Accept the fact that you will never get everything done!
When I tell this to business owners there is a momentary sense of relief followed by an overwhelming concern. “But how will I make sure I’m working on the right things?”they ask.
The answer; make sure the activities you are working on are in sync with your job responsibility, your strategic plan and your short term focus. Here is how!
1. Job Responsibility
Get clear about your job responsibility. Yes I know; you are the business owner so you are responsible for everything! But you probably have 4 or 5 prime responsibilities to the company. You might be the one who drives business development; or manages the team; or who delivers to the client. So really think about your job and identify those 4 or 5 (no more) prime responsibilities. Here are some examples:
- Business development
- Client retention
- Managing people
- Planning the future
- Customer service
- Delivering the product/service
- Thinking about the business
- Building the team
- Developing new products/services
- Financial management
- Other stuff!
If you are having difficulties with this step, imagine you are about to hire a person to replace you. What would be their 4 or 5 prime responsibilities?
2. The Strategic Plan
What are your strategic plans for the year? How does your job impact those plans? For example, if your plans call for a 15% growth in new clients and you are responsible for business development then you are also responsible for that growth strategy. If one of your primary responsibilities is managing the money and one of your strategies is to increase profits then you are the owner of that strategy.
3. Short Term Focus
In order to successfully achieve business strategies you need to break them down into manageable chunks. We call these chunks the 90 & 30 Day Focus. We take each strategy and decide what we want to achieve in the next 90 days. If the 15% growth in new clients means we need to bring on one new client a month then the 90 Day Focus is 3 new clients. However, we cannot wait until the end of the 90 days to find out if we have been successful so we break it down even further with a 30 Day Focus. In this example the 30 day focus will be 1 new client.
By working with your 90 & 30 Day Focus you know you are working on the right things!
Here’s a great 2-minute tip – 3 Techniques to use time to your advantage.
