Raise your hand if you’ve ever blamed a lack of strategy, the wrong strategy, Mercury retrograde, or a bad hair day on things not going your way in business? (My hand is up.)
If you did, you’re not alone! If you’re building on online business, especially within the first 12 months of business, you know that the game can sometimes have you feeling like a caffeinated chihuahua.
Do you need to boost your Facebook posts? What hashtags should you use? Should your tripwires be $7 or $49?
We scramble and search for word from the experts, thinking they will hand us that one, shiny, 24K gold strategy that will finally be our ticket to business class flights, juicy 5-figure cash months, and an open road of freedom.
Unfortunately, sister, growing your own business doesn’t quite work that way.
When I hired my first $15,000 business coach to learn that she wasn’t going to tell me what to do or how to do it, I thought I had misread the fine print. When in fact, I would have *never* wanted to be handed a cookie-cutter strategy and told, “Here, do this.”
Her job was to hear my vision, help me decide on a strategy that felt good for me, and offer her support and guidance as I braved the wild wild west that is doing the thing.
So, my friend, this is my invitation to you. If you’re an entrepreneur who is struggling to see results in your business, don’t be so quick to blame and throw your strategy into the trash bin.
Instead, look at your process of implementation. How well are you executing the plan you’ve set forth? Are you winging it here and there when it feels convenient?
Not all, but many of our business woes come down to how consistently, how thoroughly, and how patiently we’re implementing the plan we’ve set forth. Read these top 3 tips to apply in your business and let me know below what your top takeaway from this article is!
1. Create a game plan.
Have a launch coming up, a new product/service you want to offer your market? Do not fly by the seat of your pants! The biggest killer of follow through is a lack of a game plan. Creating a game plan holds you accountable and helps you refocus your time if you get sidetracked.
To do this: Pick a strategy that compliments your personality style, strengths, and desires and write that ish down. Use your calendar and reverse engineer what you will need to implement this strategy properly. Mastermind with your business coach or a group of business besties to help you. Creating a launch timeline, a weekly list of to-do’s including the most high priority items, and a “what I need” list will help implementing your strategy feel so much more intentional and grounded.
2. Stay Engaged, Observe What’s Working, And Make Micro Adjustments
Picking a strategy and following it through isn’t as simple as set-and-forget. Stay engaged with your market as you begin to implement. Is your audience responding particularly well to one type of content, for example, but you’re getting crickets on another type? That is information. Part of being the CEO of your business means watching closely what’s happening in your audience, in your sales process, and noticing what, if anything, needs fine tuning.
To do this: Schedule weekly check-in times with your team, coach or group of trusted biz babes. Examine together what is working well, what needs improvement, and how this impacts the rest of the game plan. You’ll feel so much more in control and on top of your stuff by looking at it and refining where refinement is needed.
3. Be Patient
You know the phrase, a watched pot never boils? The same thing is true when it comes to implementing and executing a strategy in business. If you send out a campaign to your list with a new offer you’ve just created, and you don’t see any sign ups for the first 24 hours, that isn’t a sign that A) your offer sucks B) you should not send any of the other emails you have mapped out or C) the entire launch is probably going to fail. A lack of patience can cause you to unnecessarily react, instead of respond to your audience. Give your 100% best effort and know that Rome wasn’t built in a day and heaping unrealistic expectations on yourself is not going to fuel you forward faster.
To do this: Engage a stopping mechanism. If you find yourself compulsively checking your inbox, refreshing your payment gateway page, or frantically trying to cram a realistic month’s worth of to-do’s into a 3 day weekend, take your foot off the gas. Trust that by staying engaged and in tune with your business (tip #2) you’ve got the refinement part covered. Engage in an activity that increases your confidence and gets you back into feeling your best. I promise you that from this place you’ll be able to deliver and follow through more effectively (plus, it will feel better).
Let me know, radiant entrepreneurs, what your top takeaway is from this week’s blog! And to catch this on video, head to my Facebook business page to watch. Don’t forget to click “Like” so you’re notified about new trainings!
