Setting Yourself Up For Failure – Part 2
February 6th, 2020 // 11:25 am @ Scott Manning
We are now flipping the coin over again and talking about ways that business owners get in their own way and set their business up for failure.
We’ve talked about routines for success and habits to help you win both personally and professionally. Then we talked about what not to do… great feedback on that one, by the way, thank you, the question is always what do you do with it.
One must really embrace the fact that their expectations, thoughts in your mind, the opinions about success, and belief of what’s possible is vitally important if you want to stand a fighting chance of making it through the obstacles that are inevitably going to get in your way.
The same goes for business.
Most businesses are not built for anything other than to get by. They are busy being reactive businesses basing actions and decisions on what happened instead of going above and beyond to get out ahead and be in control over what is going to happen.
My term is ‘future-focused’ – meaning that everything you do is based on proactively executing to create the results you want instead of settle for the results you got.
Now this comes out in many different forms all depending on your business structure. If you have a team, you can train for ideal or you can triage for incompetence. If you see customers live and in person, you can work ahead of time to set them up for success or you can just take them as them come in and do the best you can.
Here’s the real point…
Setting yourself up for failure is choosing to NOT manage the variables within your business and just feeling that you are at the mercy of them. That you don’t have control.
Instead of making a list of everything that you don’t like or that gets in your way of success and then combating that with a counter measure that works to prevent this so that you can be operating from a position of power, what I call state of ideal, more often than not. You will find that things will go your way more frequently and you will avoid sabotage whether by yourself or others.
There are far too many ways that businesses fail themselves but from just daily execution, or lack there of, the biggest ways businesses often sabotage their own success that are completely under their control are:
How they talk to customers.
Their lack of preparation and disciplined systems around organization.
Not being clear on their objectives and not having their customers clear on what they do, not ensuring that the two match up and having too much energy on being in the convincing business instead of having an experience that moves and motivates a customer to want what you do.
Another big one is not having money math that works for you to be as profitable as possible and to create the very best experience that you want to have so that the above mentioned points don’t exist.
Perhaps the biggest reason businesses stay stuck is their lack of paying attention to the most important details and placing the majority of their efforts on the highest leverage points. These are the things that matter, the priorities that are the money makers, instead of the things that waste time and get in the way of success.
I’d like to ask you to think about two lists. First of all, what is everything and everyone that gets in your way of focusing on the most important things that you need to be doing in order to grow your business.
Make that list and then let’s decided on a counter measure that will help to avoid, eliminate, minimize, or mitigate each of them.
Second, how might you and your team need to think differently about your business, your customer, your pricing, your marketing, your deliverables, your strategic plan, and your experiences if you were to take it to state of ideal by getting out of your own way and not setting yourself up for failure based on your own expectations and actions.
Once again take that list and combat it.
Earl Nightingale’s famous saying about success was to look around at the majority and see what they are doing and just do the opposite – because the majority is setting themselves up for failure. All too often you very well may be falling victim to negative ways of thinking or letting others (including your team and customers) around you get in yours and their own way of success.
I know it sounds silly and yet it really is that simple: success is doing the opposite of the things that don’t work and having the discipline, desire, and deserve level to see it through again and again to reach your goals.
We’ll dive deeper into future focused business strategy next week because it takes all of this to a very important next level if you want to find, achieve, and sustain your next breakthrough.
Category : Blog
