How often are you so busy delivering your client work that other crucial parts of running your business (or team) don’t get done?  Never was it truer that we ‘reap what we sow’ and in the end this behaviour will bite you in the backside and you will either drop a ball or suffer from the feast to famine swings that affect many small businesses.

It’s simple really, if you are so busy ‘doing the business’ that you can’t (won’t) take time out to work ‘on your business’, then who is steering your ship to avoid that iceberg that is up ahead?  If I had to identify the top 5 issues that small businesses suffer from, this would be near or at the top of that list.  If I could remove this phrase from our business vocabulary, I would!

Keeping busy

So if you are busy and want to keep it that way then you need to have an eye on the future, at all times, no matter how busy you are today.

The secret is to allocate sufficient time every month to work on the future of your business and where the money will come from tomorrow (this is your ‘business strategy’), and see this time as important as a client meeting.  The golden rule is:  stick to this time each week/month and if you have to move it because of a client conflict then you move it elsewhere. YOU DON’T JUST NOT DO IT!

Of course one of the reasons people don’t work on the future of their business is because they don’t know what to do – it all seems rather scary, so they content themselves with just concentrating on the now and delivering today’s client work.  Net result?  That feeling your business is taking one step forward and one back, or that your business has no direction and you feel a little lost and demotivated.  Sound familiar?

In order to be confident about the things you should do when you have strategy time in your diary, you need a clear business vision, clear strategy and measurable action plans.  Then you simply need to refer to your action plans when in strategy time and identify the next key priorities that build towards delivering your vision.  Sound simple?  Probably not, so if you want to know more or want some help then please get in touch.

So next time you hear yourself saying “I’m too busy” remember what the consequences will be for your business further down the line and avoid that iceberg!