Lessons from an Impatient Daughter: How Tolerance May be Hurting Your Business

I have about a five day tolerance with my mother.

Any less time is comfortable and any more time becomes borderline unbearable.

I start to notice her quirks... the things that she's become accustomed to doing with her 60+ years on this Earth that I know I'll never be able to change. At the five day mark, even the littlest things start to bother me. Things probably no one else would notice. Except me.

And while this is clearly a lesson in patience and tolerance, I see far too many bosses handling their business the same way. 

Once you grow into your groove, there will be things about your business that start to bother you:

- The copy on your website never quite ringing right.

- The type of person who keeps buying your product / service is never that "super dreamy client". They ask for discounts and want you to break down your process (to look for more discounts). 

- The color palette your last designer (or your graphically-inclined cousin) created for you doesn't speak to your vision.

- The logo mark for your business that's starting to look like everyone else's.

Little things.

And yet, add them all up, and you're just one cranky 20-something who's ready for her mother to go back to Florida. Lovingly, of course. But ready.

If you try to grow a business that turns you off everywhere you look, you're never going to flourish. 

You're always going to let that doubt filter into your email correspondence, your marketing campaigns, even your coffee table talk. That doubt will seep into your potential clients and it will crush your efforts.

Be confident in your business. Invest in your business.

What you're doing (and saying) should make you damn proud. Your business cards should make you damn proud. Your website should make you damn proud.

Save the tolerance for your mother.

- Erica