Karri: One of my mantras in business is “Know thyself.” From this I believe women can find great strength as well as abundant resources with which to build a brand and a profitable business. What do you tell women who want to succeed as an independent business person but aren’t sure they have what it takes to really make it?
Molly: Business is not rocket science. The essentials of business success are the same as most other forms of success:
- Know what you want.
- Make a plan for getting it.
- Take action.
- Revise your plan.
- Repeat 3 and 4 until you’ve reached your goal.
Oddly, I think many of us (myself included) get in trouble with step one: Know what you want. For whatever reason, we aren’t specific about what we want to accomplish and exactly what we want as a result of that accomplishment. It’s as if we are superstitious, afraid that being really clear will get us into some sort of karmic doodoo.
Why is a specific goal so important? Here’s a story that will illustrate the point.
A farmer was training his son to till the fields. He showed the young man how to operate the tractor and explained that the way to get straight, parallel furrows was to chose an object on the opposite side of the field and keep the object in front of him at all times.
At lunchtime the farmer looked out and saw chaos. The field was covered in furrows that ran every which way. There wasn’t a parallel line in sight.
“What happened?” demanded the farmer of his son. “Why didn’t you do what I told you to do?”
The boy, who was clearly baffled by his failure, responded, “I did exactly what you told me to do. Can I help it if the cow moved?”
When we don’t have a clearly defined goal, we tend to work in the direction of whatever catches our fancy on a given day. On the other hand, when you know what you want and plan to achieve it, you are more than likely to get there.
Making progress in your business requires setting a very clear, very specific goal and remaining focused on that goal. I think most people have what it takes to do that, if only they get the first couple of steps done.
By the way, it’s not a matter of having the right goal or plan. Steps 3 and 4 will take care of that. If you wait until you get it right to begin, you’ll never start.
Karri: Did you Alpha WAHMs really read between the lines here? Don’t worry about doing it right … just DO IT. The only way to find out what works is to try stuff and see what happens. Then do it all over again! Leave a comment if you’ve ever struggled to set clear goals and / or move from the strategic to the tactical!
Watch for Part III of my interview with Molly Gordon where she talks about a subject near and dear to me: how women tend to mess up with their online marketing and the one thing you must be sure to do if you want to ultimately achieve success with your WAHM biz!
About this Alpha WAHM Blogger: Karri is the Alpha WAHM who owns this joint. She also happened to write the book. 
