How to Run a Business on Your Terms

Wouldn’t it be schmick to do business on YOUR terms for a change?

By that I mean, the client:

Reaches out to you
Tells you how much they love your work
Changes their schedule to talk with you
Listens with interest and attention
Hopes that you’ll agree to work with them
Lets you choose tactics and strategies
Doesn’t haggle over price
Says please and thank you
Merrily complies with your requests
Brags to their friends about you

Wouldn’t that be so… refreshing?

But… how do you get there? Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any known trick or tactic.

Because, you see, it’s simply the size that counts.

The size of your big, fat, juicy… carrot.

Until 2016ish, I was making a yuuuge mistake. Yuge. Believe me.

I was trying to [metaphorically] “beat my clients into submission” to get my clients to behave how I wanted them to.

I was so over-eager to do business on my terms, that I’d sometimes become literally enraged when I was getting my way. (I don’t mind admitting that — “No failure only feedback”, you know).

Then I realized.

My carrot was too small.

There simply wasn’t anything motivating my clients to give me the freedom to do business on my terms.

And let me tell you, one does not simply grow a massive carrot overnight. These things take time and energy.

What I can tell you is… it’s possible.

If you want to one day do business on your terms… the first step is to desire it.

Really desire it. That means use reason to independently:

Figure out what “doing business on your terms” means to you
Figure out what’s so good about it
Figure out if it’s worth pursuing
Conclude that you want it for sure

With those boxes checked, you’ll begin to think about how you can achieve it.

That’s where the carrot comes in.

I’m convinced that the only thing that will make clients let you do business completely on your terms is “toward motivation”.

The value you provide has to be so high, that it’s simply worth if for them to give you all this respect and freedom.

What do you think here? Have you found any other ways to reach a point where you’re doing business on your terms?

– Aleksander Vitkin