Professionalism, not passion, has to be the core of your business.

Michelle Mills, a businesswoman, speaker and co-author of “20 Beautiful Women: Africa Edition” used this as her platform at the Around-Ten Business Clusters (ATBC) meeting held at Cherrylane Gourmet Café recently.

The ATBC is a monthly business breakfast forum where every meeting has a different speaker, each sharing their stories of success and what they learnt along the way.

The initiative is hosted by the Mufasa Coaching Practice, whose vision it is to create unity and co-operation in the local business sector.

Mills asked her audience: “Why do you do what you do?”

“If the answer is, ‘to earn an income’, then you might as well get a regular job,” she elaborated.

“At business seminars, you always hear about the importance of passion in business, but I disagree. Passion is emotional and irrational, while in business, you have to be professional.”

“Being professional means doing what you said you would, when you said you would do it, the way you said you would.”

Additionally, Mills illustrated a technique she started using at business seminars, where the attendees lay the problems on the table and a solution presents itself in the form of another guest.

“People are intrinsically problem solvers,” she said.

MyMAround10(3)MyMAround10(2)

Professionalism is the key to success