Do you make a habit out of buying courses? Do they accumulate because you never have time to finish one before another comes along that you absolutely need?

 

Today we are talking about one of our seven strategic objectives, which is growth and development. 

 

Growth & Development

Growth and development means learning, so today we are going to talk about how to balance our natural inclination to learning with taking action, because often we will get stuck in the place of learning and not executing. 

 

The reason we love growth and development is because it is an expansion of ourself and our business. 

Balancing Learning and Action

Our community tends to be high fact finders meaning we love to accumulate knowledge. 

We tell ourselves we have to be more and have more… and we experience loads of FOMO.

 

We tell ourselves that things aren’t going to work out unless we learn or buy or continue to acclimate ourselves to a new market, concept or platform. 

 

We are perfectionists, and we desire excellence. We want to learn, learn, learn so we can “master” the concept or method... but this puts us in a state of inaction.

 

We are also slow to implement, and that makes us really good planners, but we don’t take as fast of action behind our own businesses. 

 

“We love creating the plans for other people's businesses because there is less risk.” 

 

Today I’m going to help you take the learnings you have accumulated already and put them into action. 

 

Create a Game Plan

As a community of service providers you're familiar with scope creep. It’s when you are working on a project and the requests keep coming in. You have already planned things out but now the leader/team continues to request new things in addition to the plan you‘ve already begun to implement. You are overloading and can't find time to make the existing plan work let alone all the new requests. 

 

“If you don’t create a game plan and advocate for yourself you are going to end up dissatisfied and burned out.”

 

You need to create a game plan for learning also, just as you would in this scope creep example. Do not allow scope creep in learning to take place.

Delivery

You are wired to deliver and overdeliver for your clients. You have the gift of service so exceeding expectations will give you the best results and the most “feel good.”  Focus on your clients, because if you lack in this area, you will feel resistance and the doubt will creep in. 

 

“When you are hyper-focused on learning, you may run the risk of decreasing the quality of service you are giving your clients.” 

 

You want to prioritize delivery over learning. Put the focus on your clients first, because that's who pays you.

 

Money

We are in business to make money, and you have the skills to be successful. Learning new methods will help you accentuate success, but you can’t get stuck in an overlearning pattern because you will become paralyzed and slow down your action for your clients .

The net-net of that is decreased revenue because you aren’t doing what needs to be done in their business.

 

If you are not doing what it takes to be successful, then you won’t be able to move your clients along on their customer journey because you aren’t giving them what you want..

 

“The most important thing in a service based business is to serve the client that you have right now, perfect it, and then serve them greater.” 

 

If you aren't doing this, you are running the risk of hurting  the revenue you do have.

 

Learning Costs. If you keep pouring into new courses and coaching you dip into your profit margins. Use what you have first, and protect your profit at all costs.

 

New investments are costly. I want you to execute on every thing you have before you add anything new. Make a folder where you include everything you have ever purchased. This will help you audit your courses . 

 

“Utilize what you already have to move your business forward.”

 

You will be able to serve your clients better if you prioritize their experience over accumulating new things that you already have access to. I want you to bring additional profits into your business, which means using what you have to move your business forward!

Weekly Ops Activity

Create a training hub--a spreadsheet or folder of classes that you have purchased and start investing time into what you have already spent money on. 

Episode Sponsor:

As operators, one of our key roles is to keep the ship sailing for the businesses we support, and 

a core component of that is to document systems and processes. Our visionary CEOs that we support don’t have the interest in doing this themselves, but they know it has to get done… which is where you come in.

 

There are lots of ways to document processes, but I want to share with you a powerful tool that I’ve used that I think you are going to love, called Sweet Process. It allows you to create systems and processes and then turn them into step-by-step instructions or a checklist. It also allows you to have a centralized place for anyone on your team to access your procedures and processes at any time. 

 

The best way to know if Sweet Process works for you is to start using it! Access this for 28 days free of charge!

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This episode was first published at theopsauthority.com/podcast/103.