How Could I Be So Stupid
I had slow and unpredictable sales the second half of last year. It was bad enough where the wife and I faced that question no self-employed entrepreneur wants to have. "Is it time to get a job?" OUCH!
Starting January 8, I made two very deliberate changes in my day-to-day activities. I was going to fix this problem.
First, I committed myself to talking to 5 Infusionsoft users a day. They are my target audience and I had to admit, I hadn't been talking to them much. In my overly online connected culture, I needed to make the effort to talk to people. As a way too busy Internet marketer, online course and membership builder, I was FEELING connected. I had been chatting via messenger and the others. I was sharing and exchanging information with them. I was NOT talking to them.
Number 2 was I returned to blogging consistently. I had kind of slacked during the last half of last year. I was focusing my time on customer delivery, team members oversight, resolving issues that needed my senior expertise, etc., etc. I was working "in my business" and not "on my business."
Two months later, I'm seeing a surge in new business. I haven't cracked this nut completely, but my two very simple changes are getting me results.
It's a real shame that I didn't come up for air sooner. Given my natural slant, talking to people is a favorite thing of mine to do. I enjoy:
- learning about people,
- getting to know more about their families,
- talking about their goals and
- discovering what makes them tick.
I also enjoy exploring what it is they need and discovering ways we might work together and collaborate.
If you're reading this, you probably arrived because you:
- got one of my email messages,
- linked to my blog article on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter, or
- searched and discovered one of my articles.
I'm an information hound. I'm constantly exploring new ways of thinking. I look to see how other people are doing things. I incorporate what I learn into how we do business here at Larry Jacob. I enjoy writing, recording video blogs and sharing this with others.
This enables others that need what my team and I do to find us, learn about us and consider us as a provider. It also encourages people to connect with me to have those initial conversations. We explore opportunities for working together.
Why had I NOT been doing this? I got caught up in the day-to-day technical problem solving. I was putting my technology hat on and working on customers solutions. I'm very capable doing those things. I will tell you those tasks drain me. They take a lot out of me and they aren't as fun.
So here I had been been doing stuff that I didn't enjoy. I was NOT doing things I really enjoy and my business was suffering. That's stupid. Now that I'm turning the corner with improved sale, I'm looking ways to make additional changes to strip dependencies on me. I want to up my sales and marketing game even more and I can only do that by getting these "in the business" tasks off my to do list.
So how could I be so stupid? It's like the frog in hot water. If you drop a frog in boiling water (kids please don't try this at home), it will hop out avoiding that immediate threat. If you drop a frog in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, the frog won't notice the slow temperature changes and they will eventually cook. That's a good reminder for us business owners.
Let me know who else out there is experiencing something similar and what changes they made to turn things around in their business.