We have all been there from time to time, but do you ever get to the stage where you feel like you are in a bit of a rut when it comes to your business? Do you feel like new leads are drying up and things are simply getting rather stale? Perhaps you feel like you are always pushing that boulder up the hill, only to watch it roll back down, feeling like this process is going to repeat itself until the end of time.
This happens to every business owner at some point during their career, but what can you do to take your business out of the storm and into the riches of the sunshine? Have a look at these reasons below and hopefully you will be able to pick up some simple advice where you can make changes for your business.
Expand your vision
The thing that motivates most people is the vision of how good life could be if they decide to put the work in. This kind of motivation makes people act beyond what they are currently doing creating something so compelling that it forces them to change their habits and behaviours in ways that will help them in the long run.
The problem with the majority of people that own their own business is that they are only looking at the small picture by looking towards next week or next month. What if you looked at your business and really raised the bar in terms of your expectations of yourself? Think about the daily things you do that would force you to make changes. What would that force you to stop doing? What would be the catalyst to take massive action?
Your habits are not helping you
We are all creatures of habits, some help us, and some are detrimental in terms of how they serve us for our businesses. In order to create change, you need to either work harder or try to be more proactive in what you do: simply put, you need to replace bad habits with ones that are going to help you.
This may mean that you can start small by adding something like exercise to your daily routine, learning how to say no once in a while, creating a timetable for your work day so you can keep focused on each task that you carry out, or maybe cut down the time that you spend on Social Media whether that be Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Remember to start small, if you look at changing everything at once then it is just going to be a shock to the system. Like an amateur marathon runner in training increasing their mileage by a couple of miles every other week, try changing 1 habit at a time. Before you know it, you will have changed all of those negative habits.
Don’t focus on superficial social media relations
This one will most likely make more sense to the younger generation, but don’t focus your business relationship building too much on just Social Media. A large number of business people tend to favour messaging people over social media channels instead of picking up the phone and having a coffee with them face to face. Yes, it can be tough to build relationships with people that you don’t know, but that is part of business and the people that you physically put yourself in front of can really help take your business to the next level.
Try and look at it from this perspective, pick three people this year that you believe could help you drastically change your business for the better and focus on building a deep relationship with these people. Here is the catch 22, do it by focusing on what they want and focus your efforts on how you can help them
Don’t focus on your weaknesses
It’s amazing how people can ruin their own success by focusing on what they are not good at rather than what they are good at. How many times have you heard people give excuses such as “I’m just not good at marketing” which is then followed with “but I love to talk to people and help them get what they need”. This is one of the tidier explanations as to what marketing really is.
Of course, it’s wise to try and improve on your weaknesses, but think about how you can drastically improve your business on spending more time of the sorts of things that you are good at such as the things that bring you joy and create value over your competitors.
You’re managing the wrong things
Business is like a soup. From the diner’s perspective, it either tastes good or it doesn’t. From the chef’s perspective, it’s the precise ingredients of broth, the different vegetables, and seasoning that makes it takes good or bad. We often approach business more like the diner than the chef, we manage the soup rather than looking at the combination of ingredients that makes it taste good.
In essence, there are reasons why things go wrong in business, and it is up to you to find out the solution. One of the main things that will hold your business back is a failure to view your business as a precise blend of purpose, quality and being able to persevere when things don’t go to plan. Being able to focus on these three things will help you to take your business towards your vision.
