Stop fluttering around like an autumn leaf in the breeze
The fourth of The Ten Reasons You're Not Making Enough Money in Your Business
Reason 4:
You're always running late
Sustainable, well run, profitable businesses have Rhythm,
there is a certain regularity and predictability to
their day to day and their operations
This is the fourth episode in my weekly series called : The Ten Reasons You're not Making Enough Money in Your Business"
Here is the introduction to the series with an outline and the structure of the ten weeks.
I have a client, John, who is always late to his appointments, every week, from 10 minutes to half an hour or sometimes more, and I have another client, Sarah. who is never late, no matter what happens, you can set a timer to her. As soon as the clock ticks over to the appointed time, my Skype starts ringing, without fail.
And only one of these two clients makes money in their business. Which one do you think it is?
Of course, Sarah.
One of the reasons Sarah makes money in her business, is because she prioritises. She decides what's most important to her and her business at any one time and handles accordingly.
The most valuable asset of your business
You see, Sarah has learnt that the most valuable asset of her business is her own time. Every other resource in her business, her people, her resources, her IP, even her customer list, is expandable and she can buy, rent, borrow or steal more of it, but her time is as limited and precious as your time is to you and my time is to me.
So Sarah, makes a point of constantly asking herself: "Is this thing I'm doing right now, the best use of my time?", and, "Is there anybody else I can ask to do this thing for me instead?", and "If I say Yes to doing this thing, that's before me right now, what am I saying No to?"
When you say Yes to one thing, what are you saying No to?
Every time you say Yes to doing one thing it means you're saying No to doing something else, by definition.
And the things you generally say No to are the things that can always be put off another day. They don't have the same urgency as the crisis that's just popped up before you. The emergency that one of your staff or a customer just called you about; the last minute "fix-it" that you think you can cram in between the thing you're doing now and the next thing you want to do.
Things crop up, always
That's how John operates all the time. John's always late because he always allows something to crop up, and he nearly always assumes he can deal with it quicker than he really can and anyway, meeting with me, once a week, is one of those things that can be cut a bit shorter if need be.
John doesn't give his meetings with me the kind of priority that Sarah gives those same meetings. Sarah will ensure she's free 15 minutes before our appointed time to go to the toilet, get a glass of water, look through her notes from last week and be 100% present from the moment we start our session. Sarah won't let things crop up, because she turns off her phone and her email, ahead of time.
Just so we understand each other, and you don't think I have an over-inflated ego: There's nothing particularly special or important about me (other than that I'm supper intelligent, highly skilled and stunningly erudite, obviously). What's special about our coaching sessions, is the actual time. Time for nothing else but business and personal development and growth. It's part of the time that Sarah dedicates to building her business. Sarah knows that to get to where she wants to get to, she must set time aside every week for business and personal development.
The Big Rocks in Sarah's Diary
Our sessions are part of that weekly business development time. Sarah has locked that time away in her diary and she will not allow anything to get in the way of it. Similarly she's locked away 15 minutes at the beginning of each day for a stand up meeting with her immediate staff to check in on the schedule of the day and she's locked in a formal "Work in Progress meeting" every Monday morning from 9.30 to 10.30 am. Nothing gets in the way of those times either. No phones, no email at those times. Nobody is allowed to make other appointments. There are other Big Rocks to Sarah's week that are locked away in her diary, such as a 1 hr walk she takes on her own every Wednesday morning, rain hail or shine. The weekly walk is Sarah's creativity time. All these blocks of time (the Big Rocks) that Sarah locks away in her diary are what forms the backbone of the Rhythm of Business in Sarah's company.
Sustainable, well run, profitable businesses have Rhythm, there is a certain regularity and predictability to them. Think of a big flywheel. It takes a lot of energy to get the flywheel to start spinning but once it's running, it drives the machine with relentless regularity.
Set the anchors in your week
Please don't think that means your business must be boring, far from it. But each week needs some anchor points that the rest of the week can be built around without floating along like an autumn leaf in the breeze.
Once you've made a commitment that something is worth your time, your limited and valuable time, make sure you drop your anchors right there, make it important enough, be there, on time, or lift the anchor and drop it somewhere else.
John doesn't make money because he doesn't drop his anchors in the week, and he allows the wind to blow him around like an autumn leaf in the breeze. Sarah makes money in her business because she is anchored and knows precisely what is the most important thing for her to focus on, every day and every week.
What are you prepared to make important enough in your week?
More about the Big Question of Small Business in last week's episode here.
Next Steps:
Have a look at all the stuff that happens in your week, and lets drop a couple of anchors, small anchors to start with, but honest to goodness anchors nevertheless.
You need time out of the hurly burly every week to do planning, thinking, visioning, being creative... start by finding an hour or two half hours each week... how about 10 to 11 on tuesday morning? Lock it in... put a big red circle around it and commit to leaving the anchor in the ground come what may.
Secondly, how about a weekly office meeting, maybe only half an hour to start with on monday morning from 9.30 to 10 am, and only ask three questions in the meeting:
- What went well last week?
- What didn't go so well last week?
- How are we going to ensure this week goes a little bit better than last week?
Now lock it in, tell everyone and insist that this half hour is from now on Holy (with a capital "H")
Next week's episode:
Reason #5: Callbacks and Warranty claims