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Busy Being Busy

By October 27, 2011February 14th, 2019Articles, Leadership, leadership

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that ‘busy’ is one of the most commonly used words in the English language. Well in business anyway!

Busy is one of the key things that most business owners want but dread at the same time. Let’s face it, we all want and need to be busy in business otherwise we will have significant concerns! It’s a catch 22.

The key distinction is, the longevity and profitability of your business will depend on what you are busy doing. If you are just simply busy being reactive to the events and circumstances that are happening to your business rather than taking a proactive and balanced approach to your business, then your results will suffer.

 

Below is a checklist of 45 things that may provide you a hint if you are busy being reactive in your business.

1.     You are answering every phone call

2.     You attend to every email as it comes in. You know it’s arrived because you have your email alert tone on

3.     You are making hasty, poorly thought through decisions

4.     You are coming to work and reacting to what happens throughout the day. You do not have a structure in place for your day/week/month

5.     You are constantly interrupted by your staff

6.     You are constantly working in the business

7.     You rarely work on the business

8.     Business Development activities are limited

9.     You do not have clarity in your direction

10.  You fit in with everyone else’s schedule

11.  You ensure your inbox is cleared out daily

12.  You are constantly putting out fires

13.  You keep forgetting things. They fall through the cracks

14.  Your staff are the problem finders and you are the problem solver

15.  You do not have KPI’s in place for your business (targets)

16.  You are fielding client complaints

17.  Clients only want to see you

18.  You have a constant turnover of staff

19.  You have meetings on a needs basis only when something goes wrong

20.  Your team are not consistently communicating to you

21.  You are not consistently communicating to your team

22.  You are not coaching your team

23.  You do not have time to network

24.  You are doing extremely long hours

25.  You are not exercising or eating well

26.  You do not see the light of day

27.  You do not have clarity about what is happening in your business next month or in the next 90 days

28.  You do not have goals in place or plans to achieve them

29.  Your vision is a distant memory

30.  You can not staying top of mind with your clients

31.  You can not leave your business for a period of time without fielding phone calls from your staff

32.  You are over promising and under delivering

33.  You are not getting feedback from your team about what is working and what is not working in your business

34.  You are feeling stressed and anxious

35.  You don’t want to review your finances because you know your results are not where you want them to be

36.  You do not have systems in place to manage your team and do not have a good understanding of how they are performing

37.  You can not describe your business culture

38.  You are constantly telling people what to do

39.  You are not marketing and staying top of mind with your clients

40.  You do not know who your top, middle and bottom third clients are

41.  You do not know your lead conversion rate

42.  You are not spending time building relationships

43.  Your referral business is minimal

44.  You do not have time to keep on top of trends within your industry

45.  You are not enjoying your business.

How did you go? Did you find yourself nodding to some of these? If you did, you may find that you are busy being reactive in your business.

The great thing is, once you have identified that you are in fact reactive and busy being busy, you can then change it. If you are constantly doing any number of the above things, you need to stop doing them and start doing the polar opposite. This will be proactive business growth activity so you are spending your time on activities that will make a positive impact on your business outcomes. You can still be busy, but you will be busy doing the right things.

It’s all about how you manage and use your time. Now that you are more aware of what you are doing, sit down, take stock and decide what you will do to turn things around. Turn off the phone, close the door and focus on what you can do to become a proactive business owner.

 

Keep your eye open for the announcement of The Business Accelerator System that has helped business owners turn reactive into proactive and improve their business growth by as much as 113%.