business development that combines the best of personal coaching with the power of authentic engagement to bring about transformative impact.”
— Tawanda Chirenda, Founder
Why Becoming a Willing Student?
It's all about your mindset
In our increasingly competitive global marketplace, there are no short-cuts to building your small business, getting customers or growing your impact. Even if you've found an effective small business growth technique or tactic that can give you a strong advantage, that advantage won't last long once a million other people have learned of that tactic. This is why even the best small business growth tactics and strategies are always only temporary.
I love this quote from Beverly Sills, "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." This is true for just about everything in life, especially building your small business in our highly saturated global economy. Succeeding and effectively growing your small business in today's highly competitive global marketplace requires more than just business development activity or goals – it is a mindset. It is a mindset where you are constantly testing new strategies to find out what works and what doesn't, and then iterating upon them once you've found the winners.
Anything less, such as blindly following or copying basic small business success tips or small business growth tactics from some mainstream source, won't be nearly as effective. The only real "winning strategy" is by continually seeking out effective tactics and strategies that others have not yet realized.
There is a lot of great small business development content out there on how to grow your small business, get customers or get investors, and you absolutely should read it and think about it, but the key is to think critically and skeptically about any information you absorb and test it out for yourself to see if it works for you or not.