Know Your Assets To Drive Results

When I meet with people who want to start a business, or who want to grow a business that is already doing well, one of the challenges they similarly face is knowing what to do next. They might know what they want – to start a certain business or grow to a certain level – but they don’t know how to make it happen. That’s where I come in with providing a strategy to get what they want.

One of the key parts of building a strategy is knowing the assets you have. When I give the strategy keynote presentation, I spend time on this section because it’s so important in developing a winning plan for results. What do you have now that works well for you? What do you have now that could work better for you? What do you not have but you should get so you can achieve your goals faster?

With assets, we often think of hard assets – a website, association membership, advertising budget – but there are also soft assets as well that play an equally important role. One of those is being sure on what you know, and it could be the best asset an entrepreneur carries with them. Here’s why:

Know What You Know

Be honest about knowing what you know.

There are certain things you know for certain because you have the training, education or skill level that supports your knowledge. These things you know are assets to your business because they form part of your expertise, and separate you from the competition who may not have the same knowledge.

Know What You Don’t Know

The next step is being forthright with what you do not know for certain. You might have used a best guess to decide something, but you may not know for sure that it was the best move. You could have read something about promotions and adopted it but may not be certain it is working for your business. You have to be careful that your ego doesn’t get in the way here, trying to convince you that you know something when it was really just the best guess at the time.

We all make decisions based on what we know at the time, and as entrepreneurs, we sometimes have to make the best decision we can, even if we don’t know for sure. Just be forthcoming about that because you don’t want to miss an opportunity to do something better.

Know Where to Go for What You Don’t Know

The things you know for sure will bring up a feeling of strong trust and confidence when you talk about them. For example, having studied and worked in professional writing for more than two decades, I am 100% certain about a variety of writing errors and how to correct them. I can easily defend the editing of content when asked.

However, there are less common writing situations where I am not as confident in the appropriate sentence structure, and for those situations, I have the massively huge Chicago Manual of Style book to reference, as well as other professionals I can ask.

Many business owners have the mindset of trying to do everything themselves so they can save money or save time. (When you have to convince yourself of that, it’s a red flag that you’re likely going to overspend both time and money to do it yourself!) However, business owners don’t have to know how to do everything, but they must know where to go for the things they do not know or cannot do.

Being in the Know

The great thing about compiling your assets is that you are always working from a position of a gain. You gain by being reminded of the assets you already have in place. You gain by using other assets to their fullest potential. You gain by adding new assets.

The more aware you are of what you know and what you don’t know, the stronger your inventory of assets becomes. This is why self-awareness is so important to achieving results.

Hear more about building a strategy that gets results by booking Jennifer as a keynote for your upcoming event, an association conference, or as a strategic move within your organization. Talk to her about customizing a presentation to meet your exact needs.

You can also pick up a copy of Forward Thinking for Your Business at Amazon US, Amazon Canada, Ingram, Indigo, and other venues.  Bulk orders are available.

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Phone: 613-312-7824