DEAR ENTREPRENEUR,
“Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.”- A mantra I know you have encountered, just as I have, in daily conversations and even in free and paid consulting sessions. These words tend to make their appearance whenever we speak about changing things up. But all this phrase is saying is that it is there, and it works, but it’s also not striving towards more. This way of thinking made me question why you wouldn’t want to grow in your business or at least plan for the growth.
As a leading business and brand strategist, I can confidently tell you that not fixing something because it isn’t broken sends the wrong message. It doesn’t just tell your audience that you as a company are not willing to grow, but it also conveys to your employees that you don’t value growth or any form of evolution. The only constant in this world, and for business, is change, even Einstein (apparently) embraced this.
So if you’re a visionary who has been putting off change, and needs a kick-up-the-butt to break this stigma, then, this article is for you.
Why we’ve been told not to fix it?
As I became aware of the “don’t fix it if it’s not broken” mentality and started questioning it, I realized that it is there because:
- We, as CEO’s, Founders, Managers are comfortable with the known
- We’re apprehensive to take what seems like an unnecessary risk
- Fixing it would be too much effort
Before I delve into the above-mentioned points below, I first want to acknowledge that I understand where you as an entrepreneur are coming from. I have seen entrepreneurs spending time and money to find that special ‘secret’ that keeps a business running profitably for years. I know we as entrepreneurs work extremely hard at making our business and brand ‘work’, and it can take years and years of hardship before achieving what is perceived as an ‘overnight’ success. But the secret isn’t in having a system that works forever, but rather in evolving and evaluating the system that you’ve started to build your success on.
Sound a little far-fetched?
A well-known system that has failed to evolve according to evaluation is the school system. With the rise of the digital age, the younger generations have grown to understand that their ‘dream’ is no longer to become a great ‘worker’ as schools would like to have them believe. There has been a shift towards individuals wanting to become incredible, independent, and successful entrepreneurs who are able to follow their own dreams and live their lives the way that they intend to.
This refusal to adapt, from both parties, has already started to disrupt the success of the school system. You need to shift your mindsets from failure because fixing something doesn’t mean that you have failed. It means that you see the ever-present opportunity for evolution and you’re going to work towards it. So don’t shy away from change, position your business and brand so that it promotes change.
There is always room for potential.
The two most significant problems with not fixing things that are going well are that it:
- Urges you to be complacent
- Wants you to accept mediocrity
Don’t get comfortable in the mediocrity of accepting something because it works when there is so much more that can be done. As a creative visionary and entrepreneur, I am sure you know by now that there is always room for fixing or improvement. It can be improving your business performance, adding more value to your brand, or even taking the leap and scaling your business.
Take me for example, a leading business and brand strategist and brand communications specialist, who if I had followed this impractical advice would never have adopted my signature approach to brand your soul® and written my book on finding your life’s purpose. I would not have been featured by Forbes or Buzzfeed if I simply accepted that my marketing company generating income was enough.
And if I believed that implementing worldwide marketing strategies taught in all Universities and online education schools was enough I would not have been considered a business mentor and edutainer or even been given the opportunity to be a University Lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Austria or a trainer and expert at the Austrian startups’ youth entrepreneurship week.
By continuously finding things to ‘fix’ in my business, I am able to expand in it and set myself apart from other strategists in that I am aligned with my values of innovation and game-changing. This form of ‘fixing’ is less concerned with ‘effort’ and more with ‘play’. Playing with the energy of my business to take my brand and marketing company to new heights aligns with my purpose and allows my business to evolve along with me as a human being within my business and brand to live my life rather than just exist.
How to fix your business?
1. Break out of your comfort zone
You took the leap and started your business, but this right here is not where it ends. This is where it all starts! The importance of fixing things that aren’t broken comes in because your brand can start to feel stale after you have started your way towards success. Why?
Because the soul that invested itself into the initial process has evolved and is no longer satisfied with the same-old-same-old. You have built the initial empire, and now it is time to not only personalise but grow within it. Think of it as you adding a little sparkle, a few extra twists and turns to create that depth that makes a brand personal and not only professional.
Staying in your comfort zone can cause you to get left behind, no matter how impactful you think your business is. Yes, we’re all still talking about the Nokia 3310 but they didn’t step out of their parameters as time progressed and we, as consumers, moved on. As we change, our comfort zones change as well, what was scary last year might seem manageable now, so always take the time to re-evaluate where you are.
The comfort zone tends to blind us to our own abilities. While working with one of my clients who decided to fix themselves as a way to ‘fix things’ in their department I had the ability and expertise to see that their growth was meant to be cultivated in a different environment. By saying that the change that was really needed was for them to move to a different department, and continue their growth there, I realized how they never even considered the option because they had grown comfortable in the environment that they were in.
Remember: fixing it does not necessarily mean changing yourself or your entire business. It can also relate to your offers, your team, and your location. As your values and experiences increases, so too should the value and varieties within your company.
2. Take the risk
Taking the risk is a daunting idea regardless of if you’re thinking financially or visually because as an entrepreneur who wants to be successful we tend to want to fit in rather than standing out. We forget that some of the most successful entrepreneurs were willing to take the risk. Elon Musk accepted a great financial risk by spending his last cents to pay his employees at Tesla. He did this believing that the company would soon be an asset, which as we now know, turned into a billion-dollar company.* Even Larry Ellison would risk hiring someone that’d not technically qualified because he believed with the right training they would be his biggest asset, (This was only one of the risks he took on his way to becoming one of the richest people in the world.*). Beyoncé risked leaving Destiny’s Child to be a solo artist and so did Harry Styles when he left One Direction, and look where that got them.
Risk is not only intuition, but also logic and hard facts. You need a blend of both for growth and development to take form in your business. At BrandSashka I look at the hard facts, but I also use my intuition as the final decision maker when I need to make big company-altering decisions. The risks that I have taken when choosing my brand messaging has materialized as me colouring outside of the lines. This was the way that I wanted to showcase myself and my company to the world, so I accepted the risk of staying true to myself. But not everyone is me, and that is good.
This is what makes me exceptional at helping my clients. I allow them to see their risk in a positive light rather than viewing it as something big and scary.
3. Make the effort
When the opportunity comes, make the effort. In light of Coca-Cola losing millions because Cristian Ronaldo decided to push the drink away, the opportunity was there. Smaller companies such as Tiroler Kola should take advantage of the exposure. Their efforts could have included Instagram ads and a designated hashtag to involve the people that thought it was time to speak up. But the effort isn’t only measured in the way that your company performs. Fixing or improvement is all about evaluation and evolution: in order to evolve, we need to evaluate.
This evaluation includes, as Steve Jobs was often quoted saying, “looking back to join the dots”. It’s important to look back to where you started, only then can you truly evaluate where you are now and where you need to go next. Even when it comes to making an effort to improve the work ethic or culture for employees you are actively fixing your business through educating about diversity in the workplace and building leaders that can take your business further
I have worked with many entrepreneurs to understand that ‘making an effort’ is easier said than done, there is a lot involved in ‘fixing, evaluating and evolving’, which is why it is important to have a strategy and plan of action to ensure that the effort is not in vain. If you decide to invest in a brand communication specialist, such as BrandSashka, your effort would become effortless as there would be an entire team dedicated to the continuous improvement of your personal business and brand.
Fixing isn’t a solo job!
You don’t have to work on re-aligning your entire company alone. There are mentors and communities out there who resonate with your ideals, goals and intentions, who are ready to assist you with your growth strategies. In my free 30-minute strategy session we look at your current marketing, advertising and branding efforts and compare them to what it is that you need now. It’s a way for us as creative visionaries to pinpoint where your brand can use a little fixing and for me as a purpose-aligned individual to show you how you can put your soul back into it.
Share with me, have you encountered the ‘why fix it if it isn’t broken?’ question when you started to talk about changing things u? If you’ve been wanting to change things up do you believe that these three steps are something that you could implement for your business’ extraordinary growth?
Looking forward to hearing more from you below!
