Stopping and smelling the roses in business is often exactly what you need to work out your next step

One of the interesting parts of business is its constantly changing. What worked a year ago may not be suitable today, and what works today will likely need to change in the future. So how do small businesses and creators stay fresh and ahead of the game?

After years in a products based business I learned there is a sweet spot between being on trend right now and working on the next big thing. I call it the ‘presepis of purpose’
Its when you know what’s going on today and with that knowledge planning for tomorrow.

And a wise friend and colleague once told me ‘data will tell you everything you need to know to make your next move’. This brings me to the bold statement to ‘take time to smell the roses’, what i’m really saying is, Stop and have a look at what is around you, lean in and smell the roses, if the roses smell sweet and are in bloom, find out why! How did this happen? What have you and your business been doing to nourish these roses? Because once you figure that out, you have the magic elixir for the next step forward.

To give one an idea of how this theory works in practice, we recently undertook the process of redesigning this Mhello Studio website. It started with looking at what I had designed already, content, information flow and what was in action, and when working with clients at the first meeting I would ask, how did you find Mhello? what was it that drew you in?

Almost every response was around the fact that I myself had run a product based business for 22 years (and its still well and alive) and that this had been mentioned on our website but not in detail. Additionally I asked that dreaded question of ‘what was missing on the website’ that would have been helpful for you when making the decision to meet with Mhello studio. Everyone came back with ‘I would have liked some kind of price guide’. And there it was, we had succeeded in once sense but stopping and ‘smelling those roses’ led me to ask more about what wasn’t working. And voila, 3 months later our new Mhello Studio 2.0 website launched and we have had an almost immediate response. Our special elixir was discovered by working through what we ‘hadn’t’ done leading to nailing our core unique offering that encompassing our skills and how to package that in a quantitative and qualitative way visually and in writing.

‘Data will tell you everything you need to know to make your next move’.

So, now that we have you listening, what flowers in your business have you taken the time to smell lately? whats working ? whats not working?

Would love to hear your experiences, send some m-hello mail here.