What We Love About Our Business!

As Valentine’s Day approaches, February is known as the month of love – or historically a month of ‘new beginnings’ – so we’re asking business owners across our Total Guide communities to share what they love about their own business.

BY Taz Thornton. business and empowerment coach, specialising in personal brand, visibility, confidence and message. Also international speaker, published author and advocate for those in the LGBTQ+ communities. Taz lives with her wife Asha in Lincolnshire.

What do you love about running your own business? 

1) Freedom to set my own schedule, giving me precious time to spend with my wife and family.

2) The ability to choose who I work with.

3) The very real opportunity to change lives for the better

What do you love about your business community? 

I love the camaraderie, the ‘can do’ spirit and the effortlessness with which we can laugh at ourselves whilst learning, growing and doing our best to serve our audience and client base. 

Serious business doesn’t always need to be serious - we need smile and walk lightly sometimes. 

What do you love socially/geographically about your community? 

A short walk from us is a natural, riverside track - trees, meadows, swans, owls, deer... it’s a great place to get away from it all. Lincolnshire countryside sometimes gets a bad press - some think the flatness makes it boring, even ugly, but I utterly disagree. You don’t get big skies like ours anywhere else. 

Outside of lockdown, I spend a lot of time in an out of town Caffè Nero. There’s a booth at the back that might as well have my name on it - lots of my clients love it too, so we often have our sessions there. The staff all know me by name and my drink is often ready for me before I’ve even got to the till! 

While we are locked down – name any business you have ‘loved’ and bought from in your community over the last few months?

I live in a tiny rural village, so my ‘community’, when it comes to business, is largely online.

I’ve bought PR support from Fiona Scott, VA services from Miss Make It Happen, and a series of specially commissioned business cartoons from Morgan Gleave. All highly recommended. All a joy to work with. All utterly awesome. 

February 17 is Random Acts of Kindness Day – have you carried out any  random acts of kindness (business or otherwise) over the last few months?

Yes - I do this year-round - it’s always good to give back and spread a little happiness. From sending thoughtful gifts to clients and business associates, to leaving unsolicited positive reviews, to shoutouts on social media channels, even just checking in with people I haven’t heard from in a while. 

Random acts of kindness don’t need to cost any more than a bit of time and some love and compassion. We could *all* make more time for that.  

Has anyone shown kindness to you? 

I took an extended break over Christmas and New Year and received a flurry of messages from people who’d missed me online and wanted to check I was okay. Honestly, some of these people weren’t even on my radar - it was lovely to realise how much my content was making an impact. 

At other times, if people have known I’ve been going though a bit of a tough time, of facing challenges, I’ve had cards, flowers, words of encouragement... really thoughtful gestures to remind me I have plenty of support. 

Is Valentine’s Day a key moment in your business? If so, please say why? 

Love is a really important factor in the work that I do. I love my work deeply. I really do care about my clients and my audience. I hope that shines through - not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day. 

The business world doesn’t use that four-letter word enough and yet, really, it needs to be at the heart of all we deliver. We need to switch our emotions on more and really show that compassion, empathy and depth of feeling for the people we serve - that’s worth far more than money and materialism. 

In the yearly cycle of your business – what do you expect during February? 

February’s a big month for me - my new Project Artemis programme launches March 1 and it’s already oversubscribed, so I’ll be doing lots of work behind the scenes to prepare for that. I’m also running a couple of workshops - a re-run of my Video Superstar Mini Mastermind programme, plus some LinkedIn training in collaboration with Fiona Scott. 

It’s also when my postponed Heart Of Speaking speaker training retreat should have been running. It should have been last March, then November, and now we’ve had to postpone it again. 

It’s necessary to tie on with Government guidelines, though I really do hate having to mess my clients around so much. That’s the biggest frustration for me through lockdown - not being able to deliver on promises made before this unprecedented situation hit. 

What would your advice be to a business owner who is feeling ‘flat’ in February? 

Get a giant sheet of paper and some Sharpies. Jot down all the skills you have - including some of the soft skills you might not associate with your business, ie: intuition, being a good encourager/motivator, ability to #FlipYourNegatives and see the opportunities/learnings, empathy, level headedness - anything that comes to mind.

Next, think about others in the business community - your potential clients, perhaps. Jot down all the challenges you think they might be facing - what is it that’s waking them up at 4am?

Refer back to your skills. What attributes do you have up your sleeves that might help? What could you create from that knowledge? Are there new products and services you could be offering? Programmes? Support packages? What?

Of course, it doesn’t all need to be about business opportunities - you can run through a similar process for friends, family, local community - anyone. What are your skills? What’s needed? How can you help?

Helping others - and having gratitude for your ability to do that - is one of the best ways to lift our own spirits. Just make sure you hold onto balance and don’t deplete your own energy too much in the process. 

And finally:

Sometimes it’s all too easy to follow the crowds and go with the flow, but it *can* be good to glance in the opposite direction when everyone’s flocking to the new best thing. Be brave enough to look the other way - you might just spot opportunities everyone else has missed!

 For more information visit www.TazThornton.com