Many small business owners I meet respond to the question ‘how are things?’ with an all-encompassing, chest-thumping ‘busy!’
Of course we are all busy. We all have things to get done, and things to schedule around those other things too.
It can get out of hand. My advice? Slow down!
When we stop moving at such a ferocious pace, we can slow down and actually be aware of what is going on around us.
The holidays is a time when we seem to have even less time, as there is much to do personally as well as in our business.
I notice the urgency in the emails I receive at this time of year – last minute holiday sales, and heavy promotion by many people for their products and services, as they try to squeeze every last cent of revenue out of the year. It’s common.
One of my biggest pet peeves is the many, many times I see in my inbox that someone has sent out an email with an error in it.
Whether it’s a series of typos, an incorrect subject line, a missed merge tag (Hi Firstname!), or a broken link (these are wayyyyyy too common these days, in my opinion!), it’s obvious that everyone around us is rushing all the time to get things done. Some people are guilty of this more often than others (and I often unsubscribe when it happens more than once!)
One of my business coaches used to say, ‘The way you do anything is the way you do everything.’ Imagine how it looks to people when you repeatedly send out messages with errors in them.
These email blunders that I see far too often these days are signs to me that people are just not taking the time to check things – proofread, send a test email, check links – before hitting the send button to the masses.
The same can be said for the other areas of our business too. Always proofread what you have done. Have fresh eyes goes over it for you if you have worked solely on any project. Check links and calculations. Read things out loud. Doublecheck it all. It only takes a moment to slow down and really look things over. You may find that you want to rewrite something, or even that you want to take a completely different approach.
When you are writing anything, do more than one draft.
When you are brainstorming, put it aside and come back to it with a fresh mind.
When you are strategizing with a client, follow up your conversation with some quick research to make sure your plans are on track with trends.
When you are planning your own business bits, talk with colleagues or mastermind partners to make sure that you are on the right track with your overall vision.
There are so many ways we can slow down in our business. This is the way we build success. Speed is good to get things done, but it can often leave us in the position of running to keep up, instead of really being able to reflect on what we are doing, and seeing the road ahead of us.
Habits form easily when we get into our routine, and that’s not always a bad thing, but putting checks and balances in place for everything we do is a great way to be sure that we aren’t just going through the motions.
Slow down. Look everything over more than once. You’ll be glad you did!
I’d love to continue this conversation with you on my Facebook page – www.facebook.com/yourvamentor.com