Building Momentum and the Upward Spiral

The economy is in a tough spot. Millions without jobs, a government that bickers more than they actually solve problems, investments have tanked, banks have closed…hell, even Tiger Woods has fallen from grace. With so much negativity spinning around, it can be easy to allow your inertia to take a turn for the worse. It can be easy to become jaded and start looking outward to find blame for failures.

That’s one road to take.

Another is to Build Positive Momentum and create an Upward Spiral of success. Take even the smallest wins and celebrate them. Take one sale and turn it into three sales. Look for people who are succeeding and “hang” with them. Success begets success or the old adage I prefer, “You are who you hang with”. Instead of looking for ways to cut back, look for ways to expand. Look for new areas of opportunity that may be hiding under that rock over there. By the way, expanding and looking for new opportunities doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money, it could be accomplished by a little sumpin sumpin called networking. The power of many brains thinking about solutions to a problem is almost always more effective (except in government).

I like the word “stratification”. Wikipedia refers to stratification as “…the building up of layers. Stratified is an adjective referring to the arranging of layers, and is also the past form of the verb stratify, to separate or become separated into layers.” When you think of stratification, start to picture your business this way.

For example, is your marketing stratified? I mean, do you have layers of marketing like a website, mailers, social media, a solid name in your community. All of the elements allow you to stratify your business and help you to Build Momentum towards the Upward Spiral of success.

Do you have multiple offerings that allow you to stratify your business across different market segments, or even different demographics? You should. If you’ve only got one thing and that one thing is suddenly no longer valuable, you don’t have a business anymore. Plus, by looking at the layers of your business like this you may find ways to stratify and build momentum that you hadn’t seen before. I know I’ve had some big discoveries and helped clients have some big ones too, just by thinking about my business stratification.

So, instead of watching CNN or reading all the depressing crap in the papers, focus on your successes. Write ‘em down. Multiply them and trend towards the upward spiral. You’ll be better off for it and so will everyone around you.

-Brian