Be thankful and profitable

If you are in business, you have reason to be thankful. Yes, there are uncertainties regarding taxes, regulations and healthcare (small business top three concerns), but you are still in business and hopefully, you have products and services that are relevant in today’s market. Ideally, you are also profitable.

So let’s be thankful while we move forward. How can we as businesses be thankful?

1. Don’t operate from a place of fear about your business’s future. Yes, there are going to be challenges. If running a business was easy, everyone would do it. Being fearful means you are focusing on failure, not success. To be open to generate more business, we have to be thankful for what we have.

“A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.” Plato

2. You attract your focus. Focus on abundance. Yet many people focus on what they do not want. This is like driving a car on an open road in the middle of Kansas and seeing a tree and then focusing on not hitting the tree. What happens? You hit the tree. Direct your attention to future possibilities, not past failures. Don’t operate from a place of scarcity.

“Be thankful for what you have. You’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never have enough.” Oprah Winfrey

3. Know that every day is a new opportunity. Yes, it sounds cliché. Today is 86,400 seconds. How are you going to use them to extend your gratitude to others?

4. Being thankful means doing something about it.

“The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.” John E. Southard

Say thank you to those people who helped you with advice, a referral, or a resource when you needed it.

Find a way to reach out to those people who impacted you and helped you, whether they realized it or not. Let them know how they changed your business or your life. Send a card. Not sure what you should say? Try, “Five years ago, you told a group of us to _____ and I have done that every since. It changed how I deal with customers forever. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise. It made a difference.”

5. Help others grow their business. The best way to push yourself forward is to help others. Not sure how to help other people?

• Ask your friends who their perfect client would be, then be on the lookout for them. When you find them, make an introduction.
• Tell your friends about the people you are trying to promote.
• Spread the word about a new venture or a project to your network.
• Use social media to promote others.

How? Make comments on other people’s blogs, websites, or Facebook pages to generate buzz on what they are doing. At the very least, share in their happiness with a positive comment. Host someone else on your website as guest bloggers. It gives you fresh content and promotes others.

6. Be grateful for your profits. Not sure if you have profits? You are not alone. Many business owners honestly do not know their expenses and their revenues. Not knowing where your profits and losses are is like jumping in the middle of the ocean without knowing how to swim.

Second only to not having a current business plan, this is the biggest mistake businesses are making today. Business owners just don’t track their revenues and expenditures. If you need to start tracking your revenues and expenditures, try this free downloadable profit and loss template at www.ProductiveLeaders.com/free-stuff

7. Wherever you are in business, like life, you are two steps ahead of someone else. It is your responsibility to reach behind you and give someone else a good push forward.

In NASCAR, getting behind someone else and pushing them is called bump-drafting. Like racecar driving, you help someone else best when you are at a high level of performance. Some of the people around you would appreciate a well-timed push to the front, so look for someone who might benefit from a healthy push forward.

November is a time for celebrating friends and family, gathering together, and helping others. Wouldn’t it be great if we practiced being thankful every day, and not just during the holidays?