Building Business Value | Corporate Management Strategies

Buddying Up to Abundance

Is your glass half empty or half full?

If your answer is half empty, then you don't have an abundance mentality.

That's a pretty way of saying you need to start thinking more positively if you're going to grow your anything, be it a garden or a business.

Many managers and leaders operate from the scarcity mentality. They are heard saying, "Recruiting stinks, they can never find the right people" or "We could dominate our market segment if we only had more marketing dollars."  A scarcity mentality leaves you looking for excuses rather than answers.

If you can push yourself to obtain an abundance mentality, you're going to quickly see the value of your business grow. How? Because you'll be looking for opportunities, not waiting around in your robe and slippers for it to come knocking on your door!  I used to teach an entrepreneurship class at UMBC and I would give my students an assignment to look for as many business opportunities as they could in a one week period.  We'd do this in week one and again during the twelfth week.  After talking about the abundance mentality for 12 weeks the number of opportunities students 'saw' went through the roof!

Finding opportunity can happen in a variety of ways, like leveraging your competencies so you're getting the most out of them. Another abundant way is to use your skills, knowledge and staff to find new markets that could require a minimal amount of work to enter, but yield a hefty profit.

Remember that going sideways to find new markets is never a bad thing - consider the dairy farmer who also has a thriving manure business!

If the market doesn't exist, an abundance mentality doesn't say, "Okay, show's over." Instead, that personality says, "Let's make a market after we do some research. There's got to be a way!

Markets aren't the only facet of your business that you can improve with an abundance mentality - your products or services could become best sellers to an entirely new audience with only slight modifications.

Forget about the dairy farmer for a second and consider the fact that Certified Public Accountants provide the usual array of accounting services, but they can also function as excellent financial strategists. Who knows better how to save a buck while making one than a CPA?

Getting into the abundance mindset isn't something you can do overnight, but starting today you can begin working on it. The first step is to take a giant step backward and look at your business from a distance - perspective is golden. Review your processes, guidelines and other operating procedures - small changes that produce quick victories will help reinforce your new attitude.

As your new attitude begins to become your "full time" attitude, you'll notice that you and your business will all of a sudden become 'luckier'. As you turn over a new leaf, you'll see that there's plenty of growth going on underneath it!