As the calendar ticks over into May, the scary thing is we’re already a third of the way through this year.
So the big questions are: Where are you at with your business goals and your growth goals? Are you at least a third of the way through?
When I’m asking you these questions I’m kind of implying I’m on top of things and I’m on top of my goals I set for this year. I have a plan. It’s laid out where I want to take my business.
But the scary thing is when I look back, I’ve fallen off the wagon. I’ve fallen off the wagon because I haven’t been focusing on the big things in my plan to take things forward.
So in the last month, I’ve just been slack at driving the business forward. And it’s really easy to convince myself that it’s because there were the school holidays, Easter or Anzac Day, or I was so focused on delivering results for my clients, which I was.
But the simple fact is I let time go by and I haven’t been driving forward with my goals. So now I have that out in the open – what the heck am I going to do about it?
I’ve come up with a simple solution that will work for you as well:
Every Friday, I plan out the activities for the next week. I’ve added in one very simple step to that. At the top of that planning, I list the three things I did last week that will take my business forward. Then I list the three things I want to do in the coming week that will take my business forward.
I categorise those into increasing the pipeline, increasing revenue, increasing the capability of the business, or improving the process and simplifying the business.
Real simple: three things to take the business forward and categorised into gross capability and process. So that’s all well and good but really I should have been doing that anyway.
So I’ve added one more step and you can do this with your advisors, board or leadership team. I have to hold myself accountable.
I email them the three things I’m going to do this week and the report back on the three things I achieved last week.
I’m not asking them to do anything apart from being there to hold me accountable. Now, what I’ve noticed is they come back with some feedback, they come back with some ideas and that’s great, but the simple art of sending them an email and holding myself accountable allows me to take the business forward.
When I become slack, when I become overwhelmed, or too busy, I’ll stop sending those emails and they’ll be there to remind me “Hey, where are you? How have you taken your business forward?”
So here’s what you can do next:
Download your copy of the plan here. It’s a simple template you can use on how to grow your business.
You need to hold yourself accountable, and my advice is to use external people to help hold that accountability.
And you’d need to ask yourself, what are you doing this week, this month to drive your business forward?
KS
