Taking your business to new heights
One of the great things that taking a break at the beginning of the year brings is the ability to take a step back and check-in with how we’re really doing, both as business owners and as, well, humans and all that our non-business lives entail.
We get a chance to see if our business is really living up to our business ownership dream. And if it’s not, how to get ourselves back on the path to getting ahead.
But what if your business is doing well, you’ve smoothed out your revenue, you’ve got systems and processes in place and now that that’s ticking along, you’re a bit bored?
Now some of you will be thinking, ‘really, that happens’? Absolutely it can, not usually in the short to medium term – when businesses and their owners are all go, go, go. There are places to go, people to be seen and goals to be achieved. But what if you’re feeling like you’ve done all that.
When you’re in the business of working with and supporting small businesses like we are, you’re likely to see it happen quite a bit especially around the 4-6 year mark.
First though, double check it is actually boredom, not burnout. If it’s burnout it comes with more of a sense of overwhelm and just not really making headway even though that can feel like Groundhog Day.
Or if it’s genuine Groundhog Day boredom – same stuff, different day, day after day after day. It’s not bad by any stretch; it’s just not inspiring you any longer.
If you don’t take the necessary steps to reinvigorate and reinspire yourself, both boredom and burnout can end in a similar bad place – in a bit of a downward spiral.
So what can you do to change it up and reinspire yourself and take your business to new heights?
If it’s burnout
If it’s burnout, you need to do two things immediately. Put some structures in place to unburden yourself from some of the things that you don’t need to do. That might be your bookkeeping, admin or being your own receptionist. And once you’ve got that done, you might also consider taking a few days off – just to give yourself some breathing room to recover. Then when you return from your break, keep those mechanisms in place, so you’re freed from stuff you don’t need to focus on.
Make sure you take a good break several times a year. We’ll call it sharpening the saw.
If it’s boredom aka Groundhog Day
If it’s really boredom, it’s likely to be because you’ve achieved the goal you originally set yourself when you started your business. That might have been annual revenue, your take home, a certain number of clients or staff or maybe it’s because you reached a milestone length of time in business.
Congratulations!! You did it!!.
Did you celebrate your achievements? No? Maybe you should. Give yourself the pat on the back that you deserve and take just a minute to take stock of what you’ve achieved. Maybe even throw a celebration if you think it’s warranted – even if that’s just you, a favourite client or your team (or your partner/spouse) and some champagne.
What’s next?
Great. Now that’s done, set yourself another goal. Make it big, stretchy and just a little difficult to achieve.
Spend some time thinking about;
- if you could achieve the ‘next big thing’ in your business, what would that look like
- when might you be able to achieve that (anything inside 2-3 years is probably too short, 5-10 years is probably chunky enough – longer than that is too long to really plan for)
- what you need to put in place to make that happen.
Now, tell people what that goal is.
And work with them on ways to break it into smaller chunks and set your systems and processes in motion to start achieving and measuring (don’t forget that step) each smaller chunk.
If you need to tweak the set of goals to make them feel more you and your business? Do it and tweak systems, processes and measurements as you go too.
Set yourself up to succeed
Regardless of whether you find yourself facing boredom or burnout, if you’re serious about what’s next for you and your business, the trick is you want to have yourself set up in such a way that you’ve the clear air to be able to focus on your real priorities – finding customers, servicing those customers and delivering on your product/service promise.
You may find that you need to reassess your resourcing, your environment or getting more support. If you do, we can help with that.
If you’d like to know more about how you can focus on the things that are critical to your business and let us take care of the rest with phone answering, admin, meeting spaces, even flexible office space for growing teams, we’d love to talk to you. You can call us on 1300 318 680 or drop us a note.
