Do you feel your business is moving fast enough?
We start our new business idea with such great enthusiasm!
We KNOW this is going to be the best thing ever.
We have an irresistible offer,
We have all the knowledge we need,
We KNOW we’re good at what we do.
Clients will be overjoyed, money will pour into our coffers and then … reality hits with a bang. You’re working yourself to a frazzle, giving your all, and the numbers just aren’t adding up - and this may be when you realise that you weren’t even sure what your numbers should be!
You waltzed into this thing singing, strewing rose petals … and you weren’t exactly sure where you were going. I know when I began I was ready to “play it by ear”. Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it!
I knew where I was going to start but not where I was going.
Of COURSE everyone would want what I was offering!
No bother … I thought!
You see, you’re not alone!
Think of all the people who go through pregnancy focussed only on the birth. They have this weird feeling that their job is then done.
Hooray! Baby born. Job done! But as any parent knows, you soon forget all about those nine trying months and the 10, 20 or 40 very trying hours at the end of it! And your new life begins right there.
A new life!
You’ve started your journey and it takes on a life of its own.
And that’s a bit like your business. You had these fantastic ideas of how you’re going to serve your community, how you will help mankind - or dogkind if you’re in the dog training world! - and you worked to get started.
Now you may have had the right business knowledge at the outset OR It may all have been a bit of a scramble with a very steep learning curve.
Join the club! Many enthusiasts who build a business from their passion come a cropper the same way! They get started with a whizbang then come unstuck.
START
You see, knowledge of your subject just ISN’T enough If you want this to be a business rather than a hobby - to bring in revenue, put food on the table, and not be a charitable venture. You need certain business skills and one of those skills is SETTING GOALS.
Don’t groan! Setting goals is just a way of transferring your enthusiasm onto a piece of paper so that you can see where you’re going!
Once you find out how to do this, and the importance of making these goals, things will change dramatically for you. You’re giving yourself a roadmap for your journey, with stages planned out -and IMPORTANTLY! - how you’ll know when you’ve reached what you want.
It’s amazing how many people set out on a journey without knowing what their destination is! That would be considered mad if you did that when travelling. Of course you want to know when you’ve arrived! But if you don’t have a goal clearly mapped out you won’t know.
“Success” is meaningless without some numbers attached - and some emotions too!
You want to know you’re feeling right, that this path you’re treading is the right one for you. It’s what you really WANT to spend your time doing.
So setting a goal with numbers and dates is critical to … achieving it!
If you don’t know where you’re going you certainly won’t know when you’ve got there - or that you’ve even arrived in the right place.
2. ASSESS
So it’s vital to ASSESS where you are check that you’re still on track and make changes if you need to. You need to see what needs adjusting. And that’s where those numbers will come in useful. You may be getting lots of clients but you still seem to have no income.
Maybe you’re working lots of hours but there’s no time for planning.
Do you need to adjust your offerings? Or your prices? Or your target market?
Without these key indicators you won’t be able to make an informed and meaningful decision about what you need to change.
Now, there’s a third point … what can that be?
While you’re working on Starting and Assessing, come back here next week to find out where to go next!