Planning for Business Success

Are you following along with Lent in preparation for Easter coming up or preparing for Passover celebrations? We haven’t talked about it on this blog at all yet this year but as we get much closer to both celebrations (Holy Week begins on Sunday for Christians/Catholics and Passover begins Wednesday), preparations are really kicking into high gear for many people. While not everyone does it, I do follow along with some practices and opportunities of Lent, so for the past 6 weeks I’ve been contemplating the events that happened historically next week and giving extra consideration to my faith as a whole. I’ve had some Lenten practices for quite a few years now, yet for some reason despite how busy and tiring this Lent season has been in my overall life, I’m feeling surprisingly at peace and ready to honor Holy Week and Easter.

What does this have to do with business? Yes, both of these holidays are huge business: you can’t miss the Easter candy in stores, can’t miss signs for egg hunts with many local groups, there are big signs outside churches sharing about their upcoming services, and every grocery store you go to has a section dedicated to foods for Passover. But what has stuck with me more this year is about the season of preparation I’ve been working through. Most business owners don’t wake up one day and buy a storefront or throw up a shingle sharing about their services or buy a whole bunch of stuff and start trying to sell it. No, most business owners think about it for weeks if not years and do research into what’s working and resources they need to be successful. And while there are some things you just can’t prepare for (a recession or global virus for example) the more prepared you can be both generally and daily, the more likely you will be successful.

So what does that look like? It could include having a clear to-do list with priorities for the next day that you write up at the end of the day. It could include dedicating time at the end of your day to send off emails with questions and things you need answered or done for things you will be doing tomorrow. It could include cleaning up, restocking shelves and reordering items before you close for the day. It could be having a weekly schedule for different tasks you do different days of the week to help your business run smoothly including specific people you touch base with each day or specific days each week. It could having a monthly plan and outline for your marketing so that you’re set up to go all month long instead of putting it off because you don’t know what to market.

Why is planning so important? Because it helps you be more aware of what’s going on, it helps you be on the same page as the rest of your team, it helps your team be in the loop with what’s going on in the business, it gives you an amount of peace with knowing that things should mostly run smoothly and you’ll have fewer fires to put out, it gives you the ability to plan for the future instead of just focusing on the present, and planning helps you meet and even exceed customer expectations because you’ll be able to deliver on time, as expected, consistently, and/or even early. So as we finish out another month I encourage you to incorporate more planning into your business so that you can have more peace and freedom and greater success as well.

Start Where You Can Start

How long is your to-do list for today (or tomorrow depending on when you’re reading this post)? I love to-do lists but I know that they don’t work for everyone and can even be quite discouraging because they’re never done. Some of the clients I work with deal with this on various levels: that they just can’t handle the overwhelm and when it gets to them they basically shut down and nothing gets done. I’m not going to suggest that you just stop using this success tool, but rather today let’s take a look at the list and see if we can’t find at least one way to better manage it so it’s more action oriented and less overwhelm creating.

If you look at your to-do list it probably has several categories of things on it including one that has stuff that you’re waiting for something to do it. For example an item on your list may be to put wall paper in your hall half-bath, but you’re waiting for the wall paper to come in at the store or to be shipped to you, so it’s on the list but you can’t actually do the next step that will get that project closer to completion yet. Another typical example of this is to have things that you want or need to do but you’re waiting for an answer from someone else on something about that item, so you have to wait.

So what if instead of focusing on what you don’t have answers for or can’t do anything about quite yet, instead you start with what you do know and can do? As much as you may want to work on those other things, I’ll bet that there are lots of things you could tackle instead. Work on the portion of the project that you do have all the information for, go to the store to get the glue and other materials to hang the wall paper, do your laundry, go grocery shopping, clean up your kids rooms (or yours!), clean out a closet, pack up items for donation, plan the plants you’ll get for your garden when it stops raining, read that book you’ve been putting off, take a walk with yourself (and your dog or partner or kid(s)), clean out your refrigerator, outline another chapter of your next book, draft an email or speech to be reviewed with your team/partner later, clean up the yard from winter branches, or any of the other things on your list that can be done now.

Once you’ve gotten those things off the list you will feel good and will have accomplished at least something off your to-do list. No, you won’t get those things that you’re thinking about off your mind yet, but their time will come and you will accomplish them eventually. What do you start with when you need somewhere to start?

Relationship Spring

Today I’m thinking spring! It’s a great time to start something new, refresh something old or just enjoy doing again! If you’ve been stuck in the house for the winter and your kids don’t enjoy snow, you’re probably relieved to be getting back out into nature and playing. Spring is a great time to do a refresh for your relationship too.

Sometimes the issue in relationships isn’t that you don’t still love or care for each other, but that you’ve let time and busyness come between you. If that’s the case in your relationship, one thing you can do to breathe new life into it is to spend more time together doing things and just being together. If you’re not feeling that closeness that you used to feel, you can change that as long as you’re both committed to bringing the relationship to similar levels of fulfillment and joy as you used to experience.

Maybe it’s an evening walk most nights, trip to the grocery store or farmer’s market each week, date night every week with different plans each week, home upkeep/updating projects that you’ve got planned to do with the arrival spring, or just a beverage every morning or night together. These regular times spent together are not only something to look forward to, but an opportunity to help deepen and strengthen your relationship.

What do you have planned with your partner to build on your relationship this spring?

Following Women Who Made History

March is Women’s History Month and I am thankful that so many women have stepped up in history and paved the way for all the women including myself who are running or leading a business today. The thing I have been coming back to time and again this month as I’ve thought about some of the women in history who are well known and others who aren’t is that, and the women who are leading and making a difference today is that they’re not afraid to connect the fact that they’re a woman with the work they do. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first female medical doctor, Rosa Parks was a black woman who wanted a seat on a bus, Althea Gibson was one of the first Black women athletes to play tennis internationally, Amelia Earhart is the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane, Betty White, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Marie Curie, Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Child, Abigail Adams, and the list goes on of women who never let the world forget that just as talented and capable as they were, they were also women.

Over the past few decades it’s developed beyond just celebrating the fact that you’re a talented woman, and especially recently, women who are leaders are embracing and including the things they love, not just the things that make them acceptable in the business world to their male counterparts. For example a cooking tool that might have been just considered utilitarian and thus was only ever created and sold in basic colors (if that) now can have festive prints on it that the woman who designed them loves and knows her customers will love too. Women are designing and selling a wide range of health and beauty products that are more individualized and aren’t just the handful of universal products that have only been available to choose from historically. Not only are women making huge strides in sports in terms of equality and recognition compared to their male counterparts, more consideration and effort is now put into training and appearance for women and not just replicating what the male athletes do and wear. And then we’ve got the business world where women are bringing their whole selves to being the leaders the company and world needs, and not just being women who lead exactly like men.

So where does all of this leave us as the next generation of women leaders working on what will some day be history? First I think it sets a high bar for us because of what women did in the past with far less than we have access to and available to us now. Second, it should greatly encourage us that if they could do it, because there are so many more options and possibilities available to us today, we’ve got an even better chance of doing well and embracing all the things that make us who we are. Finally, it means we’re in really good company with so many other women both in history and alive today who have lived with courage and commitment to themselves, their families and the future of our world. Who are the women in history who have inspired you as a leader?

Working with Patience

Have you ever thought about going back in time by 100 or 500 years just to see what it was like? Do you think it would be more or less stressful, or just as stressful but the stressors would be different than they are today? On one hand I feel like the lack of knowledge would make things less stressful, but on the other hand it would be very stressful not having any ability to get real answers like we can get today for so many things thanks to technology and our connected world. There are so many lessons we could learn from people back then, one of the biggest ones they could teach us would be on the topic of patience. I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of patience recently, and not just in one area of my life or the world, but in many.

Sometimes success takes patience. Sometimes no matter how “right” you do things, how well you plan, how many resources you have at your disposal, there’s just no way of moving things along faster or making someone move faster or working through the questions, challenges and checklist items faster. Sometimes you just have to remember to take deep breaths and take one step at a time at the pace you can move and anyone else you’re working with can move. These moments are good reminders that not every part of life needs to speed along all the time, sometimes things meander more than race.

But patience doesn’t mean not taking action. Just because you’re waiting or moving very slowly doesn’t mean you can’t be moving forward. When I get stuck in traffic if I don’t have someone to talk with I start thinking about my grocery list or blog posts to write or newsletters to write or I start planning out the rest of my day in my head. I may not be going anywhere fast physically, but thinking about these things or talking with someone means I’m still making progress.

And patience doesn’t mean that you can’t be polite. It may seem strange that I mention this, but I know many people who can recognize when a moment needs some patience yet get so focused on being patient (and getting done with being patient) that they ultimately take away from the potential that came with their initial efforts to be patient, and they start getting pushy or agitated. It’s especially hard to be patient when you’ve been moving really fast and really getting stuff done and now you’re slowing down and being patient. Just like cars and planes don’t turn on a dime, neither do our brains or bodies (which means we need to be patient with ourselves too in these situations).

In all of this though, the first or second biggest hurdle to cross is accepting that patience can be good. It’s really hard for some people to not be doing something every second of the day or not have answers in the next 10 seconds to their question or to stop and listen to their significant other when all they want to do is accomplish the huge list of things they’re stressed over or hear someone out even if you know you’re right. But it’s healthy to be patient throughout the day as well as to do “crazy” things like incorporating quiet time or nap time or learning time into your day. So the next time the topic or opportunity of patience comes up in your life, relationship, career, or day, consider embracing it just as thankfully as you do that first cup of coffee each day and see how your life, relationship, career, success (and stress levels) can benefit from being patient.

Businesses Who Support Businesses

The past couple of years have brought us through some serious and varied challenges from health to work to relationships to financial. Many of them we’re still navigating but in the past week or so we’ve been seeing some seriously scary things happening in the financial world. For those who don’t follow finances really closely it’s something worth reading up on how we can end up in a place where banks do but don’t have money, especially if you weren’t scarred by the 2008 financial crisis and dove into trying to understand it all then. And for some in the business world the past week has been very scary as they’ve watched their bank all of a sudden no longer exist and all the money they had in the bank looked to be out of their hands which meant they can’t pay their employees, they can’t buy the products and services they need to run their business, they can’t pay to ship products out to customers, the list goes on.

The latest news is that several large banks have decided to invest in another bank that is struggling in order to help reinforce customer confidence in the banking world. I have to admit that I was surprised to hear this development because few companies offer to essentially be the bailout for their competition. Usually a failing business will go to bankruptcy court or be sold, but in this case other banks decided to invest some of their money into that bank. Yes, it’s a unique situation but the fact that this idea even saw the light of day and beyond that it was applied is surprising. And to be clear I don’t think in most circumstances the thing to do is rescue other businesses when they’ve clearly screwed up and haven’t managed their business well (you’re responsible for your own mistakes and your own success), but this isn’t really about the individual bank but about the entire financial industry.

But as some of us know the best way to do business is by making connections, building relationships and making sure that everyone wins because it’s good for business. A great example of this is what goes on on QVC on St. Patrick’s Day (today). I love watching QVC on St. Patrick’s Day because for over 30 years they’ve been sharing about products made in Ireland (I’m part Irish so it’s extra fun), but even more important, they’ve been building relationships between the people who create, design and live for these products and the QVC family of hosts and customers. So each visit feels like coming home and reconnecting with these people who are awesome and you feel like you know them because of how strong the relationships are between the hosts and the business people in Ireland.

So the question becomes how would all of our businesses benefit if we would work together better? There are many areas I think we’d see improvement in, one being contracts and negotiations. If we were focused on working together better and doing what’s best for all involved, there would be less one-upmanship, there would be more honesty and transparency, negotiations would move faster because there would be more trust, and we wouldn’t feel the need to quote crazy prices to some just because of how they do business or who they were. We’d also see more community coming into place where retail and virtual businesses would do a better job of supporting each other, sharing about each other, and staying connected so that leaders would feel more comfortable asking for help before they get into shutdown mode.

What great partnerships, relationships and communities have you seen or are you part of in the business world?

Don’t Be Afraid of the Simple

One of the hard lessons we sometimes have to learn when it comes to success is how important and effective it can be to start with the simple stuff. I was talking with a client the other day who was coming to grips with the idea that it would take several (4 or more) reviews before their project would get to the goal they had set. As I explained to them, sometimes you do have to do everything in one fell swoop or make really drastic decisions because that’s the only choice you have in your situation, but more often than not you can avoid overwhelm and decrease stress, by taking things one step at a time and not trying to get things perfect and completely done in the first pass, but rather to an acceptable point for the first step (or whatever step you may be on).

I think the thing that gets us most hung up about this is that it’s so simple and we get concerned when things are simple that they’re too simple or that we should be making bigger steps or seeing greater progress. But I think the exact opposite because I think that so often the world goes ahead and complicates things by adding unnecessary layers and steps and rules and as a result we feel like we have to always have those layers. A great example is a piece of music: you can have just one instrument play it sometimes and that’s more than enough and able to touch you really deeply, but other times you want a symphony orchestra and band to play the piece with lots of layers and depth. Another example is the process of creating a website: sure you could put one up in one sitting and call it good, but isn’t it more likely that you’re going to want to go back to it in the days and weeks that follow and tweak it and add to it or change it depending on the different ideas you have and feedback you get from people before calling it “done?”

So the next time you’re presented with a simple step to take to get you closer to success, don’t let doubt discourage you from truly considering it. Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it won’t work or it’s not right for you. I think often all of our lives could benefit from simplifying them and slowing down to just enjoy them without all the additions we often think are necessary nowadays. No, we don’t get to live forever, but if the projects we’re working on are really worth it, they’re worth doing with less focus on the clock and more on the quality of work you’re doing and peace of mind it will bring you in the end. What simple advice has helped you move your success journey forward recently?

Balance with Fun and Responsibilities

This week we had typical March weather where I live: a snowstorm was predicted that ended up being 90% rain and 10% snow, coming in with no snow left when all was said and done. Going into it we knew that anything could happen because March snows (and weather) are notoriously fickle. I can remember one year where I was shoveling out in March thinking to myself “where am I going to put all this snow!” because that year we had had a ton of snow and the March storms were just adding to it and I couldn’t shovel that high (nothing like they get in Alaska or some other areas where there are legitimate walls of snow, but almost too high for me to be able to throw the snow to the top of the pile). Weather people are often trying to find a way to keep people safe and ‘in the know’ without unnecessarily panicking them or making them think all weather is a joke and we should just do whatever we want because they never know what they’re talking about and the weather isn’t usually as bad as they suggest.

And it got me thinking about parenting and about how challenging it can be for some parents to find the balance between teaching their kids about the serious stuff in life like responsibilities, honor, ethics, relationships and diplomacy, while still encouraging them to be kids and have fun and live life. Of course the first step to finding the balance is modeling it yourself and making sure they know that work isn’t just something you do when they don’t see you. I know that sounds like a strange way to phrase it, but if you “go to work” every day when they’re at school and then sit on the couch when you all come home and that’s just how they see you live, they aren’t really understanding that you do responsible things (you just say that you do). So do some reading or check emails while they do their homework (it’s not like that’s not what you’re doing on the couch anyway, right?!), have chores that are assigned to everyone, including the parents so that everyone knows that they’re a contributing member to the household (even if the “job” someone is assigned is making sure the pets have fresh water or that the dog’s responsibility is making sure the humans stay healthy by taking them on walks).

One of the ways you can recognize if you’re getting out of balance (away from responsibilities) has to do with cranky kids and even crankier parents. If the kids are too cranky and don’t listen and don’t get to bed at a reasonable hour because they (and you) are up still trying to get the homework done, it’s time for a change and to move in the responsibility direction and away from fun. This doesn’t mean that you’re ignoring any sensitive issues that are happening in your family at the moment and might be affecting them, you’re simply helping everyone get and stay more focused on the things everyone are responsible for and showing them that if those things are taken care of sooner, there’s a lot more time for playtime. Yes, it’s an adjustment but it will help everyone get back on track and stay on track even through periods of extreme stress, and having the normal activities in their life to ground them will help them have healthier tools to rely on later in life when they go through periods of stress as an adult.

How do you balance teaching your kids about responsibilities while also encouraging them to love and live?

On Gated Content

Do you know one of the most awesome things about being in business in this day and age? There are a ton of ways to make money!! Every way isn’t right for every business or team, but there are at least a couple that can work for each and every business. What does that list include? You can sell products, you can sell advertising, you can sell training, you can sell services, you can sell advice, you can sell entertainment, you can sell access, you can sell subscriptions, and those are just some of the biggest categories and aspects of ways you can make money. The other thing to remember is that you can always start with one way of making money and then add and subtract ways as you go along and your market or the market changes over the years, and certainly there are times when it’s worth it to have as many options as possible for people that you can successfully offer because you need to keep your options open.

One of the ways that businesses make money has been controversial since it started: selling access to blogs/articles (also known as “gated” content). This is where you have to at the very least create an account to read the content on a site, and more typically that you pay a fee for monthly/yearly access. Some sites limit the number of articles/blogs you can read in that time frame, while others just offer a blanket subscription to read all the content. I can understand the appeal of the idea: if your whole business is based on these articles and blog posts you have to monetize that in one way or another, and paying for access is a very easy way.

The origins of this actually begin with the fact that people used to buy newspapers and have them delivered, and that was pretty much the only way to get that information. Now with the news online and every other type of content as well, there are a lot more options out there and we aren’t dependent on that delivered paper, which brings us to our question for today: is it worth it to purchase access to those sites? And my answer is that it depends.

If you know anything about me you probably know (or can assume) that I’m a reader. Each week I send out a business newsletter that features some of the articles (and sometimes videos) that are worth checking out, and I like reading to learn for my personal and professional life as well. So I read hundreds (no that’s not a typo) of articles and newsletters each week to source for the newsletter as well as for personal and professional interests. Which puts me in a position to be able to confidently say that there’s a lot of really great news and educational content out there you can read for free without having to subscribe or purchase access.

But I’m also not opposed to having some of your content gated or charging for some of your content, after all I send out newsletters that you have to subscribe to to read (and subscribe to many as well). Arguments against gating all of your online content include because of how unwelcoming it is and how many people (including myself) will just leave and look for the information at another source (and probably find it). So what are your options without gating all of your content behind a paid subscription? You can sell advertising, you can give people/businesses the option to sponsor posts or specific content, you can have people pay to share their content on your site, you can have an upgrade section which will include bonus or extra or special content that is less mainstream (the “Arts” is frequently a paid section with newspapers), and you can sell swag and other branded merchandise just to name a few.

I believe content is absolutely valuable, but I believe at least some of that value has to be shared universally, and shouldn’t all be limited to those willing to go an extra (couple of) step(s) to watch/read it. What about you? What is your perspective on gated content and the impact that it has on a business’s brand and marketability?

Lost Time vs Gained Time

This coming weekend in most of the US we’ve got the favorite activity of the biannual time change. Some years ago someone decided that our lives would be better if we adjusted the time by an hour forward or backward twice each year. We’ll leave the debate of how helpful or senseless this activity is to another day’s discussion, what I want to talk about today is the impact of gaining and losing time when it comes to our success activities.

For the time change we know when it’s going to happen, so we can anticipate whether we’re going to gain or lose an hour, but when it comes to our regular daily activities, we don’t always know that we’re going to magically find an hour in our day or lose one. One of the most common situations we find ourselves in where we have our time impacted in this way is with doctor visits, home maintenance work or other types of scheduled appointments. You may have a doctor appointment at a specific time which may get extended way past your appointment time because they’re busy or you have to get some tests done you weren’t anticipating (which means you’ll probably lose some time), or it may be that they’re ahead of schedule and able to get you in and out much faster than normal (which means you’ll gain some time). And how often do you have a maintenance appointment scheduled and you’re given an 4 hour window, which means that if they show up at the beginning of that window you’ll be free to go about your business during the rest of that already scheduled time (and you gain some time), or if they show up at the end, it means you’ll be there the whole time plus however long it takes to get the work done, right (and you lose some time)?

There are two major lessons we can take away from this topic today. First is that these large windows of time are why it’s so important to have a to-do list as well as to know your priorities that day, so you know what you can add in from your to-do list when you’ve got large amounts of extra time, and on the days that you lose time you’re going to have to cut stuff that you had scheduled or at least anticipated doing, and now you can’t, because you know your priorities you’ll know what you can and can’t cut. Second, one of the more challenging skills for many people to learn is good judgement on how long things take to do. Some people never are able to accurately judge how long things take, and that’s OK, but it’s worth working on because being able to know that something is going to take an hour or however long, will help you know what you’ve got time for in the extra block of time that appeared in your day, and you’ll also be able to be more accurate in planning out your day too.

What extra time has appeared in your schedule lately and how have you used it to further your success journey?