The One Big Difference That You Can make to Your Business This Year

I’m sure you’ve received messages about making 2014 better than 2013 and about setting measurable goals and so on. This is easy to say and not very easy to do. If you’re struggling and want to make 2014 different to previous years here’s 3 things you can do.

First, read or re-read my post that I sent you back in early November last year. If during the break and the last two weeks you’ve struggled to plan your year ahead then this post contains some links to a large amount of pretty solid advice and guidance. In my humble opinion, it’s well worth taking an hour or so out to go through (again, or for the first time if you didn’t see it because you were too busy sprinting to year-end or if you’re new to my blog) and digest.

The other reason for doing this is that it means stepping out of your business so that you can think about it at a higher level. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that I view ‘thinking’ about your business as one of the most important things you can do and which most do too little of. Type ‘Thinking’ into the search box at the top right of this post and you’ll see a number of posts on this, the first one dates back in July 2011, around the time I started this blog.

Which brings me to the second thing you should do to help you make this year different and better. Hover a few hundred feet above your business and look down on it.

Look at how your business flows:

  •  How you attract and retain your ideal customers;
  •  How you convert prospects into new customers;
  •  The products and services you create and deliver that is worth more to your customers than the amount you charge them (the value you deliver);
  •  The resource, capabilities and leadership qualities needed to do all this;
  •  The systems and processes needed to keep all running smoothly so you can focus on value and revenue generation.

With this flow in mind, where are the bottlenecks? What’s holding back the flow of your business and why? What’s the biggest constriction to the smooth flowing of your business? What’s the biggest thing that needs to work but isn’t? If you got this bottleneck working what difference would it make to your business?

I take clients through this process and we identify the biggest obstacle to their business flow. When I ask the last question, the answer I almost always get is, “It would make a huge difference.”

Unless you have infinite time and resource, this would be a good place to start.

And the third thing you can do? Identify where your expertise does not lie and get help. It will be quicker, more cost effective and you will have better results than if you try and work out how to do everything yourself.

If you need help making the big difference to you business then contact me and see if I can help.