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How diverse is your micro-business?

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how diverse is your micro-business?

How Diverse is Your Micro-Business?

The benefits of a diverse workforce are well communicated. But if the opportunity for diversity doesn’t present itself, can it be an unrealistic aim for a micro-business owner?

We have all become more familiar with the significance of diversity in the modern world. It’s a no-brainer that a diverse workforce is better for all. Diversity can promote ideas and innovation. It can restore that everyone is valued regardless of ethnicity, gender, ability or perceived position in society. 

Still, it can be challenging to introduce this into a micro-business with one to ten employees. In many cases, just one employee and some infrequent freelancers. Regardless, diversity is still an area of development in micro-businesses. 

If you are a large multinational, you have natural access to various opinions and perspectives. Although this doesn’t guarantee that they are sought or listened to. For micro-businesses, this can be more complicated. Working in a small shop, or running an online business in a similar part of the world, leads to a lack of unique perspectives inside your business. With that in mind, it may seem that a micro-business is at a disadvantage. If you’re running a one or ten person business, it can be challenging to be diverse. Making matters worse, many micro-business owners fall into the trap of hiring people who they like, and who are like them.

Thankfully, it is possible to renew your thought process about team diversity once you understand how good a diverse team is for your business and how simple it is to create one. However, there is one more dynamic to diversity to consider – physical and social aspects only make up a fraction of diversity. The rest lies in the diversity of thought.

What good is promoting diversity if everyone thinks the same way? The key to successfully implementing diversity is to have a team with diverse backgrounds and diverse thoughts. Only then will authentic innovation and growth be achievable.

Why diversity matters

Aside from being simply the right thing to do, growth orientated micro-business owners understand the many benefits of a diverse team and know that it’s part of business growth. A diverse team brings diverse viewpoints and perspectives to the company in terms of age, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientations, gender, gender identity, and national origin.  

Among other things, these factors can help you develop new products and new services to provide to customers. The variety of your team’s backgrounds, cultures, and upbringings are a strategic advantage that you can maximise.

The advantage of diversifying your thinking

Hiring diverse employees or freelancers can benefit your business as differing world views, experiences, and skillsets expand, resulting in new ideas and opportunities. These can boost your audiences, as customers often find it more appealing to work with someone they can relate to. 

Someone who has lived only in one city, one county or country won’t have the same experiences as someone who has lived abroad or travelled. Great ideas come from unique perspectives. 

Thinking safe won’t change the world, but diverse thinking can. Steve Jobs once said

"those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are usually the ones that do".

Consider the impact of inventions like the iPod or the smartphone. Its businesses like this have diverse teams willing to challenge the defy the possibilities, try things new, and potentially failing before succeeding.

Attained Diversity

We each have a natural trait we are born with, with other forms of diversity attained through life events. Diversity of thoughts can come from prior work experience, things we’ve learned from schools, parents, and friends. In other cases, we have diverse thoughts from a variety of perspectives and belief systems.

Financial Performance

According to a 2017 McKinsey Report, businesses with racial and ethnic diversity teams are 33% more likely to outperform their industry peers in terms of profitability. Gartner reported that in 2022, 75% of businesses reflecting a diverse and inclusive culture would exceed their financial targets.

8 Tools to Make Diversity Work in Micro-Businesses

Micro-businesses need to embrace an appreciation of differences. Finding common ground despite our differences is a way to build team rapport. Micro-businesses must work differently under this new model. They need to attract, train, hire, manage and promote differently. 

1. Vision and Mission Statement

A vision statement and mission statement can help you identify the people who believe in the same aspirations but have different views on how to achieve them. Something as simple as having an inspirational vision and mission statement for micro-businesses can work wonders for attracting diverse talent. Research by Deloitte has revealed that mission-driven businesses enjoy 30% more innovation and 40% more engagement from employees.

A vision and mission statement is a short paragraph that summarises what you do, who you do it for and why you do it. It is ideal for clients, competitors, partners and talent to see why you’re different, what you stand for and what your ultimate goals are as a business.

2. Improve your recruiting strategy

It is one thing to plan to be diverse, but if you can’t attract a more diverse team, you are setting yourself up for a lesson. Start by rethinking your hiring strategy.

  • Language. For example, masculine-type words like “hungry” and “dominate” are often less appealing to female applicants.
  • Flexibility. Employees or freelancers strive for flexibility and being able to achieve a work-life balance. Could you give them the options to be flexible?
  • Personality assessment. This tool will help you measure personality traits, motivations, and skills.
  • Expand your reach. Expand your search using third-party websites and online job boards instead of relying on the same recruiting channels. Check schools and community colleges, or Acadium short term apprenticeships. 
  • Work with partners. Create a board of trusting peers you’ve met at networking, hire an HR freelancer to manage the hiring process or work with organisations that specialise in diversity.

3. Hiring

When training new hires, the onboarding process should emphasise the core values and how the employee upholds those values. If the owner of the micro-business doesn’t behave against those values, the team dynamic will fail. Start within your leadership style first before hiring.

Great micro-business owners push teams to new heights of creativity and encourage task-focused outcomes. 

4. Feeling valued and expressing vulnerability

Most importantly, the micro-business needs to cultivate an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their views and genuine selves. These teams can challenge business strategy, products and preconceived ideas with unique and different viewpoints.

As much as the business feels like it is your baby, micro-business owners don’t need to control every decision. Allow your team to shine and maximise their perspectives. Trust the process of learning from each other.

You should also be aware that diversity can lead to conflicts among your team, so you have to prepare for this eventuality. For example, creatives are more likely to associate with other creatives and technical people tend to communicate better with other technical experience. Another conflict can be between age differences or socioeconomic backgrounds might weaken open conversations and team morale. 

Vulnerability and feeling valued will ensure no one is left out and that team members work better together. You may not always agree, but strong relationships will help overcome the disagreements, allowing the team to reveal the best action plans.

5. Celebrate team differences.

Run regular diversity awareness training and events or mix it into the monthly/quarterly team meetings. You could add a thank you email to the end of week sign off whereby each member sends a thank you to a team member for the efforts and why they appreciated it. 

6. Active listening

“This is the way it’s always been done” is the business growth killer mentality. Avoid team members feeling undermined, overlooked, and dismissed. 

You can keep it simple by talking with your team over breaks or video calls, giving them the space to express themselves without any preconceived biases or assumptions. You could host a meeting that encourages everyone to speak up or run a team survey. 

The key here is to listen to understand and not to respond. Listening to your team will ignite a beautiful relationship – take advantage of this leadership skill. 

7. Reflect, rethink, reboot

Plan time in the diary to reflect on what worked and what can be improved. The most straightforward method is gathering feedback from your team such as an online survey. Equally, acknowledge those who no longer work with you to see what areas need to be improved.

8. Teams aren’t just employees

Go To Yellow was built with one person and grew to 9. All of which were freelancers and apprentices or skill swaps with other micro-business owners. Everyone was treated as an employee. 

We also found diversity in an advisory board, in mentors from business-led programs and focus groups. The latter is what led us to create The Yellow Mastermind service.

The Yellow Mastermind solves business growth

At The Yellow Mastermind, we have six diverse micro-business owners per team, working together to build a reciprocal relationship without the increase in payroll. 

When I’m forming The Yellow Mastermind Team, I look to achieve diversity in three key ways:

  • All members of The Yellow Mastermind Team come from different sectors and are non-competing – this ensures openness and trust within the group.
  • The Yellow Mastermind Team are created with all genders, cultural and neurodiversity – this makes for a much better dynamic in the room and improved insight.
  • Different sized micro-businesses working together – they often bring different solutions to solving the same problems.

Suppose you get a team of people who provide this diversity and are all the decision-makers within their respective micro-business. The quality of thinking and insight is more significant than in a networking group or a group of people who look and think the same. Too often, networking groups drift into a situation where they hear their thoughts echoed around the room and struggle to break through their current growth, geography, product/service diversity.

If you want to grow your business, understand your customers, clients and suppliers but don't have diverse thinking, consider a new approach to business by joining The Yellow Mastermind.

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Tammy Whalen Blake

Founder of go to yellow
Personal Development Coach

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Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back

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Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back

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Our brains can detect potentially dangerous situations and our natural instinct is to stay safe. So when the going gets tough, guess what we will do? 

Yep, we will keep ourselves in our comfort zone!

The zone of no growth.

Yellow people actively reflect and plan for the future. They identify what is holding them back and are ruthless on their journey to success. 

We all have some or all of the 7 fears types. The challenge we have is allowing fears to control us instead of managing them.

When we crush fears, it allows us to get through the storm to enjoy the beauty in life.

What personally held me back for many years was being judged and not accepted, in society and within my career. So I stayed safe at the detriment of my own wellbeing and career development. It was me who lost in that situation.

The day I woke up to my fears, I learned how to use them to my advantage so that my life started to change for the better. 

I launched my own business in a field that I had never worked in before. I knew my passion, and I owned my fears.

Are you ready to be bold too?

So what are the 7 types of fear?

The procrastinator

The Procrastinator is closely linked with the perfectionist. These people must perfect everything, and so obsess with the end product. The planning stages never quite gets finished or if they do start, they struggle to stop until it has been “perfected” to their very high standards. 

The Rule Follower 

is exactly as it sounds! Compelled to act and behave accordingly to the clear definitions of what’s right and wrong, even if it’s at the expense of your own success. Rule followers constantly think about making the right decision and what they might miss out on if they took the one option and not the other. 

People Pleaser

Struggling with the fear of being judged or worry about what others think about you. God forbid someone might be disappointed – people-pleasers would do whatever the other wants instead. Saying no is a challenge. Having boundaries even harder. 

Pessimist

Are fearful of adversity or pain. Hard times in life feel more like stop signs rather than stepping stones to success. They believe that old problems get in the way of them moving forward.

An outcast

is common for entrepreneurs. Others see them as fearless but deep down, an outcast is afraid of rejection so they push away people first. Asking for help is another problem to overcome. Trusting others to achieve an outcome is a constant internal battle when they want to do it all themselves. 

^ this was me! I felt like I was not good enough in my role, and if I exposed myself, I may be fired. I never asked for help and went on to limit my personal and career development 🙁

Self-Doubters

The deep feelings of insecurity about their capabilities. Seeing the world as an opportunity is difficult when they are so “stuck” in moving forward. Judging others who take big leaps is a way of hiding their own fears.

Excuse Maker 

We all know a few of these. Excuse makers rarely take responsibility for their life choices and goals are a mammoth challenge. Instead of taking the bold step to lead, they take a “laid back” approach to life. They find it easier for others to make decisions for them. Excuse makers always find a reason to not start, they tend to be in lack of something like money, time, a team etc. 

Each of these fears requires a particular thought pattern to reprogramme it. 

The main thing to note is that without knowing which fear is holding you back and learning how to step out of your comfort zone, you will continue to repeat the same things over and over again. 

WANT TO LEARN YOUR FEAR TYPE & WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT?

Schedule your call with me, go through a questionnaire to identify your fear type and together we can devise a plan to overcome the fear in order to achieve your biggest goals. 

BOOK TODAY HERE >>> gotoyellow.co.uk/schedule-a-call

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Tammy Whalen Blake

Founder of go to yellow
Personal Development Coach

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You Can Make An Impact

how to make an impact

You Can Make An Impact

If you feel like your voice will not be heard, that you have no authority or feel like you’re too young…. Remember this girl, Greta Thunberg.

A 17-year-old Swedish environmental activist on climate change whose campaigning has gained international awareness. She began her journey by asking her parents to make lifestyle choices to reduce their carbon footprint. From there she started spending her school days outside Swedish parliament and then regular student strikes every week around the world began. 

Today, she held a speech and a march in Bristol with an enthusiastic audience of between 15,000 – 30,000 people.

Her ask of people is to act to save the planet. 

“This is an emergency. People are already suffering and dying from the consequences of the climate and environmental emergency but it will get worse.”

Furthermore, she comments about how our politicians and those in power for betraying the world’s youth. 

“This emergency is being completely ignored by politicians, the media and those in power.” “World leaders are behaving like children, so it falls on us to be the adults in the room.”

Her audience is captivated and supportive of the climate change movement. 

What makes Greta Thunberg different?

Notice how she has built an audience with mixed ages, ethnic backgrounds and from around the world. She leads with her purpose, has massive passion in her heart, addresses a big problem and shows up! This is the recipe for your movement, amongst other things, but this is a great starting point. 

Greta is no different from you. 

You have the power to start that business you’ve dreamed of, to add value to the executive board meetings, to start a local change campaign. 

Whatever it might be. You can become a leader with your superpowers!

But I don’t know what my superpowers are, Tammy!

I can relate to those who feel insignificant. 

I was a supressed saleswoman for a long time. The senior male decision-makers would ask my male counterparts for advice and solutions rather than me. In the end, I adopted a masculine approach to get noticed. I felt as though I couldn’t bring my unique self to a meeting, a negotiation or even at socials. If I wanted authority I had to dress like a businesswoman, speak logically and direct, I had to brush up my knowledge on cars and Rolex watches and I laughed at the sexual innuendos. Just to be accepted. 

I became conditioned to being this person and justifying it as normal. I couldn’t see the impact it had on my uniqueness and finding my superpowers.

Had I realised the only block in my way was me, I would have done things differently.

After taking time to rebrand who I am today (because we evolve over time) and by going through the Focus & Direction program, I now embrace and leverage my uniqueness. Not only do I have my own thriving business with a mission just like Greta Thunberg, but I also feel alive by being my true self. 

People follow my movement and are awakened to a new way of thinking and being in this modern world. I may be small today with lots of work to do, but I will have a large movement in good time. 

And just like Greta Thunberg, I lead with purpose, massive passion in my heart, address a big problem and show up.

But I don’t have the resources!

Granted, Greta Thunberg has a team supporting her movement but once upon a time not so long ago, it started with just Greta.

The single biggest inspiration is seeing the impact. Once one person’s life is changed, you can’t stop. They will remember you forever and be forever grateful. You know that there are many other people waiting for your help and so you lead with passion.

You just need to start and keep up the momentum. Where you focus your mind, energy will flow to keep pursuing your passion. Resources will stop becoming your problem when you hone in on your movement. 

So remember, it only takes one person to start an ovation. Eventually, there will be two, three and four more. Until the whole crowd will be on their feet. 

I hope I’ve instilled a new belief, that no matter your age, you have the power to start a movement.

Start your standing ovation today!

NEED FURTHER HELP?

Uncover your superpowers with Tammy in a 60 minute free coaching session and start living the life designed by you, for you and with a lasting impact!

BOOK TODAY HERE >>> gotoyellow.co.uk/schedule-a-call

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Tammy Whalen Blake

Founder of go to yellow
Personal Development Coach

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The Problem With Goal Setting

The Problem With Goal Setting

The Problem with goal-setting 1

THE PROBLEM WITH GOAL-SETTING

While 93% of the population set New Year’s resolutions, only 8% go on to achieve. So why don’t these goals get executed?  Perhaps many people have been following an ineffective approach. 

Let’s explore the reason why goals often don’t get implemented and what you can do differently.  

WHAT vs WHY? 

The goal is WHAT you want to achieve.  But lots of WHATs are not done because the WHY is not clear.  Here’s a common example. You know that daily exercise is good for you.  Many of you may have even set a daily goal to exercise. But only some of you are doing it.  Maybe you have a clear WHY, like a recent accident that made you realise how important it is to keep healthy… or trying to fit into a dress for a special event…  your WHY is very clear. 

But others fail to achieve their goal because they had less clarity on the WHY, or perhaps not emotionally-attached to their WHY.  So the WHAT is just an activity without a clear purpose. And before you know it, other things take priority.  

So before you set a goal, you must know why you are doing it in the first place. More importantly, it must be something that motivates YOU. Something deep and meaningful. 

There is a process I use to guide people to dig deep to their WHY.  And it’s surprising that when we get to your WHY, you’ll discover that your goals change.  You may not want to achieve the old WHAT you had previously planned. 

This may seem relatively simple, doesn’t it? But the challenge of digging your own WHY is that you stop before you get to the core and settle for a superficial WHY.  And this is ineffective because it doesn’t give you the motivation to achieve your WHAT, especially when distractions come. 

Ready to go deeper on this topic? 

Let me help you dig your WHY.  I will give you 30 minutes of my time free of charge and, in return, you will give me an open mind to explore yourselves deeper.  I only have 5 slots a week to do this, so make sure you book one of them. I would like you to feel what it’s like to get clarity and see the impact it makes to your goals. 

Schedule your call here https://gotoyellow.co.uk/schedule-a-call/ and let’s start your 2020 off to a great start.

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Tammy Whalen Blake

Founder of go to yellow
Personal Development Coach

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Discovering Your Vision

Discovering Your Vision

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While 93% of the population set New Year’s resolutions, only 8% go on to achieve. What makes them different?

Until today, we have been following an ineffective approach. Before you set a goal, you must know why you are doing it in the first place. More importantly, it must be something that motivates YOU. Something deep and meaningful. 

The key I am going to share with you today is the driving force behind powerful goals – create a VISION for YOUR life. 

If you do not know where you are going, unfortunately, you are influenced by other people’s vision, the latest fad or culture expectation. This is neither healthy or sustainable. 

It is like driving with a blindfold on, with several co-drivers giving you guidance, hoping you’ll arrive at your destination. When you arrive at the destination, you realise you are not in the right place, leaving you feeling lost, stuck and deflated. Furthermore, you realise have wasted your precious time and energy and must start again. 

Why waste years of driving many roads, only to find out that you will arrive at the wrong location?

There is a more effective approach.

Get back in the driving seat, and steer yourself to a more fulfilling and purposeful life!

Here are the 5 keys leaders use to get ahead in life:

  1. Your Vision Awakened

To discover your vision you must truly understand your personal values, meaningful areas of your life to invest in (health, wealth, relationships, career etc), skills, passion and interests. 

  • Write a 10-year vision that is beyond what you believe to be obtainable (written in the present tense),
  • a 2-5 year mission of how you are going to live in order to achieve the vision, and
  • create a vision board!

When you are excited every time you read your vision and mission statements, it is then that you have truly grasped who you are and what the future will be. 

Once you have your statements, it is time to get creative. 

It is a simple as adding images of your ideal life, belongings, goals and affirmations onto a board or book.

Once created, display somewhere where you often go to remind you of the vision. Spend time before sleeping visualising each image as if you’ve absolutely mastered the act and achieved success. This will awaken the reticular activating system (RAS) – the part of your brain that will cut out distractions and see opportunities clearer. 

Like blinkers on a horse. You’ll be sure of the direction to your destination. 

         2. Get a Coach

It is no easy task in developing a clear picture of what you want the future to be, one that is authentic and without an expectation.

Often than not, those who do it alone, get caught in the same trap of travelling in someone else direction because they are unable to recognise what they truly want. 

Equally, it is challenging to know what is an actual limitation, and one that is just your negative narrative. 

Negative narratives can be anything from childhood conditioning, the identity you hold onto, and your beliefs. 

A coach will guide you to an empowering vision

            3. Power of Communication 

Being able to communicate a vision to others is advantageous. This is something that sets a leader apart. Leaders master the ability to share a clear and exciting vision for the future, and the ability to communicate effectively. 

Honouring your vision every day will have a positive effect across your peers, employees and personal relationships. Shifting peoples beliefs with possibilities, of what can be and will be, arouses emotion and motivates people to be their best selves. They will see this vision as belonging to them and will serve you in closing the gaps. 

Equally, your vision can repel others. This is good! You do not want people wasting your time and energy if they are not on the same journey. Reduce the number of stop signs and lighten your load, save yourself some fuel on your journey to success. 

           4. Forget Focusing on The Money

Of course, money is important. It is far more rewarding to be true to yourself and developing a life you desire, than focusing on the money. 

Money will come when you are authentic.

When you raise your standards, to be the best in business, you’ll only accept greatness. 

By not focusing on the money requires a resourceful way of thinking – the kind of thinking innovators have. Better decisions will be made with this mindset. 

          5. Keep Your Posture 

During times of hardship, conflict and crisis, leaders thrive most when they remain calm. In a study at Stanford Business School, they examined the qualities in leadership. It concluded with two qualities for success are putting a team together and patience under pressure.

Others observe greatly during these times, your next move is being recorded by many. 

“If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, then the world is yours and all that’s in it.”

To operate calmly, you MUST know where you are going.

Remember …the first key is most important before the following four. 

And if you are not convinced…

Who is a world leader at what they do?

Tesla.

Tesla’s vision statement is “to create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles.” and their mission, “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

Tesla is true to their vision, they communicate effectively, they influence and inspire the best, it is never about the money but rather the environment. They are innovators. They are leaders.

Do you want to be a leader or a follower?

Well, now you know where it starts. It is not about goal-setting, but rather a vision of your future. Goal-setting is the next phase.

Ready to go deeper on this topic? 

Work with me to unlock your greatest self, with Your Vision Awakened Workshop:

https://gotoyellow.co.uk/your-vision-awakened

Get back in the driving seat, and steer yourself to a more fulfilling and purposeful life!

Book your space on the workshop today – Your Vision Awakened

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Tammy Whalen Blake

Founder of go to yellow
Personal Development Coach