The 4 Wheels Of Your Business
What percentage of your time in the office are you busy putting out fires? How many hours a week, a month are you taking quiet time off to focus ON your business as opposed to IN your business?
It’s important to take quiet time off to focus on plans for the future, such as: setting goals, finding new products to introduce, new markets to enter, new sale people to hire and new business processes. Planning takes time, and it requires a clear head free from the every-day distractions of running a business.
In my consulting business, the majority of my clients are spending fifty to seventy-five percent of their time putting out fires, and hardly any time on planning for their future. This is disastrous, since a successful business requires planning for the future two, three, five and ten years down the road.
I like to compare a business to a car. For example: Businesses, like cars, have four wheels, and require a focused driver always looking forward.
Every company has (at least) four wheels that represent the biggest and most important parts of the business. In my costume business, they were:
1. Product Development (New designs, manufacturing, etc…)
2. Sales & Marketing
3. Warehouse & Delivery
4. Financing (A/P, A/R, etc…)
Of course, there can be other wheels to your business. It is up to you to identify them properly and to move them in the right direction. However, as the driver of your business, you must make sure not to become a wheel–if you are one of the wheels in the car, you cannot focus on the road ahead. What you should be doing is focusing on getting the wheels of your car aligned so you can move forward.
The first step is determining exactly what your four wheels are for your business. Do you know what they are?
The second step is establishing where you want to go, and making sure that all of your wheels are aligned to take you in the right direction.
The third step is making sure that you are actually taking control of your car, planting yourself firmly behind the wheel so that you can drive it to success.
To do so, you can’t always be attending to the fires of distraction.
If you want to be successful in your business, make sure you allow yourself the time and space to drive your business forward. Surround yourself with a team that can take care of the fires, while you focus on crossing the finish line.
In the future, I will talk about how you can systematize and streamline your business so you can have more time to focus on the big picture. In the meantime, keep connected and leap forward in your business by subscribing to my newsletter at www.SnapAhead.com.
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