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Heading into the New Year always gets me thinking about my life and my business. Have I been all-in or have I been just settling for? How about you?
All-In vs Settling For: What’s The Difference?
I believe settling for is not doing what you know in your heart, needs to be done in order to succeed.
As a small business owner, the performance of your business has a pretty large impact on the rest of your life. Here are some ways you might catch yourself settling for in your business:
Working hard instead of working smart, when deep down you know it’s not really taking you forward.
Not dealing with a staff member who no longer fits.
Not hiring that new person who would really free up your time (or some of your team’s time) and allow for more productivity and a nicer life.
Not getting out and doing the rainmaking activity that you know only you can do to generate more business.
Failing to adopt some professional management approaches to improve the way your business is run.
Refusing to analyse your numbers properly to get to the truth about how your business is performing compared to your peers (and where it could improve).
Not improving your selling and communication skills (either personally or for your team of advisers).
Not investing in yourself, because you’re worried about cash flow or income, when you know deep down you need to invest in yourself to grow and move forward.
Clients Going All-In
Recently, I saw the all-in mindset develop in one of my clients. They realised, in October, that they would have a significant tax bill to pay in January. This was causing them some concern as they didn’t have the cash required to pay it. So they went all-in and hired an external Finance Director to help them ascertain what their real financial position was, what they would need to generate in revenue and how many new client leads/first meetings they would have to hold in order to achieve their goal. They committed mentally to giving it everything they had.
The outcome of their commitment?
I have to be honest, the numbers looked tough, but amazingly they’re hitting their targets and writing loads of new, good-quality business. It’s the breakthrough they’ve been looking for and it came about because they went all-in.
So as we commence another year, how are you choosing to go through 2015? All-in or settling for?
I’d like to be all-in. If you would too, let’s help and encourage each other. Inevitably we might fall short some days, but we can give each other the reminder to get back up and give it another go.