Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

This was the response I recently received when I explained what I do with my “entrepreneur sanity checks.” I tell people what they need to hear, not necessarily what they want to hear.

So, sometimes I make people uncomfortable, if not downright unhappy. But I don’t do it for fun. I see it as a responsibility to help clients look at the good as well as the bad and the ugly. (One client even had a “really ugly” list with which to deal.)

On occasion we all (me included) need somebody to point out rocks in the road. One reason consultants (and life coaches) get dissed is that so many of them sell a canned rose-colored perspective with feel-good platitudes instead of asking hard questions and giving real-world perspective. (There’s also the little matter that many have no real-world experience or accreditation – but that’s another pet peeve.) After all, we can’t steer around the rocks if we don’t know they’re there.

Your Sanity Checkpoint: If you’re thinking about starting a business (or expanding) and you’re not feeling at least a bit on edge (uncomfortable, if you will), you could be fooling yourself. In my experience, most entrepreneurs don’t fail due to lack of passion; they fail due to lack of reality. It’s fun and rewarding to be on the edge, you just don’t want to be bleeding out there.

Related Posts:
You can’t handle the truth!
Passion doesn’t equal profit.

Tags: blogher, entrepreneur, entrepreneur sanity check nobodies