Is January already getting away from you?
More Isn’t Always Better
You don’t want to grow a messy business.
If you’ve found yourself scrambling to meet deadlines, dealing with conflict or issues within your team, or unsure of where you stand financially, adding more clients won’t solve your problems. You’ll just end up with more of something that’s not working for you!
There’s a better way to run a business, but getting results means doing some heavy lifting now. As a coach, I’m asking all my clients to think about what they can do this month to set the stage for sustained growth throughout the year.
That means mastering three business fundamentals:
Time management and task prioritization
Team management and systemized workflows
Money mastery, both looking ahead and backwards
This is Part 1 of a special 3-part series of The Extra Mile, looking at each of those fundamentals in turn. Which will you work on first?
Part 1: Organize Your Time
Time is a precious and non-renewable resource. As a business owner, you’ve got to invest it wisely.
The first step to time mastery is figuring out what’s important and what’s busy work. (It sounds easy, but it’s not. Most of us feel like everything we do is important!)
Here’s the exercise: Imagine you have a Board of Directors focused on growing your company, and they’re hiring you as CEO – what specifically would they hire you to do? What are the 3-5 things that they’d include on your formal job description, given your unique skill set? What are you doing today that an objective outsider would consider a low value use of your time?
Looking at your calendar, do you have time carved out for those 3-5 things? Or maybe you’re trying to fit them in around your ever-growing to do list…
Once you decide what’s non-negotiable when it comes to growing your business, you’ll need time dedicated to those activities. In other words, hold yourself accountable to your imaginary Board and treat your role as business owner like the essential function that it is.
Your new calendar has added constraints. We’ve taken time away from all the other stuff that’s been keeping you so busy. We might as well face it… you don’t have enough time left for everything on your to do list.
That means you’ll need to be more efficient. You’ll need to get ahead of interruptions and reduce time spent reacting to a crisis instead of executing your plan. It might also mean some “nice-to-have” ideas get put on the back burner, at least for a while.
Challenge yourself to systemize everything outside your 3-5 core ownership functions. You might gain efficiency immediately by creating checklists, templates, scripts, and flowcharts – even if it’s just 5 minutes here and there. But the work really pays off when you can start to delegate those tasks with confidence.
Writing your own job description can be an eye-opening exercise and can help you prioritize your To Do list. Writing your future job description, detailing what you’d like your role to be in 2-3 years, can serve as a north star as you make decisions about what to take on this year, and what you choose to delegate, outsource, or delay.
Recap: How to Run a More Organized Business This Year
This year, I’ve challenged business owners to invest some time to strengthening their systems for managing time, team, and money. You can find all parts here:
Part 1 – Prioritize working ON the business.
Part 2 – Prepare the team for growth.
Part 3 – Plan and track finances for a better bottom line.
This Week’s Takeaway
Rinse and repeat this two-step process:
Make an intentional decision about what’s truly important to the health and success of your business
Update your default calendar to block off the time you’ll need for those activities
As Jim Rohn said, “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” In other words, carve out time for the important stuff rather than using your time to react to whatever comes your way.
Would the resulting business be worth letting go of the small stuff?
Jan 29th: Tune Your Marketing Engine
(Without Spending a Fortune on Ads)
Join me this month for another fun evening at the Port Credit Log Cabin in Mississauga on January 29th, 6:00pm, to uncover straightforward lead generation and marketing strategies that are easy to implement, cost-effective, and designed to deliver real results for your business.
Click here to grab your tickets!
Feb 13th: Master Business Management
Get Into the Management Mindset.
This February, the 12-week Management Program opens! It’s a series of educational sessions to help hone your coordination, refine your management process, and keep you up-to-date on the best practices every great manager must master.
Learn more, and register here to get started.
Traction: By Geno Wickman
For anyone dealing with those all-to-familiar business challenges (slow growth, decision making, implementation, miscommunications), Traction offers practical strategies that can help. It focuses on six key areas of your business, providing simple yet effective ways to bring more clarity, growth, and focus to your work. If you’re looking for a straightforward approach to streamline your business, this could be a useful read.
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