This is a guest post by Lucy Kyle. Lucy is a coach and consultant that helps small business owners uncover their ‘gold’ and use it to build the livelihood they want. You can read more about Lucy at her website.

I work with people who want to make a living doing what they love, using their creativity to build a business and passion to drive it forward. Although my clients do many different things from fashion to film, they tend to have two things in common.

  1. They often believe they don’t have enough money, clients or time.
  2. They are unaware they could be sitting on a goldmine of untapped resources.

This problem of scarcity is rife in both life and business – especially with the current state of the economy, but if we spend all our time focusing on what is lacking we are actually in danger of missing out on potential treasures.

Luckily there are some simple steps you can take to help shift your focus so you can start to make the most of everything you’ve got.

Focus on what you want

The first step is to focus on what you actually want, rather than what you haven’t got.  How much is enough?  How much money, how many clients or how much more time is going to make the difference?  This is a question I always ask my clients and the answer I usually get is that they don’t know.

They say that the quality of an answer depends on the quality of the question – and it’s true. If you tell your brain you need more money, the usual response is panic!  But, if you can get more specific your brain has something to work with and starts looking for solutions.  Try it yourself, you might be surprised at how little you need.  For example if you want two more projects where could you get them from?  It could be as simple as asking existing clients for a bit more work.

Focus on what’s working

The 80/20 rule was created in the 19th century by Pareto an Italian economist but is surprisingly still very relevant today. It states that just 20% of what we do has 80% of the total impact and this applies to every area of our life.

We might have a cupboard full of food but eat the same 20% of items 80% of the time by having cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch everyday.  Or have a wardrobe full of clothes but wear our favourite jeans most of the time.  In business it means that as a rule of thumb 80% of sales could come from just 20% of your customers or products.

The key is to focus the majority of your time and resources on the 20% – not waste them on areas that aren’t working.  Most successful businesses are niche – they offer a high level of expertise in a specific area and are very clear about who their customers are and what they offer them.  As the American comedian Bill Crosby puts it ‘I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody’

Focus on what you’ve got

In this digital age having loads of friends is de rigour. We are more connected than ever meaning that it should be easier to get our message out or ask for help.  However, how many of your friends, contacts and colleagues actually know what you do?  Let alone how they could help you grow your business?  Based on my client’s experiences – not a lot.

Often the tendency to look for new business focuses on trying to convince complete strangers to buy your products and services.  As word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing this isn’t always a great strategy.

If you’ve got hundreds of friends, acquaintances and clients then maybe you could consider applying the 80/20 rule to identify the key people to start talking to.

I have suggested this process to hundreds of clients and without fail they have suddenly remembered someone who could give them what they need, be it the person who works for a blue chip company they want sponsorship from, or a friend who could help them get their online profile up.

By undertaking the first two steps and focusing on what you want and what’s working you should have a much better idea of what you still need, if anything at all.  Once you know – get it out there, tell everyone in your network about your exciting plans and what you want and you could be amazed at how quickly you get it.