How Did I Get From There to Here?

My wife was asking me that dreaded question, "Is it time to go back and get a 'real' job yet?"

No please.  Anything but that!!

So I put very high focus on turning things around.  The number one thing I decided to do was to get back to basics.  I committed myself to:

• Calling and speak on the phone or Skype with 5 partners a day.  I rely on partner companies for referrals.  I had stopped doing that consistently.
• I started blogging 3 to 4 times a week.  It's something I really enjoy doing, I'm good at it and it gets the attention I need to get.

Within 4 months, I started seeing changes.  In 6 months, I was achieving monthly sales number as high as I had ever had before.

This was so stupid and unnecessary.  If I would have noticed the causes earlier, I could have saved myself so much grief and anguish.

If you're reading this, you probably got here because:

• You received a message I sent you,
• You visited one of my posts on Facebook or Linkedin where I promote my blog articles, or
• You ran a search and discovered one of my many articles.

That's a big part of my lead generation.  I have so many ideas for articles and video blog.  I'm not going to run out of ideas.  I enjoy exploring and finding things to write about.  This sort of work energizes me.

Why had I NOT been doing this?  I got busy.  That's an poor excuse, but I wasn't focused on where I need to be as the business owners.

That's is so dumb.  Of  course, I'm looking ways to make more changes so the business is less and less dependent on me.  I'm tossing more and more responsibilities on my team members.  That is the key.

So how could I be so stupid?  It happens so slowly that you don't notice it.  It's like that example of dropping a frog in a pot of boiling water.  Because it's so hot, the frog immediately hops out.  However, if you drop him in cold water and turn on the stove, the change in heat is so gradual, the frog just simmers until it's over.  (I don't torture animals like that.  I'm actually a really nice guy.)  So, at first it's a small change in your daily habits that aren't very noticeable.   Then it's another small set of changes.  Three months later you are so far off course that you are nowhere near where you needed to be.  That's what I have to remind myself and all us business owners.

Are you facing something similar?  Please share it as a comment so we can all together work and staying on the right track.