One of the most common challenges for business owners is making regular time to develop and grow their business. Making time for business development should be a key element of your business strategy.
Are you making time for business development projects?
For most entrepreneurs, meeting deadlines dominates their list of priorities, which you might expect. But spending time on their own business is put on the back burner. It’s a recurring theme. People are feeling frustrated because they have all the ideas but they’re just not happening!
We’re all guilty of the “I’m going to do this at some point” attitude. Sound familiar?
But ‘some point’ never comes and that project keeps getting pushed further out. All of these great ideas go onto the ‘one-day’ list, where we convince ourselves, it will happen ‘one day’…
Why is this?
With everything that’s going on – brain fog, all of those day-to-day responsibilities, restrictions to our everyday lives, worrying about loved ones – it can be hard to focus on growing your own business. Lots of people are instinctively (and understandably) prioritising client work and customer deadlines, but not taking time to prioritise their own business.
We don’t tend to have a problem sticking to client deadlines, it’s so much easier to hold ourselves accountable to someone else’s deadlines over our own! But, if you don’t take action and take time out to prioritise your own business, you’ll plateaux, and you’ll continue to get the same results. That can be demotivating and when you’re not feeling inspired it’s hard to feel excited about your ‘passion project’.
So, what can you do?
How to turn your ideas into reality:
Make a decision: out of all your ideas what is your main priority? It could be a game-changer or something you’re excited to get started on. Stick to one project for now – don’t try to do everything at once. Working on too much at once is counterproductive as nothing ever gets finished. For all the other goals that are swimming around your head, write them down on a piece of paper and put them in a book, a box or a jar – somewhere safe. They will be there when you need them and have the time to revisit – most importantly they are out of your head!
Map it out: draw out the steps you need to take. If things are feeling overwhelming, decide what you’re going to do for the next two weeks only. Clearly marking out one step at a time will make things more manageable. When climbing the stairs, we don’t leap straight to the top of the staircase! We take it one step at a time, making steady progress until we reach the top.
- Time: to make things happen you need to dedicate the time. Look at your planner, where can you find the time? How much time are you willing to give to this project? Two hours a day? Four hours a week? You don’t necessarily need to block off specific times at this point unless that works for you. It can be flexible depending on your weekly schedule (you could do it in one four-hour block or two lots of two hours etc.). As long as you’ve spent your allotted hours focusing on the biz dev project, you’ll be moving along the path to achieving your goal.
- Commit: if something unexpected arises and you have to sacrifice your business development time one day, make it up the next (but don’t put your own goals on the back burner even temporarily unless it’s unavoidable. They are a priority too). Think about where else you can fit in the time – maybe an hour less of Netflix, or asking for help with children. Reclaim that time and ensure that you complete your set dedicated hours that week. You’ll feel so good that you did!
It’s not always easy to find time at the moment but it’s the only way you’ll achieve what you want when it comes to moving your business forward! Remember your business is sacred and it doesn’t deserve to come last on the list. Your one priority is to set aside the time to work on your business and allow it to develop and grow. Even if it’s only for a couple of hours a week, you will make steady progress. Decide, is your business important? If it is, make time for it!