There Is No “Right” Way to Run Your Business
Most business owners didn’t set out to follow someone else’s playbook. But between building a team, landing clients, and keeping operations running, an unspoken rulebook appears: grow this way, market like this, compete on this. And that rulebook can hold you in a relentless grip.
After starting her company in 2017, it took Kwedar & Co. founder Lauren Kwedar Cockerell a few years to stop chasing the mirage of the “right” way.
Lauren joined Janice on Media Rebel Unplugged to share what she believes it means to build a business that’s yours, and the discipline required once you’ve decided what that looks like.
The importance of following your own path
For high achievers and recovering perfectionists, it can be disappointing to learn that there is no “right” or “perfect” way to run a business. But it is also deeply freeing. This understanding is what unlocked the culture, the values, the client profile, and the business model that Kwedar & Co. has today.
A business built on someone else’s rules tends to attract someone else’s clients — and compete on price instead of value. The companies that break out of that pattern have usually made a deliberate choice: to build around what they actually believe, what they’re actually good at, and the work they actually want to be known for. This is a clarity and vision issue that impacts every area of your business.
The harder work: staying in your lane
Once you know what you’re building, the real discipline kicks in. Working the plan. Resisting the shiny new direction before the current one has had a real chance to take hold.
Focus is underrated. You can’t see what’s working until you’ve let it work.
If you’re a business owner who’s ever felt the pull between doing things the “right” way and doing things your way, this one’s worth your time.
Kwedar & Co. is a Fort Worth-based PR and messaging firm. We help B2B companies — manufacturers, industrial and professional services firms, and others who’ve built something worth talking about — move from best-kept secret to obvious choice.