FALL = The Entrepreneur’s New Year
That’s how one of my clients described this time of year to me yesterday – and I totally agree.
Fall is my favourite time of year – ripe with possibilities, fresh starts and pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks.
And with the arrival of fall, back-to-school and cooler weather, comes a great opportunity to look strategically at your business and identify exactly where you’re going to focus your efforts for the next four months.
While you may be easing back into your routines, I encourage you to take a 30,000 foot view of your business in the next week or two to really see where your opportunities lay – for cash flow, visibility and creation. Basically – I’m asking you to make a plan.
This doesn’t have to be onerous or complicated – you can take an afternoon with a hot cup of tea and plot this out.
But take the time to do it.
It’s going to mean the difference between being in reactive mode – wondering where your next dollar is coming from, to shifting to proactive mode where you have your activities plotted out intentionally so you know exactly what you’re doing when.
This is a much more empowered place to run a business from.
To get started, take 15 minutes to do a quick assessment of where you are right now:
- What’s working REALLY well in your business now? (What are you loving? What’s bringing in the money? What are you excited about?)
- What’s NOT working very well? (What feels heavy? What do you no longer love doing?)
Then, look at your answers to these two questions and ask yourself:
- Looking at the things that are working, where could I turn up the volume or amplify my efforts to get even bigger results?
- Looking at the things that aren’t working, where could I ditch it, delegate it or defer it?
Next, I want you to think of ONE game changer that would make a big difference in your business over the next four months. ONE thing.
You know the story of the tortise and the hare? Well, you may have a natural inclination toward one – but the truth is, you have to be both in your business. Slow and steady is great for building momentum and consistency and your brand. But sometimes we have to push a little harder and run a little faster to make some BIG bold moves in our business. This is when we switch into hare mode.
So, look at your next four months and identify a hare strategy – a big catalytic move you could take that would really leap your results forward fast. This may be:
- finally creating that product or program
- shipping that product or program that’s been sitting there
- hiring your first team member or virtual assistant
- re-packaging your offers to make them more compelling
- doing a joint venture project to grow your list quickly
Next, follow this simple process (yes, it doesn’t have to be complicated):
1. Identify your game-changer (e.g.run a video summit with 10 other business owners)
2. Write down the big result you hope to achieve from it (e.g. grow my list by 1,000 people)
3. List your three key steps that will get you there (e.g. reach out to the 10 experts I want to profile, set up the technology, create a promotional plan)
Of course you’ll need to do more work to flush out all the rest of the details, but starting here makes it real and more possible. Just continue to chunk it down until it you’ve got a lot of bite-size pieces to manage that you can add to your daily to-do’s.
CEO Days:
Finally take time now to add a few CEO days (or half-days) to your calendar – one a month is great. These are the days where you clear you schedule, do not take clients, put email on the backburner and actually work ON your business vs. IN your business. You may use this time to get your systems in place, to plot out your marketing calendar for the next six months, to have a brainstorming session with your team, to go into deep writing/creation mode to finally get that course/ebook/webinar DONE.
As the CEO of your company – you wear many hats. While the technician hat is the one you are likely most familiar with (that’s the DOING hat – e.g. coaching, consulting, designing etc.) – wearing your CEO is equally if not more important if you want your business to grow.
You have four incredible months ahead to make big progress on your goals. Plan for it, put it in your calendar and watch your business boom. Make this time count!
NOTE: I just recorded a totally free & sales-free teleclass that takes this topic deeper (including some key info on when to focus on making money). The call is over, but the recording is available by signing up here.
Would love to hear in the comments what big plans you have for these remaining four months.
