In this episode I’m continuing with The Online Marketing Club mini series.
In the last episode of this series, I explained the 3 ways to grow your online business through better marketing – driving more traffic, increasing conversions and maximizing lifetime customer value.
In this episode I’m going to share with you the 4th key area of business growth and that’s getting more of the right things done, faster.
This is not to do with marketing, this is to do with you and your business itself. Your relationship with your own business. Your ability to get things done quickly. Your ability to get lot’s of things done. Your ability to get the right things done.
This 4th and final piece of the puzzle effects everything in the 1st 3 pieces.
Get this piece of the puzzle wrong and you’ll struggle in all these 3 areas anyway.
For your business to grow, your relationship with your business has got to be good.
You see the thing holding lot’s of businesses back is the business owner themselves.
I know this because I’ve been there myself. Trying to do everything myself and basically just getting in my own way. I had no systems in place and this was stopping me from making money. I knew in my heart and my gut that I could make money but it just was not showing up in my financial statements. I thought that by doing more and more work that I would solve this problem but actually I was wrong, I shouldn’t have been trying to do more and I certainly have been trying do it all myself. I had become a slave in my own business
Doing it all yourself will kill your business, you just can’t do it. And it’s not always about doing more, in fact often it’s about doing less.
When I got out of my own way, I saw dramatic changes in my business and my ability to make money.
So for me there are 6 ways to improve the relationship you have with your business.
And I call this the core 6
3 of the components have to do with increasing your knowledge
3 of the components have to do with increasing action and productivity
Knowledge and action
Knowing what needs to be done and then getting it done
So I’ll start with the action components first because for me imperfect action beats knowledge. Knowledge is necessary but knowledge that is not applied is totally impotent and makes no difference in your business at all.
So let’s start with action, getting more done in your business.
1. Outsourcing and delegation
You should never be trying to get it all done yourself.
You may have been watching my videos or my podcasts and thinking “Wow this stuff is incredible, but when would I ever find the time to do all of this?”
The answer is... You shouldn’t
You should never try to run a business totally alone. Even if you do not have members of staff, you can use independent contractors or interns. You need the help of other people
Any task that is not absolutely 100% necessary for you to do personally should be given to someone else.
A lot of business owners would love to do this but feel they can’t afford to do it. I would argue that you can’t afford not to.
Because when you try to do everything you get overwhelmed, you procrastinate, you burn out, you get stressed, you get ill, you wonder what on earth you’ve gotten yourself into.
You bottleneck. You have too much to do and not enough time to do it.
It’s a horrible place to be and it’s literally chokes your business and cripples the ability your business has to grow.
Get out of your own way and start getting assistance from other people
In the internet age, this is totally possible. Even on a shoestring budget, there are people all over the planet who are happy and grateful to perform those tasks for far less money than you ever imagined. Believe me it is more than affordable.
2. Technology and automation
Some things should not be done by humans. Technology can help you get things done more efficiently and faster than ever before. With technology comes automation.
Technology can take a lot of the grunt work off of your shoulders.
Investing in tools and software that will help you to do more, in less time, is a smart move.
3. Time management and personal productivity
Your time should be spent doing the most important things only. The things that only you can do.
This means guarding your time ruthlessly and never getting involved with trivial tasks.
When you do this, you can leverage your time. Getting the important stuff done while the less important stuff get’s done by someone else.
Having a personal time management regime is also key. When you stop allowing yourself to get distracted, when you eliminate all time vampires and learn to stay on task, you can actually accomplish more in a day than you ever thought possible
Getting these 3 action components into place in your business will allow you to get more done with less effort and time spent on your part. Giving you the ability to take time off, relax and recharge should you wish to do so. You don’t have to feel guilty that your to-do-list is not getting done.
Rather than being a slave in your own business. You can go where you want to go and spend time doing what you want to do, more often.
Let’s move onto the next 3 components, the knowledge components.
These 3 factors are crucial too because whilst taking action and even imperfect action is necessary, your actions have to be centred around doing the right things or your simply fooling yourself. Being busy or feeling busy, isn’t the game here. Everything you do and everything your team does needs to be the right things to do at that given moment.
I’m not saying this will be perfect, you won’t always do things the perfect way but your overall direction and strategy has to be right or all that time spent taking action on the wrong things, will be a total waste of time.
So how do you know the right action to take?
4. Get a mentor
Trying to figure it all out on your own is a risky strategy because you don’t have hindsight. Essentially you are walking the path alone and in the dark, hoping to figure things out along the way
When you get a mentor, you acquire a whole new perspective. You tap into the knowledge and experience of someone who had already been there and done it and succeeded. They know what it takes and they can share those secrets with you, you fast track to the right knowledge quickly, the whole point of a mentor is that they show you the right actions to take based on their valuable knowledge and experience, and then you get to work on the right things.
5. Join a mastermind
Magic happens when you collaborate with other people. When you discuss business ideas and strategies with your peers, you access a huge vault of knowledge and imagination that you did not have before.
When ideas, strategies and plans are bounced around and discussed in a group situation, ideas, insights, feedback, knowledge, experience, all combine to help you get the right answers and ideas much quicker.
I’ve found that by even discussing my ideas with just one other person, I can get so much more clarity than I ever can on my own. Sometimes you’ll get a sudden stroke of genius, the way suddenly appears and becomes clear to you, I’ve had many of these moments when I’m deep in discussion with my mastermind.
6. Self improvement
It’s important to always invest in your own knowledge. You can’t learn everything and you don’t need to. Sometimes you can surround yourself with other people who have the specialised knowledge that you yourself do not have. And that is smart.
But it’s also smart to have knowledge yourself. The more knowledge and understanding you have in your own field of expertise the better. I’m not saying to overload yourself with new information all the time because that can cause overwhelm and inertia.
However, I do strongly believe that you should spend time in your life to read books, go to seminars, complete courses, meditate and ponder, whatever it takes to keep raising your own level of knowledge in the areas that you feel you need to.
When you implement these 3 knowledge components you get answers, clarity and direction about what you should do next, so that you can take the correct steps to help your business to grow.
If you were to implement the core 6 in your business what difference would that make to you? How much more could you get done? How much quicker could you get things done? How much quicker could you reach your goals? How much quicker would you obtain your dream lifestyle?
If you were to reach your goals, how much extra money and time freedom could you enjoy?
In the next episodes in this series I’m diving one level deeper. I’ve told you the 4 areas of growth, I’ve given you a birds eye view but let’s talk specifics now, how can you drive more traffic? How can you increase conversions? How can you maximize lifetime customer value? And how can you get more of the right things done, faster?
It’s all coming up in future episodes, stay tuned.
