Dramatic title huh? I know I’m being a little ambitious here but I really do think that there is one thing you can do everyday to grow your business. Now I’m not going to lead you on and trick you into believing that this one thing is going to be easy. In fact it can be the toughest thing you’ll have to do. You have a lot going on in your day as a small business owner. Programming, coaching, managing, cleaning, delegating(?), researching, planning… The list can go on and on.
So what is this one thing? This key to success that just about every single successful entrepreneur has? It’s pretty obvious, Taking Action. That is what success comes down to. Are there a bunch of other factors? Sure, but the truth is that if you aren’t taking action every single day you just won’t reach your goals.
Paralysis By Analysis
It is very easy to analyze yourself into an unproductive stupor. How do you know if that week of programming you just spent an hour on is going to be effective? How do you know if that new free Saturday morning class you added is going to bring in new members? How do you know… Well, how do you know anything? You can learn from others mistakes, which is a good starting point, but don’t fool yourself into believing you won’t make your own. Screwed something up? Maybe you need to stop what your are doing, sit down and draft up a long and detailed plan that covers all the contingencies…Probably not though huh?
“Perfect plans aren’t.”
What is business anyway? Isn’t is just taking some basic assumptions and testing them to see if you are correct? An example: “Functional fitness is gaining in popularity and I believe it is the greatest thing to happen to the fitness world ever. Will people pay me to coach them in this crazy functional fitness stuff?” Turns out they will. There is a market for it, 4,300 affiliate strong, charging people anywhere from $99 – $300 per month on average. Did Greg Glassman know this when he opened his small garage gym in Santa Cruz? Nope, I’m sure he thought he had something special that the world might like but do you think his first years of gym ownership were any different than yours? Probably not. So what separates him from you? Nothing really. You decided to open a gym in your community, you took action just like Coach did. You can’t stop there though! You need to continue to take actions and try new things! Are you going to get it right every time? Nope, you won’t even be close most of the time, but don’t let that stop you. Test your assumptions, try new things, and continue to build your own unique affiliate. Don’t worry about the haters that will come out of the woodwork to tell you you are doing things all wrong, typically they only show up to the games after you have done a lot right!