You’re running your business and maybe it also feels like you’re running on a treadmill – working hard but never really moving forward. (It probably also feels like you can’t just jump off either, right? Your family is relying on you, as are your employees). You want to make improvements in the business but it probably feels SO BUSY that you can’t easily change course.
So in the blog post I want to talk about how to make game-changing improvements in your business without shutting it down to make those changes.
- Get everyone excited about making changes.
Don’t keep it to yourself. Get your whole team excited about the changes you intend to make because the team’s excitement will help to build anticipation and expectation… and that will help you discover the motivation to make the changes you need to make. Be specific with your team about what changes you want to make (that way, you’ll get better buy-in from them and they won’t feel that the generic “I’m making changes” is going to threaten their jobs). It’s a way to keep accountable to the people who are relying on you.
- Create a plan and build small, specific steps.
Making positive changes in your business is a good idea but it will stay only as an idea unless you build a plan to get it done. And when I say “plan” I mean a specific, step-by-step list of actions that you need to take that are built around your vision for your company. (You can read more about this in Chapter 4 of my book The Secrets Of Business Mastery. You need a vision but if you want to actually take daily action then you need to have small, specific steps. The more specific, the better. For example, if you’re looking for new payroll software, don’t just make one of your steps “look for payroll software,” rather it should be “identify features needed for payroll software,” “find ten payroll software options,” “create a shortlist of 3 payroll software options,” “… and so on. Many short, specific steps. Work with your mentor, coach, or business transformer to help you create the best actions.
- Go to work 30 minutes early.
I’m sure that you’re already at work longer than you want to be. Long days in the office are frequent result when a service business owner is running a business that feels like a treadmill. However, those long days are often busy with putting out fires. So I advise going in 30 minutes early for the short-term and investing those first 30 minutes of your day in uninterrupted work on your business. (Truthfully, I think you should go in 60 minutes early but let’s start with a smaller, more realistic number. I believe, in short order, you’ll see serious results in 30 minutes and you’ll WANT to bump it to 60 minutes). The good news is, as you change your business, this extra time will actually diminish because you’ll have more time during the regular workday. But at the very beginning, this first 30 minutes is a great investment. (Note: Make sure you work exclusively on changing your business in this time period. Don’t use it for other priorities – that just defeats the purpose).
There are, of course, other ways that you can start doing to make dramatic changes in your business. In the next post, I’ll give you three more ways…
