It’s easy to feel like everyone else around us has this business thing all figured out, leaving us wondering if there’s a ‘secret’ we don’t know yet. From the overnight success stories (they never are!) to the perfectly curated Instagram feeds, we can often be left feeling underwhelmed by our own results and wondering if we are really cut out for entrepreneurship and business success after all.
If you’re not yet hitting all the goals you intended to, and if life is feeling a little crazy at the moment, know that you can absolutely turn things around and build the business and life you’ve been dreaming of.
You just need to get more clarity and focus so that you can implement on the right things.
What to focus on?
Are you constantly spinning your wheels and asking yourself these questions…
“What should I be doing next?”
“Am I focusing on the right thing?”
“Where do I even start, there’s just so much to do?”
I’ve been there too and asked myself these same questions dozens of times. Not having the answers to these questions quickly leads to frustration, confusion and overwhelm.
Knowing WHAT to focus on and WHEN to focus on it will give you the clarity and confidence you need to propel your business forwards by implementing the right things for where YOU are right now.
I have created three stages of business that outlines a key area of focus for each.
Start-up Stage
You have just started your business and have an idea of what you will be offering. It’s time to put the solid foundations in place to build a long-lasting, sustainable business.
This stage of business is about learning who YOU are as a business owner – your personality, strengths, expertise.
Defining your ‘right for you’ paying clients and what their pains, struggles, dreams and aspirations are by asking them. You need to be speaking, and more importantly listening, to lots of people at his stage.
Getting clarity on your message so that it speaks to the hearts of your people.
Find the right business model for YOU and start implementing the strategy that will move you towards the next stage of business growth.
Work with clients to gain insight and feedback on your services. This then validates your offer before you spend a lot of time and possible even money marketing it.
Be aware of your mindset – don’t let the mind monkeys take over with feelings of self-doubt and imposter syndrome.
Growth Stage
You now have confidence in your offer and the solution you can provide for your clients, so it’s time to focus on creating a sales and marketing system to bring in clients.
Most of the activities you need to be focusing on in this stage will be marketing your business – creating brand awareness and attracting new people into your world.
I use my 5 Step Simple Marketing System with all of my clients that enables them to create their own system for success that feels good for them and their business. No cookie-cutter, one-size fits all formulas here!
If 80% of your time is not being spent on marketing and sales activities then it’s time to check-in and review where you are currently spending your time and how effective those activities are.
You are likely still working in a 1:1 or 1:few business model as you don’t yet have the systems in place to support the backend requirements of working 1:many e.g. client support, tech support.
Continue to work on your mindset daily as this stage can bring up all sorts of limiting beliefs of self-worth, not being enough and comparing yourself to others in your industry.
Scale-up Stage
Here you want to leverage your time more effectively. You will be adding more systems to your business to ensure it runs effectively, without requiring you to do all the work.
You may decide that now is the right time to build a team that supports you in running your business in the most effective way possible. This could be a business manager, a VA, an operations manager – it doesn’t really matter as long as you feel that you are able to ‘let go’ of this work so it frees up more of your time.
You will be adding more income streams to your business, possibly including a 1:many model now that you have more support in place.
Even at this stage mindset work is crucial to your continued success. As the saying goes ‘new level, new devil’ which may include self-sabotage. The book ‘ The Big Leap’ by Gay Hendricks talks about this brilliantly.
Take strategic action
Look at which stage of business growth you are in and look to see if you are focusing your effort on the right actions.
What can you do in the next three months to move you closer to your business goals?
Decide what it is you want to achieve, make an implementation plan and go for it!
