Part 4 of my 10-part series Top 10 Mistakes Small Business Owners Make and How to Avoid Them.
Mistake # 4: Small Business Owners Don’t Articulate Successful Outcomes.
Most people will fight tooth and nail to avoid stating the end game for the projects they’re working on.
Why we resist it , I have no idea.
I suspect it’s because as soon as we identify something that needs done, our nature - as over-achievers - is to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
An admirable trait to say the least, but it dangerous.
Here’s the thing. Unless you have absolute clarity on what you want, the odds aren’t good that you’ll get it.
You’ll wind up spending hours (and hours) killing yourself on a project only to catch yourself later and realize that somewhere along the way it got off track.
Yeah, that may be true for other people, but I KNOW what I want. I mean this project? C’mon….isn’t it OBVIOUS?
No, it isn’t.
Your outcome may seem self evident to you at the moment you start it. But ohhh how quickly it’ll be forgotten.
It’s human nature. We get lost in a never ending spiral of tangents.
We get wrapped up in the process.
We lose the spirit.
We lose the point.
And that’s just with our OWN projects — what do you think happens when we try to delegate something? Oy vey.
How to Avoid This Mistake:
Defining the end result you want for every project you’re working on not only improves the end result but makes the process more enjoyable.
It’s as simple as Stephen Covey’s statement in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
‘Begin with the End in Mind.’
This simple guideline is true with all things great and small. It’s really just as simple as completing this sentence:
When this project is complete…
Too simplistic? No, it’s just simple.
An example:
Let’s take a project I currently have on my plate - ‘Get My House Ready for Winter’
When this project is complete my house will be ready to weather the Northeast Ohio winter. I will have saved myself the pain and expense that so many of my friends and family have experienced by not being preparing for freezing water, porous window seals, and overloaded gutters.
Now how does this help again?
Well, for one, what are the chances I’ll get distracted and decide to clean up my garage since I’m doing household chores anyway? It may be an important project. But with the clock ticking on the season here, I’ll probably defer that until another time. It doesn’t help me with my goal.
It also helps because now it helps me when I go to brainstorm next steps. I might decide to brainstorm things like, clean gutters, turn off faucets, change furnace filters, test sump pump, etc. Or since I realize this is a responsibility common to all northerners, I’ll probably do a quick scan online to see if I can’t find a comprehensive checklist that I can start with.
Another benefit, I can now call for back up. Yep. $10 (ok $30) and a couple teenagers and I’ve got myself a workforce. As long as I’m confident they understand they’re pay is dependent on me reaching the above outcome, we’re good. I can delegate items off my master checklist and be possibly get lucky as they may spot a few other things we should do as well. Should I pick up the hedge clippers you left in the bushes and put them away? Heh, heh, did I do that? Ummmmm, yeah.
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