Amazing results are what you get when you’ve taken the time to clarify the direction you want to go, communicated that clearly to those around you, created a plan of action to bridge the gap between your current state and your desired future, and then used focus and discipline to stay at it every day. People who take the first five steps are amazed at the results they get and they’re amazed at how fast it happens.
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One Day at a Time
Full disclosure: many people believe the steps sound overwhelming. I agree that it can seem that way, but the key to actually implementing the steps is to realize it’s all done one day at a time. If you make a 1/10 of a 1 percent improvement in your business and your personal life every day, that adds up to a 0.5 percent improvement each week, which equals a 2 percent improvement each month. That is a 24 percent improvement over the course of a year, and that is a lot. If you look at it like compound interest, then that improvement (if you keep at it) would double ever 2.7 years. This means in 10 years you would have 1000 percent improvement in your business and your personal life. Who wouldn’t want 1000 percent improvement? (Including in your bank account?) These are serious results, and they start with clarity of direction, communication, a plan of action, focus, and discipline.
I started working with a particular client in 2014 and he’d been in business for five years. In 2014 he made his first profit in that business (of $125,000), and so I started working with him because he wanted to sell his business. He said he was tired of working so hard and not getting the kind of results that he wanted. We worked together and concluded that he wanted to sell his business in two years. That became the direction. He had one staff member who was working with him, so we communicated that to her along with the plan: We’re going to sell the business in two years and here’s how we’re going to go about doing it.
It didn’t take me long to see that focus was an issue we needed to work on. My client was distracted by all the things that were happening every day. He would be in the office for eight hours, but really he wasn’t accomplishing anything. He was distracted by LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, emails and texts. He would chat on the phone for hours at a time. So I made him commit to spending four hours a day eliminating distractions, intensely focused on his business, and disciplined to stay at it. He was supposed to maintain that focus and discipline from eight to noon every day without distractions. I told him that from noon on, I didn’t care what he did.
He committed to do that every day—five days a week, four hours a day, which is only 20 hours per week. That was in 2014 at the end and of 2015 he had generated $800,000 of cash in his business and was able to pay off all his debt. In 2016 that went to $1.2 million, still only working four hours a day. That was when he decided he didn’t want to sell his business anymore because it was generating lots of revenue.
Amazing results and accelerated business growth are Gary’s specialty. If you need help, call him at 503-312-3145.
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