By Susan Guillory
This month, celebrate your best Valentine: your business. It supports your passions, lets you do what you love, and helps you live the life you want to. Here’s how I profess my love for my marketing company.
1. I love you for the diversity you bring.
What’s so exciting about running my own business is that I never know what the day will bring. A client I worked with five years ago might pop up, looking for some assistance. I might meet someone who inspires me to try new things. Every day is exciting and keeps me on my toes.
2. I love you for making me a better business person.
When you’re an employee, you might strive to improve your skills so that you qualify for a promotion. But as a business owner, there’s really nowhere upward to climb. Still, I’d argue that entrepreneurs are more driven than employees often, and will compete with themselves to be better. I pride myself on continually stepping up my game.
3. I love you for giving me flexibility.
When things are slow at work, I’ll take off early and enjoy my afternoon. I can do my grocery shopping midweek rather than competing with everyone else on the weekend. I am so grateful for the flexibility in my schedule that running a business brings.
4. I love you for your unlimited financial potential.
To be fair, I’m not making millions. But I know that the sky’s the limit if I am willing to put in the time. I’m not capped with my salary, the way I would be as an employee. Every year, my business does slightly better. Looking back at where I started, I’m pleased at our financial growth.
5. I love you for bringing me cool clients.
I’m lucky in that I work with some pretty amazing small business owners. I truly love their stories and getting to know them, as well as helping them grow. Not everyone is fortunate enough to work with awesome people like me.
6. I love you for giving me a story.
When people ask what I do, I love telling them that I’m an entrepreneur. That usually leads to the story of how I ended up being one, which is fun to tell. But the story continues. Every day adds a chapter to my fairytale entrepreneur story.
7. I love you for keeping me on top of my industry.
Because I work in an industry that is heavily influenced by technology, the landscape is always changing. If I want to stay on top of it, I have to be tapped into what’s happening. So my business helps keep me sharp about the latest innovations in marketing. And I enjoy that.
What’s great about absorbing all of that information is that I can then share it through my published content around the web. Not only do I help others with what I’ve learned, but I also show my thought leadership, which often attracts new clientele.
9. I love you for taking me to interesting places.
In the last 10 years of running my content marketing firm, I have written books, given presentations, and met amazing people. I love it when my business takes me in a direction I didn’t anticipate. It all adds to my skillset.
10. I love you for giving me a reason to smile each day.
An employee may or may not love what she does. I do. So every morning, I’m eager to sit down at my desk and start working, to see what the day brings.
What do you love about your business?