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.