Another trend I see regularly from my clients and business owners is what I call, “business paralysis”. I will often ask business owners certain questions regarding key personal branding components within their business. For example, what type of target market they want to develop – or how they want to generally resonate with prospects and other businesses.
The response is unfortunately often the same. The business owners tell me that they can’t seem to make a decision on this topic, so they have tabled the topic (often completely!) until further notice! What this translates into is a business that has been derailed/delayed due to indecision and unorganized/unstructured planning and fact-gathering.
The business owner’s demeanor and general business posture follows the paralysis mentality- they often feel resigned to not succeeding and being a business failure. Their personal brand is diluted because they come across as indecisive and lacking self-confidence. Who wants to hire anyone like that?
This same “paralysis” applies to employees looking for a job and/or new career. If you have been told “no” often enough in this economy, you are likely to think you are a failure and hence, go into paralysis over your competence in your given field. Guess what happens then? No one wants to hire someone who has a less-than confident personal brand.
What does this mean for you? Own who you are, whether a business owner or job seeker/employee! Just make a decision and keep moving forward. Any decision is better than indecision leading to paralysis and a weak and inauthentic personal brand. Even a “wrong” decision will mean you are moving forward and that is attractive to the rest of us because you are in control of your life and personal brand. This shows you can handle our business and/or do a competent job as an employee.
Give it a try. The only failure is in not trying- I promise.
