Podcast: Play in new window
Are you making changes in your business this year?
The December/January period often gives you, the business owner, a chance to step back and look at your business as a whole. With customers away on holidays there is a the opportunity to get stuck into some of the things that you’ve been meaning to implement and explore.
00:32 – Start with the smallest possible step so its impossible to fail
01:03 – Make your calendar keep you accountable
01:39 – Do the new habit in the morning when you have more willpower
02:14 – Use social accountability
02:31 – Set a deadline
03:10 – stickk.com is an interesting site to help you achieve goals
04:18 – Eliminate things rather than take on new commitments
04:33 – Delegate
04:47 – Automation in your business
05:10 – ‘They is not try, there is only do or not do’
05:47 – Share your tips in the comments
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It’s Mick Cullen from Redcliffe Marketing Labs with a New Year’s update.
At this time of year, for many of us, our customers are away on holidays and it gives us the chance to actually look at our business from the “building our business” perspective, rather than the daily grind of getting in there. There is lots of information floating around on the internet about the best ways to make New Year’s resolutions and here’s a couple of my top tips.
The first one is when making a start on:
- a new habit
- something you want to change in your life or your business, and
- setting a new practice in place,
is to start with the smallest possible step you can, which will be impossible to fail. As an example rather than trying to overhaul your whole testimonial system in your business, take the really small step of just asking one customer for a testimonial. Break it down, whatever your goal is, into the smallest possible step that it would be impossible to fail, and start with that tiny step. Build from there.
The next tip is to use your calendar to keep yourself accountable. If you have made a resolution or decision to change something this year, then unless it’s on your calendar and you have actually carved out time in your week, then chances are it’s not going to happen. Life gets busy. Things come up in your business and you just don’t get around to it. So if you have got something you want to change, sit down with your calendar and carve out an hour, two hours a week. Put it on your calendar for the next two or three weeks and make sure you actually get started on that project.
Part of how the human body works is that we have different cycles. This applies to our willpower and our energy levels as well. These are generally highest in the morning and then they wane in the afternoon as the day drags on. If you’ve got that new habit to integrate into your day or week and you are finding it hard to get started or make it stick, then think about doing it early in the day when you have more willpower and energy to focus on it.
Do you know the story of “swallowing the frog”? Google that and you will find different videos and takes on the concept out there. This is the idea that if you do the hardest thing you’ve got to do that day as the very first thing in the morning, then everything else for the rest of the day becomes easy. And I guess the visual metaphor is swallowing the frog, so if you swallow that frog first up, everything from there on in for the rest of the day will get better.
Another tip is to make your goal public. That way you have external accountability. Whether it’s out there for the world to know or you just tell a few friends that you can trust and then they can hold you to that, then you’re more likely to follow through on the goal or habit.
Similarly, if you set a deadline or if there is a cost involved in you not actually carrying through on your resolution or you goal, then that’s also a motivating factor. For most of us tax is not something we’re particularly motivated to do. The dual factors of having a deadline where you’ve got to get it in by, and then also having penalties involved if you don’t get your tax in — that helps us get over the line and actually get it done. You can use those sort of mind hacks for helpful habits that you want to put in place in your life as well – so,
- deadlines, and
- a penalty or a cost if you don’t achieve it.
There’s a really good website out there that can help with your resolutions.
Checkout stickk.com
Its idea is again tying in with that of a deadline and the public nature of the resolution or the habit you want to change. You put your habit on there and (optionally) you can put some monetary value on it. Those funds will then go to a charity or to someone that you nominate if you don’t actually achieve your deadline or your goal.
And then you nominate a referee, it could be a friend or a mentor, or someone who’s going to actually check that you’ve done the goal or the habit you’re achieving – then you can share it on Facebook and Twitter, so your fans or your friends can actually follow along and give you encouragement. That’s quite an interesting idea. And on the website, at least, it says they’ve got $12 million in pledges holding in reserve for individual’s goals.
Other things to look at. Rather than trying to take on something new for this year in your business or your life, why not try and eliminate things? Especially in your business, look at your process and look what you do every day, and see if the things you’re doing if you actually have to do them, or if you can just purely eliminate them entirely from your business and free up the time to be doing something else.
Is there things that you can be delegating to your staff, or possibly outsourcing if that’s more efficient, again freeing you up for the important things in your business that only you can do?
And the other idea is automation. Are there elements of your business with your marketing or your contact database that you can be building in automation into the process. The goal here is to have that repeatable process in place to free you and free your staff up to be doing other things.
If automation in your business is something you’re interested in this year, then get in contact with me and that’s something we can definitely build in through different software and platforms and systems that are out there.
Another three-letter word that is terrible for resolutions and trying to get things done is the word “try”. So, as Yoda says, “There is no try; there’s only do and not do”.
A bunch of tips there above for you to use – whether it’s a deadline or put a dollar figure on achieving it, or some social proof or responsibility of people holding you to it, or put it on your calendar. But if you’re going to do something, rather than just try to do it, you’ve actually got to make some physical steps and change something in your life to make that happen.
If YOU have got a great tip on how to keep a resolution or change a habit, or implement a new system in your business and get it to stick, then I’d love to hear from you.
Drop a note below this video and that would be awesome.
Until next time, cheers.