You started a business, and things were off to a great start. You felt excited about working every day, and as your profit grew, so did your motivation. But now what? You feel burned out, and you aren’t sure where to go next. Try as you may, you can’t think of any crafty business ideas or marketing campaigns to really kick things up a notch and grow again.
So what do you do? Getting out of a business rut isn’t easy, but it isn’t impossible. The answer might turn out to be a lot simpler than you think. While you try to get your mojo back, here are five suggestions to try.
Learn New Skills
An entrepreneur never stops learning. Education is no longer limited to your certificate or a degree. Your business may be stuck because your knowledge isn’t up-to-date. All your current marketing strategies may not meet today’s industry standards. Learning can also help you rekindle your interest in your niche.
Check out a webinar, attend a business conference, hire an executive coach or learn some new marketing skills on sites like Udemy or Lynda. There are plenty of options out there, and you might develop a new perspective that completely transforms your approach to business.
Change Your Goals
It’s natural to feel discouraged when nothing helps you reach your objectives. If it’s been a while since you achieved an ambition, maybe you should shift your focus. Come up with a smaller goal. Evaluate different aspects of your business. Are there any you’ve neglected in the past that you could turn your attention to now? Focusing on a new goal will force you to think differently, which will help propel you forward.
Stop Thinking About Your Rut
Sure, it’s not easy to just turn your thoughts off, but turning your attention elsewhere will make a world of difference. You may notice that you spend the majority of your time fixating on how little you’re accomplishing. This mindset is only going to perpetuate the cycle. In order to achieve things, you have to go after them. Think about how you were when you first started your business. You didn’t want for things to happen. You made them happen.
Try a New Form of Marketing
Maybe it’s time to switch up your social media strategy and explore new horizons. Have you considered focusing less on your company’s blog that gets little to no reads and producing content for a different platform? Visuals and video are big now, so you may find that by changing the way you market your business, you attract a different set of customers.
Ask Your Employees for Feedback
If you feel like things aren’t going anywhere, chances are the people who work for you felt that way first. Hold a meeting and ask them how they’d like to improve things around the business. You might be surprised at some of the ideas they pitch. This is also a good opportunity to humanize yourself to your workers and become closer. Collaboration is a team-building exercise that boosts morale and energizes the workplace.
The most important thing to remember in a business rut is that this is only temporary. Just like relationships have their seasons, so does work. Some months, you won’t be able to get enough done in a day. Others, you’ll feel like the hours drudge on forever and nothing is changing.
Remember that a growth-oriented mindset is good when you’re starting out, but a business also needs to be met where it’s at. A lot of owners let the ambition that helped them found their companies become nasty comparison models that make every milestone feel lackluster. Remember why you started this endeavor in the first place. Experiment with new marketing, try new things and use this rut as a chance to explore aspects of your business you were too busy to try before.
