As an entrepreneur and business owner, it’s important to recognize how valuable your time is - and how you choose to spend it every second of every day.
Yes, the bookkeeping is important, and so is voicemail and email, but those tasks are not directly responsible for generating revenue and are better left to be managed by someone else.
Are you guilty of focusing on the less important (low-payoff) tasks when you should be actively engaged with the most important (high-payoff) tasks? If you have ever been guilty of this, continue reading to learn four common self-sabotaging habits that keep business owners from the revenue and success they want and deserve.
1. Wasting Time on Low-Payoff Tasks
As the business owner, you are a valuable piece of the revenue-generating and business development puzzle. If you are sitting at a desk spending the majority of your time on low-payoff tasks, you don’t have the time to focus on the most important part of your business: generating revenue.
Would you hire a $100-an-hour team member to do a $20-an-hour job? Not likely. This is the same reasoning behind why you shouldn’t be the company bookkeeper or receptionist. (This is not to say that these jobs are not important, but they are not directly related to driving immediate revenue; hence, they are low-payoff tasks).
Your sole focus needs to be on the high-payoff activities, aka. the revenue-generating tasks. All low-payoff tasks should be completely removed from your schedule and delegated to a virtual assistant or team member so you can focus your energy on the high-payoff activities.
TIP: Doing low payoff activities are what I call revenue generation avoidance activities. You may not like doing some revenue generation and business development activities; however, you may be the best and maybe the only person to do it and get it done.
2. Ignoring High-Payoff Tasks
Do you know what you need to be doing to boost revenue - but you’re not doing it or doing it on a consistent basis? Perhaps the fear of doing tasks outside your comfort zone is stopping you from doing the very thing that will make all the difference in your business revenue and ultimate success?
Let’s be clear: if you own your own business, you must become very astute at recognizing, and completing, the high-payoff activities or you will soon be out of business.
Let’s say you’re the creative genius type; the sales part of your business isn’t your thing. You could hire a sales team to help drive in some sales, but at some point you’re going to have to tackle the very thing that scares you. It takes courage to step out of your comfort zone and conquer the things that scare you, but you can do it. To help conquer the fear, focus on the process of learning how to master your craft. Just as you mastered the creative genius, you can master the business development and revenue generation, too.
TIP: Mastering your high-payoff activities is more important than you think because once you master the high-payoff activities, you are in a much higher probability position to achieve your goals in the time frame you have set or accelerate your results.
3. Lacking Intimate Knowledge of Your Business
In this case, ignorance is not bliss. In order to create a successful, profitable business, you must have intimate knowledge of your business (including where the majority of your revenue originates or could originate). If you don’t - you’re going to continue to struggle with generating the level of revenue you want and deserve.
Get to know your business as intimately as you would a partner, learning its quirks, perks, strengths, and weaknesses. Accentuate the strengths, while committing to work on the weaknesses. Commit to continual learning so you are on top of potential opportunities. Technology advancements move fast and you need to keep up to stay in the game.
TIP: Think of your business as a valuable partner: the more you know about it, the better you can maintain a healthy relationship. Explore what makes it tick, where it could use some extra help or counseling, and commit to being the best partner you can.
4. Failure to Follow-Up
Although it’s mentioned lastly here, failure to follow-up is one of the top self-sabotaging habits in business. Sometimes the only thing separating you from a new or repeat client is the follow-up. A simple email or phone call could boost business revenue with little effort.
Essentially, it comes down to letting a prospective client know how you can help them - and asking for the business. Personalized follow-up can be time consuming when not managed properly, so create automated systems to follow up with every lead, prospect and client that comes into your world. From collecting business cards to building your mailing list from website visitors to staying connected to past clients - everything point of contact needs to have a follow-up system.
TIP: Create a Tiered-Follow-Up System. For instance, let’s say the first follow-up or follow-ups to “cold” leads could be labeled 1st Tier that can be delegated to a virtual assistant or team member. If your personal attention is requested or required at a later time, the follow-up could be escalated to 2nd Tier that’s handled personally by you. Reserve your personal attention for only the ideal prospects, all other low-payoff follow-up should be automated or handled by staff.
Don’t let the demands of running your own business distract you from success. Be aware of sabotaging habits that prevent you from boosting the revenue necessary to take your business, and life, to the next level. Growing your business is often a lesson in letting go and focusing. It’s about letting go of the low-payoff tasks, so you have the mental space and time to focus on high-payoff tasks.
For more help with growing your business and accelerating your results, reach out to me today and schedule your complimentary consultation.
Want more proven business success tips and resources? Of course you do… Subscribe to my blog by going to www.acountabilitycoach.com/blog.
Aim for what you want each and every day!
Go to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com to check out for yourself how I, as your Accountability Coach™, can help you get and stay focused on you highest payoff activities that put you in the highest probability position to achieve your professional and personal goals, so you can enjoy the kind of business and life you truly want and deserve.
Get your daily Accountability Minute shot of a single, simple, doable idea, so you can start your day off on the "right foot". You can find The Accountability Minute on https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/my-podcast/ as well as on most podcast platforms and in most English-speaking countries.
Take advantage of all the complimentary business tips and tools by joining the Free Silver Membership on https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/coaching-store/inner-circle-store/.
To help you stay focused and on track to achieving your goals, check out these other high-value resources.
- Subscribe to my YouTube channel with business success principles (https://www.youtube.com/annebachrach)
- Connect with me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TheAccountabilityCoach)
- Connect with me on Linked-in (https://www.linkedin.com/in/annebachrach)
- Connect with me on Pinterest (https://pinterest.com/resultsrule/)
- Connect with me on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/annebachrach/)
Check out my proven business accelerator resources by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/coaching-store/.
I’m the author of many books, including, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule, Live Life with No Regrets, No Excuses, The Guide to Stopping Procrastination, and the Work Life Balance Emergency Kit, The Roadmap To Success with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, and more.
If you are getting value from any of my episodes, please take a minute to leave me a short rating and review. I would really appreciate it, and love to hear from you.