Steve Kim
Management Consultant
ESKim Enterprise Consulting
Follow Steve on Twitter
I am:
a business/management consultant focused on business development.
My passion is for:
studying the front-end systems that make organizations and industries operate and connect with each other and their customers while figuring out innovative new ways to generate new business – whether through new accounts, alternate sales & marketing methods, better customer relationship models, strategic partnerships, etc.
My business helps you:
look at your current front-end systems and figure out ways to increase business, revenues, and market share.
My biggest challenge is:
to connect with and convince prospects about my ideas and vision for the future of their industry. I believe I’m purposed to work with the banking industry, in particular to restructure and reposition that industry to new ways of serving their constituents, but I’m still missing something that fills the gap between the old-school systems & thinking and the innovative ideas & models I believe I’m supposed to teach them.
I make things different each day by:
asserting my beliefs/ideas when appropriate.
I have lots of ideas about:
hmm… can’t quite think of anything right now. ☺
My advice is:
always work toward balancing & completing yourself – creativity is beautiful but you can’t manifest something concrete without direction, action, and perseverance; analysis provides keen insight but you can’t apply it to serve the greater good without collaboration, relationships, and flexibility.
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”- Lao-Tzu
If you would you like to be considered for an upcoming “Innerpreneur Spotlight”, email me.
Tactic = an action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end
Your business name, your tagline, your website, your brochure, your FaceBook fan page, or any other business tool – they are tactics – that you employ to reach a goal.
Tactics don’t make a business successful
No tactic, no matter how clever or cool, will keep a client coming back. The value your business creates will.
You, the person behind the business – you, the person creating and providing the product and/or service – are ultimately what will make your business grow or shrink, and make your clients true fans.
No enduring business I know of can thank their tagline, or their business name, or any of their ever-changing and evolving tactics for their sustained success. They may thank tactics for having helped garner them attention, but they see their sustained success is due to the value their business creates in the world.
Smart people helping doesn’t hurt
You can hire awesomely smart people to work with you on your business tactics, and invariably you will grow because of them, but they do not have the answers to make your dreams a reality. They can’t guarantee that. No one can. But they can help you to shape your tactic into something great. To a point.
They can help you to create the most beautiful and functional website but it’ll be up to you to make it come alive and fill it with value. They can design you the most visually stunning and clever logo but it’ll be up to you to share and connect it to the people who can benefit from it’s message.
Your business success, the reaching of your goals, it’s always up to you. Tactics can help you to get there but they can’t guarantee arrival.
photo credit: HamburgerJung
Artificial acceptance of people and circumstances we resent
Why do we pretend? Why do we stay in situations that hurt us?
It’s not that we’re being nice. It’s not that we care.
We tell ourselves we’re needed and necessary. We inflate our importance.
We feed our ego.
Because we ‘care’
Because I ‘cared’ I used to happily let myself be a food source for others. I saw it as the thing I was good at. My fulfillment came from letting others dine freely on my time, talent and energy. They fed on my energy and my ego fed on their attention.
Except, I wasn’t being accountable to myself. I was abusing my energy, and letting others do the same. I was wasting it being ‘on call’ to others, instead of investing it in my art or my Self.
I put little value on my energy and, as a result, others did as well. I felt tired, used and angry.
It’s not your weight to carry
People don’t mean us harm, but they do harm us when they ask for more than we are willing to give.
Being willing to shoulder the responsibility of other people’s downfalls doesn’t make us a caring person. It makes us a tired and depleted person.
Meeting the expectations of others, we misplace our own values, and inevitably, it weighs heavily on us.
A return on investment
I’m discovering that I need to see my energy not as something I should be giving to others, but as a commodity that I must expect a fair return on. It’s my only way to a sustainable life and career.
As with investing, I have a right to expect and receive a fair return on my investments in energy – both personally and professionally. It’s a give and take, an exchange. Loving a person is not enough to make an investment. Determining it’s a self-loving relationship is.
Continuing to invest in draining relationships is just bad business. It robs me of the power to effectively invest elsewhere, or in myself.
Discovering a sustainable life
I need to be clear about what my priorities are. I teach others my boundaries, what they can expect from me, by acting on them myself. If I’m not clear on ME, no one else will be.
I want a sustainable life and career so I’m finding the courage to evict what does not serve the goal of excellence. I’m thinking about me first and creating boundaries for the people, circumstances and behaviors that do not serve me.
photo by: Thesilein
