Does Your Business Need Bumpers?

When I was a teenager I used to love bowling with my friends. Friday nights were always the best because they would light the place up with all kinds of lasers and black lights and fill the racks with glow in the dark bowling balls.

It was so much fun because generally speaking, bowling is pretty easy.

As I've grown older (and hopefully wiser), I realized recently that bowling is a really great metaphor for business.

You see, in order to bowl well, you have to keep your eye on the end goal - the pins at the end of the lane. But, if you focus on the pins too much, you'll probably end up veering off course and throwing a gutter ball.

Throwing too many gutter balls can really ruin your enjoyment of bowling. And it can ruin the enjoyment of your business too... Take it from a guy who's thrown lots of proverbial gutter balls.

Sometimes when my friends and I wanted to ensure that we had a fun, high-scoring game we'd set up the bowling rails, or bumpers as we used to call them.

The bumpers are simply a guide that you set up along the edge of your lane that ensures you stay on course. It's like training wheels for bowling. Any time your ball is set on a course for inevitable gutter-dom, the bumper guide will stop it and send it back on track.

If you're not careful, business can be a lot like bowling without bumpers. You can easily get caught up in the day to day distractions and lose sight of your ultimate goal - which is to solve a problem for your customers, do it better than anybody else, and make a profit while doing it.

The key is to set some bumpers or "guide rails" in your business. Guide rails are basically boundaries that keep you on track while still allowing you to have some flexibility and freedom in your movements.

This concept became clear to me recently as we've been working internally to create an exhaustive outline of our SOPs.

Some examples of guide rails in your business could be:

• Solidifying your company's core values or mission statement.
• Outlining your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) (like we have been to ensure that you create a consistent experience for your customers that can be easily replicated by new employees.
• Identifying a clear and concise Ideal Problem Avatar (IPA) that will help you target the right prospective customers who you can readily solve a problem for.
• Integrating systems and automations into your business so you can focus on the important stuff.
• Doing regular check-ins with a mentor or coach who can help you stay accountable and on track.

Remember, the goal is not to make business so robotic that you take all the fun out of it. The goal is simply to set up some guide rails that will help ensure you stay focused on what's important and avoid veering off into the gutter.

Before you know it, you'll be launching the ball straight down the center of the alley and hitting consistent strikes.

What guide rails do you have in place in your business? Send me a reply and let me know!

If you need help setting up some of these guide rails for your business, I offer coaching and marketing strategy consulting on a monthly or one-off basis. Send me a direct message if that interests you.