Seven Things You DON’T Have to Do to Grow Your Business in 2011!
Fire yourself? Yes! Put it on the calendar and fire your lazy, no good, self by the end of 2011! Now that you’re shocked, here are the details.
1. Don’t keep your job! Make it a goal to fire yourself by the end of the year. Work ON your business at least one day a week. You have to work IN your business for now but to grow you must work ON it. Think long-term, strategic, and high level. Get out of the day to day activities more and more. If you are in a production position right now, set a goal to be in a strategic position by the end of the year!
2. Don’t do the TWO STEP. If you take more than two steps from your desk/workstation to do a repeatable activity, you may not have efficient systems in place. If you are reinventing functions on your computer, in your communications, through your marketing, then you have not automated what can be automated. If you can get it down to one step, you’re getting closer to a business that you can leave once in a while! If you can’t leave, you don’t have a business, you have a job!
3. Don’t be a moaner and a loner! If you’re complaining about having to do everything yourself, you haven’t formed the proper team. Whether they’re on staff or outsourced, the only way to grow our biz is leverage! Don’t try do it all yourself. It won’t work. Period.
4. Don’t become a control freak. I’m not talking micromanaging here; I’m talking systems, procedures, best practices, checks and balances. For example is your bookkeeper that you’ve known and loved for years writing checks and reconciling the checkbook? If so, you’re playing with fire. Do you find yourself in a big hassle every time you replace an admin member? Is it because you didn’t have the discipline to set up the desk manual and all the controls that go with that position in a nice little three ring binder? Control is a good thing. Just don’t freak out over it.
5. Don’t forget to water and fertilize. Are you nurturing the controls, systems, vendors AND team members in a way that they are ready for greater growth? Are you training, preparing, and exciting your team for the future? Do they know how to do their jobs and think for themselves or are they more compliant than self-reliant? Your future depends on their ability to think. For themselves.
6. Don’t try to become a marketing maven. Do you depend on outside people to manage your marketing functions? Nothing wrong with that but you need to know enough about the rapidly changing marketing tactics to ask intelligent questions. Do you know how to Tweet? I’m just asking! It’s not necessarily something you should do but you should know what it means! Don’t try to be the expert at everything, be the strategist with the 30,000 foot view and your business stands a better chance of growing in 2011.
7. Don’t try to find Balance. There’s no such thing for the entrepreneur yet you can come from a place of calm more often than you think. Start your next meeting by asking your team to close their eyes and take three deep breathes. Start your next project at your computer with a moment of pause… slow down… breathe… enjoy the ride. Cooler heads prevail. It may never be a perfectly balanced life in your position but you can slow it down for a minute now and then to make sure you’re taking care of yourself so that when you are working on your business you are focused, clear headed and making your best decisions.
Go ahead, take ten minutes right now and walk around the block. You’ve got a lot of things we DON’T want you to do this year. You better get ready!
And, by the way, call me if you want to lower your taxes in 2011!
Have a prosperous day!
Gabby
Wealth Coach
208-263-7202
