Standing Out

I’ve come across more than two handfuls of articles that say that small business owners are ones to haphazardly chase after new ideas, start a million things at once, try this & try that, waste money going in a million different directions, etc. We want to make money. We want to change the world with our sweet new idea. We want everyone to love and adore us for making their lives, their office, their relationships or their future that much better. But once we get our brilliant idea going a bit, our wandering eyes are distracted by that guy’s brilliant idea, and so our wheels get turning to try and figure out how we can make that successful, too.

Like it or not, these theories about the behavior or small business owners and entrepreneurs are actually very true. As entrepreneurs, it’s in our DNA to try new things, discover new ideas and work them out, and to try, try again.

Regardless of whether or not entrepreneurs are born or made, it is somehow ingrained in our system to take our two hands and make ten more of them. Then, instead of looking back and saying to ourselves, ‘what an accomplishment! I made ten hands out of two!’ we say to ourselves, ‘OK, now that I have ten hands, I now need to do this with hand #1, that with hand #2, split hand #3 into two so I can have one more hand…’ and on and on.

The problem is that it’s very difficult to make money when you keep taking little bits of what you’ve got and spending it on new ideas. It’s next to impossible to make time for yourself or your family (the reason you started your own biz in the first place, remember?) when you keep spending time late at night joining this new program or reading about that new idea that someone made millions off of overnight. And when you don’t have any more money or any more time, how many of you out there would agree that the stress piles super high, and suddenly, you don’t have any more energy either.

There isn’t a straight, easy answer to this, despite what some crafty entrepreneur out there says in order to get you to buy into his or her new time management program or organization for small businesses club. You can’t change DNA.

But you can work with it.

Use your Entrepreneur A.D.D. to your advantage - multi-task, but multi-task with FOCUS. The first way to do do this is to do and buy things that are centered around one business idea. One way to make money. I know that sounds crazy to you (because it sounds crazy to me as I’m writing this), but it’s essential. Stop trying to make money in a million different ways. Just pick one. Then make money from it! Give it time. Months. That might sound crazy, too, but experts will agree that it takes months to figure out if a new idea or marketing strategy or [fill-in-the-blank] worked out financially. If, after so many months, the new idea or program or strategy doesn’t work for you, then quit and start something else if you want to. But FOCUS on this one idea first.

Secondly, in order to multi-task with FOCUS, stay within all three budgets: money, time, and energy. Budget your time and energy with the same intensity as your money. And if you’ve never budgeted money, start doing so. You’re laughing, I’m sure. Even if you don’t feel that you have any money or that your business has any money, you need a budget. Because guess what? You’ll be quick to join that new club that’s supposed to make you a millionaire for $15.95 per month even though you have ‘no money.’ You DO have money. Wake up, realize this fact, and start budgeting. As for time, budget your time. Plan out your daily tasks (yes, daily) and determine how much time you can afford to spend on each one. A budget is not a record, it’s a plan. So figure out how much time you can realistically afford to use, and then afterwards go back and write down what you actually spent in terms of time. Then, adjust accordingly. As for energy, this is where priority comes in. Prioritize and stick with it. Determine your priorities early in the morning when you’re sitting, ankles crossed on your coffee table, and drinking your tea (or coffee). This way, you won’t be harrassed by client emails or anything else that makes you question your priorities. Once your priorities are established, keep them! If things come up that cause you to shift priorities, make a note of this and then consider it tomorrow morning during priority-making time again.

Finally, focusing requires that you say no to instant gratification. (Ouch). As an Aries, I LOVE instant gratification. I consider instant gratification a treat for all of the mental hard work I do everyday, dreaming up new things I can’t afford or don’t have time for. But really, instant gratification is a crutch, a thief, and a stumbling block to new business success. Here’s why: It’s a crutch because we end up relying on little, in frequently bits of instant gratification to make us feel good about our business and success (or lack thereof). It’s a thief because when we spend time on things that make us feel good right away, we’re wasting time that we could otherwise be spending building our success. Lastly, it’s a stumbling block because that instant gratification typically takes us off in a new direction, chasing and fumbling after more of that instant gratification, and making us re-think our fabulous business idea and wonder why we’re working so hard.

So the title of this post is “FOCUS, and make money” because that’s exactly what will happen when you focus. This is a true story: Up until about two months ago, I was going in a million directions. I had scored a new contract giving me plenty of hours, and I was cloud 9. I decided to re-vamp my website, start TWO other businesses, and catch up all a bunch of new Internet sales gimmicks people were raving about all at the same time. Unfortunately, all that ended up happening was that I lost time that I could have been spending on my new contract, and ended up making up for that late at night and during the mornings. That meant less time for me and less time for my son. So about a month into this chaos, I dropped everything but my work for the contract. Lo and behold: two NEW clients arrived. And I hadn’t even re-vamped my website (imagine that). So, I got more work, which means more money, and I didn’t even need to spend any. All I did was focus on my work. I relied on my already-in-place marketing efforts, trusted in them to work for me, and carried on.

So try on this advice and see if it doesn’t work for you and your business as well. It’s painful, irritating at times and you’ll be so tempted to have your hands in five things at once, but I promise you it will pay off in the end.

Cheers!

Tia

Tags: Entrepreneurship, focus, make money, multi-tasking, small business, successful multi-tasking

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 2:08 pm and is filed under Entrepreneurship, Organization, Time Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.