Who is really in control of your business?
One of the things that I love about running my own business is the ability to control my day. I can decide from hour to hour what I will and won’t do. Will I work on a client’s Google Adwords account first thing, or will I write a blog or article for my website or create some new video training for my clients and memebers?
It is completely up to me, because it is my business.
What I find amusing is talking with other business owners who don’t realise that they can do this too. They seem to think that they can be told what to do by practically anyone, whether they be a staff member, a client or a supplier at any time of the day.
They miss the very point that being in business is about being in control.
How does this happen?
Here are the main culprits:
- A client or supplier sends an email stating that what they need you to do is urgent, so you better do it quickly; or
- A member of staff has a problem and expects you to fix it instantly.
If at the moment you answer every email instantly, and ask “how high” when your clients say “jump”, you really are in trouble. You will struggle to grow your business. Stopping that will be a good idea.
Just because the client, supplier or member of your team believes that their matter is urgent does not actually make it so.
From time to time there may actually be a genuinely urgent matter, but not that frequently, and certainly not that frequently that you shouldn’t be able to lock yourself away to work on the growth of your business for a good few hours at a time so that you can make some real progress.
You are in charge of your business. If you allow other people to set the agenda for your day by dealing with emails first thing every day and then checking them every few minutes, you are proving to yourself and the rest of the world that you are not serious about growing your business. How can you be when you let the world interrupt you and control your day and your business?
To overcome this problem you do need to do a little bit of work – you need to educate your clients, suppliers and staff about your service standards; i.e. how quickly they can expect a reply from you.
If you do a great job for them, and explain that you are able to do such a great job because you don’t allow interruptions such as email or unscheduled calls when working on client matters, they will know the rules. Tell them that you usually reply within 24 hours or 48 hours unless it really is a life or death matter, in which case they should call you (not email). If they abuse the system, they are not your ideal client.
If you cannot attract the right clients that understand these rules, you are not doing the right marketing and are not proving yourself to be the authority that you need to be to consistently grow your business, so you need to change that.
Value yourself. Value your time. Value your business.
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