The biggest barrier to growing your business is time. Do you resonate with that? Do you feel that you spend all of your time doing “stuff” for your clients and business admin so there’s never enough time to do that key piece of work to grow your business?
Well here’s a thought for you…I bet you always find the time to get the important stuff done. Is that true? Whether it’s that rush job for a client, filing your business paperwork just in time to meet the deadline, or getting the main “things to do” done before you go on holiday, you do get them done. That is simply because you have deemed them to be important and dedicated time to do them. The reason you don’t have enough time to grow your business is because you haven’t deemed it to be important enough. Sorry, I know that may sound a bit harsh, but it’s very true!
So, how important is growing your business to you? How hungry are you to achieve your vision of success for your business? What will that success actually mean to you and those around you? Or the alternative view…what will be the consequence of not achieving it?
If you are fundamentally passionate about growing your business then you have to carve out time to do it. The best way to achieve this is to book time out in your diary, like business growth is an important appointment, because it is one of the most important appointments you can have.
Are you thinking…”that all sounds fine but my reality is that I am working flat out and I want more time with my family & friends so finding additional time to work on my business just won’t happen.” If you are then here’s another home truth…You are the one that is choosing to have to work long hard hours in your business. You are the one deciding you can’t spend enough time with your loved ones. Those are your decisions. No-one is making you work those hours. You are doing it because you decided to make commitments to your clients that have resulted in long hours. If your response to that is “well it’s the only way to generate the income I need every month” then I’m sorry to have to tell you another home truth, but…you need to revise your pricing and/or business model because it’s not sustainable.
On a far more positive note, it does mean that you have successfully sold your services which is a great place to be and it’s a natural point to evolve your business on to a more sustainable footing. The best thing to do in that situation is to work out how many hours or “things” you need to deliver each month to meet your target income. Now based on your experience to date how much extra work comes hand in hand with delivering the required amount of effort, eg how long does the admin side take, how much time do you spend cultivating the lead in the first place and so on. Once you have done that calculation you can work out if that volume of work is sustainable and how to improve the situation. That could be increasing your price so you have to deliver less “things”, or outsourcing more of your “things to do list” or changing your business model to leverage your time more effectively.
Ultimately you are the only one who can make the decision to make business growth a priority, and you are the only one making yourself work long hard hours. The question is…what are you going to do about it?