I am having a thing going on at work. It’s a good thing. So many ideas and directions to consider. I can’t tell which, though, is truly for us.
When others are all over the board in their business, I jump in with advice about focus and simplicity. I don’t subscribe to the strategy of throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping something sticks. I also don’t believe in moving ten plans forward, yet none being fully implemented.
Which is why I sat in my office yesterday morning trying to figure out what to focus on first. I talk to my own coach, and she is trying to keep me on the path I chose a couple of months ago.
Yet, God keeps bringing other opportunities.
Which are from Him, and which are a symptom of my ENFP (heavy on the NP) personality?
I share this with you because I know part of being an entrepreneur is that we like starting things. And we like doing a variety of things.
I also want to remind you, and especially me, that we DO need focus and execution behind a solid strategy for our business. We do, we do, we do!
Here are some things I am doing to assess my current opportunities and prioritize.
- Analyze our current business. What is growing, what isn’t? I look at our current channels of work and analyze the revenues, profit, our team’s interest, resources and fun we have on each one!
- Get out our crystal ball so we can plan for the future. Our biggest channel of work is one-on-one coaching. We love it and we love our clients. How can we do more, and as we run out of resources, are there ways to find others that will fit our team and culture and can do the work? Or is there other channels i.e. training, products, etc that can help us expand and work with more people with our current staff.
- Address the roadblocks. In life and in business, many people just put blinders on to the obstacles. They seemingly assume that if they ignore them they will go away. I don’t believe that. I see too many people ignore them until they get to them and then they seem to big to overcome. I believe in planning for how we can get around the obstacles in advance so that when we get to them they are just another goal to be achieved in the grand plan.
- Take advantage of and leverage synergies. For example, we need to work on our online presence to compliment our offline business and to build and develop our online business. We need additional resources to provide more time and talent to work on new products. If we hire the right resources, we will be able to better execute our current strategies and make time available to begin to plant the seeds for the future channels we want to develop.
- Make a decision and go. I am not saying to make a rash decision. That is why I do the analysis and get input from others I respect. However, at some point you have to decide and go! Analysis paralysis doesn’t achieve goals.
I think it is ironic that God loves me so much that He wants to make sure I know exactly how my clients feel. I know where you are because I go through all of the stages that most small business owners go through too!
I have been fortunate in my career to have had a lot of training on how to navigate the stages and I try to be wise and use that experience in my own business, not just share it with you. (I recently wrote about how I can’t stand when other experts don’t follow their own advice and experience in The Cobbler’s Kids SHOULD Have Shoes!)
Where I am now, where you may be, is not the first time I have been here. We go through seasons and as your business grows, as my business grows, we come to this crossroad again, at a new place on the path.
Thankfully we have God to follow and He cares about our business too! So pray for me and I will pray for you. Soon God will have us both on our way to the next crossroad!
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