I want to let you in on a coaches secret… the secret to turning a clients business around… Doing THIS won't improve your business.
Organisation doesn’t create money; to-do lists don’t create money. You can be the most organised, focused, disciplined business owner; you can be working tirelessly every day but still not growing your business.
You can be the superwoman of productivity, but if what you’re working on is the wrong stuff, it’s all pointless.
To grow your business, you need to know what influences growth and improvement in your business. I could spend all day creating content that is hyperfocused on helping women create profit. I could have sleek systems in place, a flawless process of writing, recording, editing and uploading content and yet be totally wasting my time.
Every entrepreneur has their favourite productivity tools, tips and hacks; I know I certainly do. If you head to the business section of Amazon, Booktopia or your local bookstore, you will see title after title promising to be the last nugget of wisdom you will ever need to turn you into a productivity ninja. All of that information, all of those tools and tricks are useful to a business owner or entrepreneur who also knows this one vital piece of information.
What actions drive your business?
What every business owner needs to know and understand is what actions or tasks get the wheels turning to drive your business? What is it you need to do, so people know your business exists? And once people know your business exists, what needs to happen for them to make a purchase? Productivity and organisation are good, productivity and organisation with purpose is so much better and more effective at growing a business.
I could post 100 videos on Youtube tomorrow, and they could be set in an Insta worthy office, with perfect lighting, and I could have perfect hair, but then what? Sit around and wait for them to be discovered? I could sit on Instagram Live dishing up quality business strategy 8 hours a day (in theory, there is no chance I could sit still for 8 hours), but then what? Wait for people to stumble over my Insta profile? No matter how organised and productive I am at creating fantastic content; it’s all for nothing if I am not doing the things that also put the content in front of people, and following that up with an offer to buy.
So the first logical question that is likely going through your head right now is “how do I know what moves the needle?”.
How do you know as a business owner, what tasks or actions to invest your time in?
The key is to understand;
- how people flow through the stages of knowing your business exists, to making a purchase
- what actions drive people to the first point of that flow or funnel
- the influencing numbers throughout that flow or funnel
When we understand the flow or the steps people take, how many people you need to attract each day, week or month to enter that flow to make a sale and what drives people to the first part of the funnel or the flow we can redirect our super productive time and energy to those specific tasks. That time and energy that is what will create growth and increase income in a business. That is where the productivity books, podcasts, tools, courses, videos etc… impact your business in a real way.
Instead of being the worlds most productive creator and scheduler of social media content, you can focus on less content and more activity that puts that content in front of people. Once you have nailed that part of the flow or funnel, you can focus on improving the next step your customer takes so they’re more likely to purchase.
When you reflect on the time, you have invested into your business over the last few weeks, how much was about increasing the number of eyeballs, and more specifically, your ideal customer’s eyeballs on your product or service? What did you do each and every day to ensure you weren’t just working, but you were working on the right things in your business. How much time did you spend checking that the efforts you invested paid off by generating revenue? Do you know how to identify what actions or efforts move the needle?
All the productivity and organisational skills you sharpen up are worth nothing to your business if you’re not working on the right tasks. I know exactly what tasks create pay-off in my business, and yes, there is a whole lotta stuff that isn’t directly related to that. The business-y stuff we all have to do. Tasks like managing our inboxes, administration, record keeping etc.. but when we know what those tasks are, that don’t influence the numbers we can plan to outsource or automate them, freeing up more time to invest in creating revenue. That is how you grow a business.
If your business is stagnant right now, growth has slowed right down, or stopped; you just might be investing your valuable time into the wrong areas of your business.
Want to start the process of identifying what moves the needle? Download the Profit Lovers Plan and Track, and commit to using it. If you’re not going to use it, you’re wasting time by downloading it.
When used consistently, you will see how much traffic is coming to your business, the actions you’re taking each week to generate more traffic, how many sales you’re making each week and if that results in more profits for you. It will give you the data you need to make informed decisions about where to spend your time to grow your business.