Entrepreneurs: How's your Karma?

This guest post by Adrian Swinscoe



Many of you will be familiar with the concept of karma. According to karma theory, every action has a consequence and good acts will have positive results and bad acts will produce negative results. In more common terms, karma is explained by various sayings like:

“What goes around, comes around”

“You reap what you sow”

“The laws of cause and effect”

However, there is an additional element of karma that I want to talk to you about today. That element is talked about in Buddhism and links karma directly to the motives behind an action. This means that the motivation behind something can make the difference between something being a “good” or “bad” action.
Whether you believe in karma or not, this additional element is important in business or being an entrepreneur.

Why?

Well, often when developing our businesses we may want things to happen faster than they often do and, to get things moving faster, we can be lured into resorting to other tactics to get stuff done. However, in doing this we can lose sight of our and others ability to sense when someone is not being ‘true’ or is being ‘nice’ in order to get us to do something. This is our emotional instinct or ‘sixth’ sense and tells us a lot about what is going on around us and can reveal our true motivations behind our actions.

What does this mean for us as entrepreneurs?

Well, if we look at networking as an example. In business, networking is seen as an essential strategy for building new relationships, expanding your network and finding new possibilities to help you grow your business. However, many entrepreneurs are impatient creatures and can get frustrated with networking as it can take time to start delivering results. This can mean that they can slip back into selling or trying to figure out how they can leverage their network to get what they want and not on how they can help their network.
I think John F. Kennedy said this best at his inaugural address in 1961 when he said:

‘And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.’

So, if your network was your country ask yourself what you can do for your ‘country’ not what your ‘country’ can do for you. I think this is a great way to think about your networking and to make sure that your motivations are in the right direction.
Going about your networking in this way will allow you to build your karma in your network and, hopefully in time that will flow back to you directly or in other ways.
How’s your karma in your business?

Adrian Swinscoe is an author, speaker and consultant from the UK who writes about customer-focused business growth at Ideas for Business Growth. He has a strong belief that any established business could dispense with its traditional marketing activities and still grow itself by focusing on developing and nurturing its existing customer base and retaining its current clients. Why not connect with him on Twitter @adrianswinscoe, LinkedIn or if you liked this article then why not subscribe to his RSS Feed?