If you own a business the day-to-day running of it can be diluted by the need to actually DO stuff. Once your business reaches a certain size and you have staff who can take on some of your responsibilities, it gets easier to find the time to plan, develop and grow – but small businesses can take much longer to grow than the owner would like, simply because there aren’t enough hours in the day.
Have you ever felt like you’re on a hamster wheel, running like mad and not really moving forwards?
If you’ve ever spent the festive break trying to do some forward planning, only to find that it’s nearly March and you’ve been to busy to put your plans into action, you’ll know what I mean.
It’s time to break out
If you have an appointment with someone to do with your business, you won’t cancel, not turn up or avoid it, so take that dedication and put appointments in your diary to work ONLY on your business development.
This might be an hour a week or an afternoon a month, or even just a couple of hours at the end of a month, but put the time in your diary and treat it as a business appointment.
You’ll need to have a long-term plan and then identify the activities that will take you from where you are now to where you want to be.
Given that you can’t ‘do’ a goal, you’ll need to break each outcome down into a to-do list and then work through the tasks. It may seem like a tedious process, but lots of small actions result in big results – if you do small things, often you may be surprised at how quickly you achieve your goals.
Get help
If you think you’ll still manage to ‘overlook’ these business development appointments, make them real appointments. Either get a business coach or a mentor and agree regular times to meet and what you’ll cover at each meeting.
A business coach will cost money, but the improvement in your business will almost certainly be worth it. In fact, it should more than pay for your investment in increased profits.
An alternative is to join (or form) a mastermind group or virtual board. These groups are excellent ways to tackle business challenges and be held accountable.
Get started
Don’t wait until tomorrow, the beginning of next week, next month, after your next holiday. Get started right away. Do something small that will take you one step in the right direction. It might be a phone call, looking something up online, reviewing some statistics, revising one page of your website – do those small tasks regularly and you’ll be on track to grow a very successful business.
