One of the most common challenges I hear people talk about is knowing what to work on first.
Quite often this turns into choice paralysis as they fail to make significant progress on anything because they simply aren’t sure of where to focus.
Sound familiar?
It’s always the important “stuff”
When you examine this choice paralysis further it’s always the important, strategic “things” that get stuck this way.
Why? Because it’s easy to know which client to respond to 1st, or which order to get your client work completed in, or which phone calls need your attention.
But when it comes to the bigger “stuff” our comfort zone starts to take over and throws up lots of little “what about this” or “well that depends on this” type of questions which culminate in no action being taken.
How to solve it
You need to do 4 pretty simple things…
1) Write down what you want your business to achieve in the next 6 months. Eg gain X new retained clients, delivered Y talks on my specialist subject, launched ABC new product.
2) Write down every “thing” that you feel you should be doing but haven’t got round to. Eg finish website, book speaking gigs, finished product launch details, contacts ABC referral partners, polished up my LinkedIn page, followed up on XYZ proposals, followed up on networking contacts from the last month and so on.
3) Score each of the “things” you listed in step 2 according to
a. Do you need to do it to achieve your business aim for the next 6 months.
b. How much (£) will it contribute to the growth of the business over the next 12 months+
c. How much revenue it could generate in the next 6 months.
d. How much time will it take to complete.
e. How hard it is to do.
4) How to interpret the scores:
i. If the “thing” doesn’t score highly for a or b then don’t spend time on it until everything else is complete.
ii. For those “things” that do contribute to a and/or b rank them according to how they score for points c, d & e.
iii. Get the quick wins done first eg those that are likely to generate a good amount of money in the next 6 months and that are quick and easy to do.
iv. De-prioritise those that have low income potential and that will take a good amount of time and are hard to do.
This may sound a bit complicated but it isn’t once you get that list written and go through the steps I’ve explained.
Then you need to “Just do it”
The success of your business is solely in your hands, and is dependent on your ability to blast through your strategic task list. Don’t let excuses rob you of a successful business.
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