5 Attributes of a Successful Business Owner with Kim Wolfe

Kim Wolfe is a mom, flight instructor, business owner, QuickBooks expert, and Path user! Kim has been working with business owners for the last 15 years and has found there are 5 key attributes that separate those who struggle and those who are successful. She recently talked about the attributes on the podcast: Lead and Lift – check that out on Apple Podcasts.

Kim believes that these 5 attributes are attainable by everyone – and she provides us with some action items that can help you implement these traits in your business today! So let’s dive in.

Discipline

Owning your own business is hard work. You are going to run into challenges, face struggles, and encounter obstacles that you are unsure how to deal with. In order to be a successful business owner, you need to be disciplined. Kim takes the stance as a business owner who works from home and has to navigate taking care of her children and running her business. You have to be disciplined enough to set time aside to complete business tasks. When and if you commit to doing something, you add it to your schedule and you do it. You can’t get distracted or postpone tasks because something else comes up – when you commit to doing something, you need to discipline yourself to get it done.

One way to do this is to create a schedule or to-do list the night before and then work through that list in order the next day. You can even add time limits to your task to make sure you have enough time in the day to complete your tasks.

Act Big

A few years ago I spoke with the owner of a small company based out of Lubbock, Texas and his stance on branding and representation is that when people saw his brand or website or anything, he wanted them to see a national brand. Even though they were a small business with just a few employees, the owner made sure that whoever saw their brand thought they were bigger than they actually are.

Kim has a similar thought. There are a couple of things that you can create that make your business seem bigger than it is. The first being websites. If you create a very professional-looking website, you can make your business seem bigger than it is. Along those same lines, email addresses should represent your business, not Gmail or Yahoo. Another point that Kim touches on is accepting credit cards. All major businesses accept credit cards, so as a small business, accepting credit cards will make you seem bigger than you are.

Forward Progress not Perfect Progress

Everybody’s idea of perfection is different and it is important to remember that you may not achieve perfection every time – and that is okay! When working on something, you don’t need to finish it up and tie a bow on it. It is okay to start on something and not finish it – as long as you start. You can have multiple drafts of things before they are considered finished.

Be Teachable

No matter how much time you spend in an industry, there are always things you can learn. In order to keep being successful, it is important to keep learning. Read books, listen to podcasts, attend classes or webinars, or ask someone else! Kim’s advice here is to emulate those who have been successful in your space. Use them as examples and then add your twist to it. Do some things differently and see what kind of results you get.

With the ever-changing world of technology, you will never be all-knowing about anything. With that being the case, never stop learning! Keep your mind open to new ways to do things so you can be as successful as possible.

Become an Expert on a Pain Point in your Industry

In order to be relevant in any space, you need to solve a problem. From Kim’s own experience, she knew that an issue she was having with her bookkeeper was communication. She found that her communication with her bookkeeper wasn’t good and she couldn’t get accurate and timely financials. With this in mind, when Kim started her own bookkeeping business, she made sure she communicated with her clients and provided accurate financial statements in a timely manner.

By doing this, you set yourself apart from everybody else in the industry. Once you have the solution to the problem, you build up your business and create processes that make it easy to scale your business and help more people. Every industry has some sort of pain point or friction that they experience and once you find that, and find a way to solve it, you will have an irresistible business.

Kim believes that anybody is capable of creating their own business, running their own business, and working from home. There are so many ways that you can make your days more efficient so you can accomplish everything you set your mind to. It’s not out of reach – you just have to set your mind to it and maybe start with these 5 traits and actionable items.