Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Steven Morris, President of Matter Consulting, located in San Diego, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I'm a brand and culture-building expert. I help business leaders build unignorable brands, cultures, and businesses through my work as an advisor, author, and speaker. Over my 25+ years in business, I've worked with business leaders from Samsung, Sony, Habitat for Humanity, Amazon, International Trademark Association, NFL, MLB, and over 250 other brands.

As a writer, I've published two books. My most recent is "The Beautiful Business: An Actionable Manifesto to Create an Unignorable Business with Love at the Core." It's been called "'The Artist's Way' for business leaders." Through my Insights blog, I reach more than 25,000 weekly readers, and I've also written about brands, innovation, leadership, and culture as a contributing writer for Retail Observer, Wisdom Well, Business Week, Brand Week, Conscious Company Magazine, Communication Arts, HOW Magazine and MarketingProfs.

My client-partners tend to be small to medium-sized businesses that want to and are ready to take their business to the next level. I call it evolution, and it's part of the natural progression of any business or individual — we need to evolve to thrive.

I also do a limited amount of one-on-one guidance for business leaders who want to evolve personally and professionally. And lastly, I run an entrepreneur's Mastermind group where I work in a small group setting to help these business leaders, mostly in professional services, realize their potential in business and in life.

Tell us about yourself

The biggest thing that motivates me is impact. The impact that I'm honored to create for my client-partners in helping them evolve their businesses, the impact that I create for my one-on-one clients, and the impact that I get to make through the generous writing (books and articles) for readers.

I started my career as an artist and designer. I have an undergraduate degree in Fine Art, Psychology, and Philosophy. And a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in design and painting. I've applied all of this creative and humanist motivation background to the work I do today.

In addition to my thriving consulting business and writing career, I have an active fine art painting practice where I create primitive and figurative abstract artwork that shows in galleries and sells to collectors. I do this primarily for cathartic and emotive practice. It feeds my personal and spiritual growth and self-awareness. You can find my artwork at StevenMorris.gallery.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Part of my purpose in life is to help businesses and their leaders thrive, not just survive. My work as a trusted advisor in brand and cultural evolution is to cultivate, amplify, and activate the best parts of a business from the inside out. Jim Steeg, then COO of The San Diego Chargers, said, "you take businesses to the next level.”

I’ve been doing this work for over two decades. During this time, I’ve had the honor to work with and help evolve more than 250 brands (from Fortune 100 companies to small businesses to high-achieving solopreneurs) and well over 3,000 business leaders.

While that is a track record of stats and figures, it's people and teamwork that achieve results. What matters most is the impact and results I’ve helped to create for businesses, their leaders, their employees, and their customers—this is what I’m most proud of.

• Businesses reporting back after a brand evolution program have measured business growth of 602%, and one company measured the ROI effect on the work at 2,487% over a 2-year period.

• One of my clients cited that they “had a hard time keeping up with product demand” (products selling 3x faster than prior to our work with them).

• Another stated, “Their customer satisfaction was the highest it has ever been.”

• A solopreneur reported that their income doubled in less than two years while their business services evolved from doing rote work to higher profit strategic work.

• Still another said that they “have led three national re-branding programs internally at previous companies, and the one Steve worked with us on was by far the smoothest most well received, both internally to the culture and publicly.”

• And one more stated that they’ve “raised more money this year than they had in the last three years combined because of our work.”

Here's an article I recently wrote about why I do the work I do.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Among the hardest things is juggling the multi-pronged responsibilities in business which include caring and serving your clients, focusing on growing your own business, building a set of predictable clients, discerning who you will and won't work for, building your business systems and processes that create greater efficiency, creating a constant stream of effective marketing to attract more of the right customers, managing an internal team and building a culture that consistently serves your customers and ensure your team members flourish... all at the same time.

On top of all this, business leaders must radically care for themselves so they have the energy to work at a high level. All of this can shape a beautiful life and business. Integrating your core beliefs like values, purpose, and vision is vital to living your entrepreneurial adventure.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. You have to know why you want to create a business beyond just making money. Knowing this, in a crystal-clear fashion, is the difference between good and great businesses. Not knowing it creates all kinds of problems when you run into challenges... which you will. Knowing and living this "why" (or driving and higher purpose) will help you decern and decide how you do nearly everything in your business. Your why becomes your compass.
  2. You have to know what kind of business you want to be in and what kind of leader you want to be in your business. I cover this in Chapter 5, "The Evolving Leader," in my book "The Beautiful Business." When you know the kind of business you want to create and the kind of leader you are and aspire to become, you set out in a direction that your compass (your "why" or your purpose) will guide you toward.
  3. Know that running a business requires a wide variety of skills, most of which you'll need to acquire along the way. You don't need to know everything when you start, but you'll need to create a steady habit of constant learning from those who have run or guided successful businesses. Throughout my own journey of owning, running, selling, and building even more businesses, I've worked with many advisors, coaches, and consultants. And I've read hundreds of books on a wide variety of business and non-business topics. You'll need to become a student of business, of life, and your own evolution along the way. No business will ever out-evolve where the leader is. So, business leaders must constantly learn, grow and evolve — personally and professionally.

Here are a couple of articles I've written to help business leaders think about and apply that evolution:

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://matterco.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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