I’m just a small business.
I’m too young.
I’m too old.
People won’t pay that much.
I’m just not good enough.
Are you falling into an underdog mentality? No matter how long your business has been running, no matter how good you know you are at what you do, no matter what nice things clients say about you, you lie in bed secretly knowing your business just isn’t good enough. It’s what makes you keep your prices too low, your too staff small (or nonexistent) and keeps you from swinging through the fences and trying for big projects and big dreams.
We see it again and again in small businesses. Heck, we see it here at Roundpeg. We’re just a little firm with six employees in a little house in an un-hip neighborhood. How can we compete with the big boys downtown in their shiny skyscrapers and fancy suits? Maybe we shouldn’t even try for that business. After all, we’re just the underdog.
Nonsense. Being the underdog isn’t an excuse to whimper in the corner like a beaten cur. It’s what keeps us hungry and always striving upwards. We don’t have the luxury of huge budgets. So we’ll have to be faster, smarter and all around better than everyone else. We don’t have a huge staff, so each one of us will have to work harder than any big firm downtown could.
Are you letting your underdog status stand in the way of your success? Get over it. Get hungry. If you want it badly enough, work hard enough and have a little bit of talent and luck? Then there’s not a fat cat in the world that can beat an underdog.