How To Grow Your Business By Claiming Your Passion And Focus.

February 8, 2022 Off By carmala

zoom camera lens focusing on a road

Image by SplitShire on Pixabay.com

Focus.

It’s a noun.

It’s also a verb.

As in, focus on your focus. (I know, it makes a poor sentence.)

If you’re in the Professional Training and Coaching niche, are you keeping your focus?

The focus of your business and the focus of your marketing?

It lends itself to success.

Tom Monaghan knows Focus

Tom’s father died when he was just 4 years old. His mother wasn’t able to raise Tom and his younger brother, Jim, so she put them in an orphanage. As young men, the brothers decided to buy a local restaurant. Tom needed money for college. Jim was looking for a little side money to supplement his work as a mailman.

Fortunately for them, Dominick Davarti wanted to sell his local sandwich shop in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The menu in his sit-down eatery offered a variety of Italian sandwiches, specialty dishes, and pizza. For $900 in the late 1950s, the brothers bought their new business. Jim pulled out soon after they started, but Tom was determined to make his little shop succeed.

The restaurant, DomiNicks soon got so popular that lots of customers went there for their meals. This, of course, came with some new problems.

“Tom, there are so many people we don’t have a place for them to sit,” complained the waitstaff.

“Well, give them to-go boxes and have them eat at home,” was Tom’s response.

More complaints.

“People don’t want to stand around and wait that long for their food.”

Tom’s response? “Then tell them to wait at home.”

Ah! That was it! “Wait at home. Let’s deliver their food to them.” A novel idea in the 1950s. Chinese restaurants were already doing it, but nobody else did.

Their customer base continued to grow but so did the delays and mistakes in making the food. DomiNicks had the same large menu the brothers had inherited from the original owner.

The more customers they had and the more menu options they gave their customers, the more mistakes they made. The longer it took to deliver. One night he got several cancelled orders in an hour. Frustrated, Tom came up with what turned out to be a brilliant idea.

Just pizza. 12” and 16” pies with toppings. He focused on one product.

“Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.” –Frederich Buechner

The next stage was to have a focused marketing theme. “Guaranteed delivery in 30 minutes or less or the pizza is free.” Sound familiar? Yes, after a few years, with three stores in the Michigan college towns, Tom had changed the name of the restaurants to Domino’s.

Then he added another layer of focus. He targeted college students. They were responsible for most of his profit. Customers lived close to each other on campus. The pizzas could be delivered quickly with less cost and travel time between customers.

Their quality and efficiency soared. The service delighted their customers. The company flourished. In 1999, Tom Monaghan sold most of his shares in Domino’s for a billion dollars. (Not a bad return on his $900 investment when he bought the little eatery.)

Tom now focuses on philanthropic work and building a Roman Catholic college and law school he started in Florida.

Where do I direct my focus?

My most effective focus seems to be when I look beyond my self-imposed limitations. Look beyond my fear and anxiety and negative self-talk.

When I performed musical solos as a youth, I focused on the notes and expression of the music. Any fear of making a mistake or forgetting the music had to be set aside. Focus on the music.

As a martial artist, I had to learn to focus all of my attention and physical energy so I could break boards and patio blocks. To break a board, I had to look beyond the board. If I looked at the front of the wood, that’s where my foot or fist would stop.

If I looked beyond it, that’s where I would land. Fear of failing or getting hurt had to be pushed out of my mind. All my energy had to flow through the small area of my foot or fist that was going to force itself through material I wanted to break.

I’ve gotta tell you. Not focusing hurt. I just slammed that part of my body into a hard surface. Ouch. It was a pretty good incentive to eliminate distractions and learn to focus my mind.

Focus so you can position yourself in the marketplace

As Harry Beckworth wrote in his book, Selling the Invisible, “Stand for one distinctive thing that will give you a competitive advantage.”

In the world of spiritual teachers and specialty coaches, what do you offer that is unique? What distinguishes you from the general category of “coaches” and “teachers”?

Beckworth quotes Al Ries and Jack Trout in their classic book, Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind. They offer four steps to gain the attention of your intended clients:

You must position yourself in your prospect’s mind.
Your position should be singular: one simple message.
Your position must set you apart from your competitors.
You must sacrifice. You cannot be all things to all people; you must focus on one thing. (p101)

3 practical ways to find your focus

If you have not already done the rigorous work of refining your focus, here are 3 suggestions.

First, do your own serious self-reflection. What gives you joy? As theologian Frederick Buechner wisely wrote, “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.”

Where is that intersection in your life and your business?

Second, sometimes our inner noise and the ideas of what we think we want can interfere with what’s really true. Most of us are perfectly capable of just accepting the opinions of others we’ve heard over the years. We collect those ideas and let them define us.

Resist that. YOU have a particular set of gifts and a particular mission in the world. Be vigorous in your search for and commitment to that mission. Please! The world needs you to do your specific work.

Who are those dear souls who love you enough to tell you when they think you’re not being honest with yourself? Who will listen deeply with you?

This might be a dear friend or a coach or spiritual director or . . . anyone who is grounded deeply in their own truth and can give you space to find yours.

Third, when you have a sense of the unique focus of your work, follow it up with all the necessary external work. What little part of the “world’s greatest need” do you need to support? Which audience in particular are you to work with? What are they thinking about? What do they need? How will you reach out to them so they know you can help them?

What is the intersection of “where your greatest joy meets the world’s great need”? That’s where you get to focus your attention and energy–and impact more lives.

Questions to consider:

What’s your favorite pizza place?
Have you ever ordered anchovies on a pizza? Explain.
How fine-tuned is the focus of your business?

Carmala Aderman focuses her copywriting business on helping personal coaches and spiritual guides market their businesses. She gets the joy of knowing she can indirectly help more people by helping their coaches.

If you are in the coaching profession and would like to explore what your focus needs to be, contact Carmala at carmala@carmalaaderman.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmala-aderman-655843b/.