As a business owner we need to be mindful of making each day count to ensure that what we are doing or about to do will ultimately generate a new client, sale or income.
But how can we ensure this happens and how can we avoid being pulled into the general hum-drum operational cum administrative roles and jobs we still have to do to ensure our business ticks along in the background, particularly when as a single-person-enterprise we don’t have anyone to delegate to and / or we can’t afford to out-source those jobs we aren’t so good at or don’t want to do.
It isn’t easy as ultimately we’re juggling many balls in the air constantly and this can be soul-destroying and boring as well as hugely de-motivating and time-consuming.
To ensure that everything we are doing is going to lead to a sale or a new client we must do the following two steps as a starter:
- Have a Plan – If we don’t plan then we will fail, not achieve, butterfly-hop from one job to another and end up feeling at the end of each day that we’ve only skimmed the surface and not actually achieved anything. This plan needs to be a large one i.e. year broken down into quarters and then into weeks and then into daily tasks. This way each job is still working towards the end goal aiming to achieve our strategic plan.
- Create a Time Plan – Once we’ve set out our plan and broken it down, it’s important to ensure we’ve diarised when we are going to do what we need to do, determine how long it will take to do the job, build in any possible contingencies and if possible break down some of those larger jobs into manageable bites. We also need to ensure we aim to do the jobs in the right order during the day, i.e. the largest / worst job first in the day “eat the frog”, that way as the day goes on the job become easier.
If you aim to at least do these two steps above then you will find that everything you are doing right now is going to lead to a sale or a new client. Try it and see how you get on.
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