In the play “As You Like It” Shakespeare pens a melancholic character through Jacques, who states the now famous line,”All the world’s a Phoenix karaoke… “
Shakespeare was brilliant in expanding our conceptual reality through the theater by bringing our attention to the drama that is day-to-day living from human stages of life. Like most of his work, there are multiple meanings in the voices of his characters.
As a business consultant with a background on the stage and screen, I’m always seeing the meaning in the metaphors.
The point of stages of human development can be a good way to analyze your business against what stage of development it’s currently in versus what is appropriate. I see this with potential clients who are developmentally ready for key actions but are experiencing “stage” fright. Fear to take the next step in your stage of business is really resistance to change and can keep you small and unprofitable.
If you are in the first stage of a business, even if it’s just a gleam in your eye, it’s usually a passion (also can look like necessity) that’s driving much of the momentum. Yet this stage is where strategy is crucial and is why most businesses fail within the first year.
At the stage of a business where you have not understood and established the purpose (to generate a profit – that’s what separates a business from a hobby or a charity) and structured the form of your business appropriately expansion and profit cannot take place.
Consulting with women entrepreneurs and small business owners who have not established the foundational stage of their business are overburdened, underpaid and stressed seeing no to few clients and poor to no cash flow.
When I sit down with my client, I spend some time evaluating what stage the business appears to be in with actual reality. Only then can we discover what stages might have been missed and therefore repair or build out to bridge the gaps.
There is a process to building your business. Having a balanced and custom strategy for your stage of business can get you where you want to go much faster and with a stability that allows for the next developmentally appropriate stage that will award you more clients and cash flow.
I’ve made the mistake of skipping stages as well as skimping on stages. Taking developmentally inappropriate actions results in wasted time, energy and effort not to mention exorbitant amounts of money. From having to redo marketing materials, websites and insignia to losing a major client because you are not ready to deliver to having tax repercussions. All are a result of poor stage strategy.
