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Traditional business measurements include profit, market share, and sales growth. But are those the true measurements of success?

Are numbers the primary way we should measure success (or failure)? Shouldn’t there be more meaning to what we do as entrepreneurs than dollars, cents, and charts?

If you are like me, the answer is an unqualified “Yes!” I believe that in the coming decade and beyond businesses will find new, better ways to measure what they do, including things like:

• Meaningfulness
• Motivation
• Ambitions
• Genuine Client Benefit

All of these new, non-traditional measurements can be summed up by the phrase “creating space for meaning”. But what does that mean, exactly? I’m glad you asked!

The New Industry Leaders

Thinking about your business in new and creative ways is always worthwhile. It can lead to breakthroughs, innovations, and triumphs.

Here are some entrepreneurs who changed their paradigm by thinking creatively about the way they measure their business:

Tara Gentile founded a traditional branding business called Quiet Power Strategy. But when her business became stagnant, she reimagined it as a community-driven membership that she named Co-Commercial. Here, in her own words, is why she decided to put her personal values ahead of traditional business measurements.

Scott Olford created the multi-million dollar “information” business Lead Craft. Then he closed it for good so he could launch a transformational program called the Relevancy Engine. Here’s his story.

Lewis Howes is a widely recognized online marketing expert. But instead of continuing to grow his business, he ditched it in order to write a book called “The Mask of Masculinity”. Why? Find out here.

These are all successful entrepreneurs who decided to stop embracing the normal and traditional path in favor of more rewarding and enlightening business discoveries, ones that include seeking answers to important questions like:

• Why am I working so hard and enjoying it so little?
• Does what I contribute to the world truly matter?
• What’s the reason for my hard work?
• What can I do to create genuine positive change in my client’s lives?

Like all of these people, I’ve been thinking a lot about the meaning of what we do as entrepreneurs. It can’t be all about the money, can it?

There’s got to be something more. And what I’ve discovered is that there most definitely is. And as an online entrepreneur, it’s critical to your happiness that you move beyond traditional measurement tools and embrace results that offer perspective, such as:

• Measure impact rather than income
• Focus on love notes rather than list size
• Count the content you create rather than the followers you attract
• Measure transformational results for your clients rather than sales

“Okay,” you probably are thinking. “That’s all well and good. But how can I actually do it? How can I change the way I measure my business so that it actually offers more meaning than simply more data?”

Again, I’m glad you asked!

Restructuring Your Core Offering – Meaningfulness

Back in the ‘90s, the big book in business philosophy was Steven R. Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. In it, Covey talked about shifting your paradigm, changing the way you looked at your business, your marketplace, your world in order to gain a new, exciting, and innovative perspective.

By looking at the world in a new way, it’s often easier to see the underlying reasons behind why you do what you do – in other words your unapologetic belief statements.

Discovering these are the key to creating the baseline foundation that can define every decision you make, every piece of content you create, and the path to every new discovery that lies just beyond the horizon.

Mine include these:

• There is a plethora of untapped human potential that is the key to changing everything in the world. This type of inner genius is present in everybody and is just waiting to be discovered – and it can be uncovered by effective, consistent branding.
• The choices we make effect not only our lives but also those of everybody around us. So when we strive for greatness, we not only help benefit ourselves but also our families, our co-workers, our clients, and our friends. We can be the lighthouse that uncovers the possibilities for everybody else.
• Our mission in life is to discover our own truths in order to help others discover theirs. And the path to this enlightenment lies in branding.

By shifting your paradigm inward, it’s possible to make genuine positive change outward.

Motivations

Guiding values provide the foundation for any business. If they are built on solid ground (truth) the business can prosper. But if they are rocky at best, it’s going to be nearly impossible to achieve the success you envision.

That’s why defining your inner values is so essential to your long-term strategies and overall success. Yours are going to be your own. I can’t define them for you. But I can share some of mine:

• Truth – You could say this is my “flagship” value. The goal of my business is to shine the light of truth by helping people discover their own truths about themselves, their brands, and their businesses.
• Intelligence – Brands and businesses alike need to use smart processes in everything they do. Otherwise, too much time will be wasted on wheel-spinning and inefficiency. As a branding entrepreneur, I focus on challenging people’s assumptions about “why” they do, not “what” they do.
• The Big Idea – Everybody has the potential to be their best and bravest version of themselves. Our goal is to help our clients discover the path to making big, dramatic changes through innovation, truth, and intelligence (see above).

Measuring success exclusively by dollars and cents doesn’t work in the 21^st Century. It’s not going to lead you where you want to go. Plus, it can destroy your spirit (not to mention your business) if you put ALL of your focus on tangibles.

Instead, shift your paradigm by expanding how you measure success by looking at “worthiness indicators” such as:

• Client Satisfaction/Impact
• Mentions/Positive Reviews
• Published Content
• Web Visits/Transformational Results

Ultimately, these are going to offer you a better picture of whether or not your business is successful. But more importantly, they can help lead you to genuine fulfilment, happiness, and the joy that comes with contributing to make the world a better place.

What does your ideal client look like? Do you even know?

When you are first starting out, the ideal client is anybody willing to pay you money to do practically anything (legal, that is). After all, beggars can’t be choosers.

But as you gain experience and your list of accomplishments grows, you can afford to be more exclusive with who you choose to collaborate with. And ideally, the amount you earn will also increase – at first incrementally and then exponentially, at least in the ideal scenario!

When I first started out, I couldn’t afford to be choosy. Just to get my foot in the door, I had to take whatever came my way. But eventually, with time, effort, and trial-and-error (often more error!), I was able to start to build both my business and reputation.

Today, I enjoy an exclusive client base that includes some of the most respected businesses in the world.

So today I want to share with you the tools you need to do the same with your business. And it all begins with imagining what your “perfect client” looks like!

Creating Your Ideal Client – Start by Looking in the Mirror

The better you understand what your own motivations are, the more prepared you will be to realize what your clients are looking for.

After all, your clients choose you for a reason. Price may be the first thing. But it’s rarely the only thing. Or even the most important thing.

You don’t always buy the cheapest products you can find, do you? Instead, you are drawn to products and services that tend to share your values and experience. The same holds true for your clients.

So begin your search for the perfect client by taking a look at what you perceive as perfection in yourself:

• What do you strive to be?
• What are the core foundational elements of your business?
• Why do you want people to choose you over everybody else?

Answer these questions honestly and you can begin to understand what type of clients you want to attract, collaborate with, and make genuine connections with.

Creating Your Ideal Client – Judge Your Current Clients

We don’t always like to pass judgments on other people. But sometimes it can be helpful to understand what qualities we value and which ones we dislike.

Try this exercise: Create a list of your current clients. If it’s not that big, include as many former clients as you can remember. Now, quickly and without thinking too much about it, rank them from best to worst.

It’s often easiest to start with the best and worst, then move towards the middle. Don’t spend more than a couple of minutes on this list and don’t overthink it … just do it!

Now, take a look at the top 3 and the bottom 3 and discard all the rest. Then make a short bullet-point list of the best qualities that the top 3 share and another list of the worst qualities that the bottom 3.

Congratulations! You now have a clear picture of what you are looking for in new clients and what to avoid.

Creating Your Ideal Client – How Do You Reflect These Qualities?

Now comes the hard part. It’s time for a little soul searching.

Look at your list of best qualities and answer this question with startling honesty: What to you do in your everyday life that reflects these qualities? Don’t compromise or try to shade the meaning of your answer. It’s okay if you aren’t currently doing all the things you should be doing. In fact, that’s the whole point of this exercise.

Now, Look at your list of the worst qualities and once again answer the question: What are you doing in your everyday life that reflects these qualities? Don’t shy away from the truth. Be brutally honest with yourself.

After you meditate on these two lists, you can now move forward with actually creating your description of the perfect client.

The Rest Is Up to You

Understanding what you are looking for in a client is a helpful way to make your business more successful. But it’s also path to more happiness in what you do, more genuine fulfillment, and a better contribution to the world you inhabit.

You are the expert on you. You know your business better than anybody else. And only you can take what you have learned about your perfect client and use it as a map to finding the genuine success that you deserve.