Does this sound like you?
You’ve been in business for a few years now and your business is doing quite well. You’ve got quite a bit of work coming in consistently and you’re personally making some pretty good money out of this business.
From the outside, it all looks pretty good.
But, here’s the kicker.
You’re working really hard, putting in long hours, and your family are missing out on the best of you. You know in your heart of hearts that things could be a whole lot better than they are. You don’t know where to start – there’s so many things that need to be done.
Running my own business, as well as working with hundreds of business owners over the last 16+ years, has given me a unique insight into what it takes to achieve a business that affords you your freedom, rather than robs it from you.
In one word – it’s FOCUS.
As the owner, your only job (yes, I literally mean that) is to keep the main thing, the main thing.
That means devoting your precious Focus to only what is most important for the business and you to achieve your goals (Hint: It’s rarely what’s most urgent).
So, what are the most important things in business we need to focus on?
Here’s the 2 things that I ONLY focus on to maintain my inspiration to drive my business forward, even when I, at times, don’t feel like it.
Firstly, focus on the activity that drives the results of your business. Let’s use the analogy of sport to explain what I mean.
In any game of sport, two teams are play against each other. At the end of the game there’s a final score. That score cannot be changed once the final whistle is blown. During the game however, the coaching team and statisticians are tracking the aspects of the game which they know impact the final score.
For example, in Rugby League they track how many line breaks, how many penalties given, how many tackles missed, etc. In the post-match interview, the coaches never discuss the final score. They only talk about how well or poorly their team did in these “impacting factors”.
Business and sport have many so many similarities.
The “final score” of business is revenue, profit and cash in the bank. Reading our financial statements at the end of the month is crucial to business. However, we are unable to go back and change them. What those numbers tell us is the RESULT of what we have or have not been doing over the month.
Each business has scores, which impact our final scores. The coach of a sporting team will use the information they gathered about these “impact scores” in next week’s coaching. So for example, if tackling was poor you can be guaranteed there’s where she’ll be focusing.
In business we too must know our impactor scores and put our focus on the activity that will improve them.
So what are some of those impactor scores? If we want to improve the final score of revenue in our business, the activity we need to be focussing on is:
Like the sporting team, if I put my energy and focus in these areas, my results WILL change and I WILL achieve what is most important to me and my marketplace. The result for me is less stress and more time to do what I want. I’m inspired to drive for more.
Here’s the challenge though, most people in business find this work tedious and therefore they don’t do it well.
In my experience in business it is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to focus on.
A-grade sporting teams focus on them.
A-grade businesses focus on them too.
When I focus my efforts and energies only on the things that are important to me getting the results I want from my business, I have all the energy I could ever want for the other areas of my life.
Overall, I’m just a happier person.
If you’d like to know more about how to develop a plan for 2020 that is different to how you’ve always done it, contact us. We’d love to help you finally get the business and the life you deserve.
What does it take to actually remove yourself from the day-to-day grind of business? Learn from our panel of Business Owners who've Been There, Done That.
