Set benchmarks for success by completing projects, being accountable, and repeating successful behavior.
My success is built on leveraging free tools and teaching people how to use them to their own advantage. I did this for myself. I did not pay attention to what anyone else was doing. It was my own work. My commitment to success has long since paid off. I rarely think about those who doubted my long hours working on websites teaching myself algorithms. I cannot remember the frowns behind me, only the testimonials of my community and clients that propel me forward. There are several variables that I have found that help me sustain growth at 10x levels and diversify my business. Simple completion of projects, repetition of success, and being accountable are benchmarks of my success. Below, here is how they may be applied to your business:
Start to Finish
With so many projects in the pipeline at the office, finishing a project to completion can sometimes be put on the back burner. In many primary and secondary school curriculums, this timeline and expectation is requisite and understood as the step to get to the next level of achievement. As you grow to hold more responsibilities, with family and a business, you can lose this step of completion. If we slow down and introduce it, we have greater success at inspiring our team and increasing our production and revenue. Think about one goal. Then perform action steps over a period of time attaining that goal, celebrating that goal, and moving on. The digital mindset has so many moving parts that this linear framework may not come naturally, but it too can have a beginning, middle, and end.
Create and Repeat
Do not be a one-hit wonder. Develop models of behavior and creative ways of solving problems and watch greatness unfold. When you have achieved greatness, recreate it. As your skill set evolves and you can handle larger clients or orders, challenges are a matter of growing demand. Overcome the fear of failure by patterning your behavior doing those exact things you are scared of. You conquer the fear and pattern that behavior.
Practice What You Preach
Lead by example and perform your purpose. Division of labor is an understood mechanism of human existence. From the origin of our species, we have had hunters and we have had gatherers. Everyone has a natural aptitude. Leaders emerge and it is up to you to become a leader or to become another member or contributor in your team. People will follow if you have the knowledge and assert authority as the person with the highest aptitude for the subject.
Define Core Values
In my transition from digital nomad to team leader, I learned the value of company culture and the establishment of core values. As a soloprenuer, the buck stopped at me. Success was wholly dependent on my input, but I was stifled. In order to grow, I needed to trust others and empower them to be accountable for their actions within the team. You are your company culture and you have to lead by example. When the core values are adhered to and the company culture is intact, nothing can stop the revenues.
Where there is a need for a service, there is going to be a service. There will always be competition, but there is only one of you. Your story, your narrative, is unique to you. How you came to your business model, who you admire, your mentors, your successes, your failures, your past, and your future are unique and that is your competitive edge. Tell your narrative in a compelling way that connects to your customer and provides the service they need, and you will have a client for life.
Play to your own talents but model yourself after a mentor or business success story. Identify their patterns of behavior and positive attributes. Do not try to outsmart the industry guru. Become a guru in your own industry, with your mentor’s discipline or other traits. If you replace one negative repetitive thought in addition to adding a positive model trait and practice that instead, you will notice a change in your business.
Your Time is Yours
At the beginning of my speaking career, I used to respond to every email and phone call. This created an imbalance in my business and, ultimately, it inspired online schools and seminars. I could not physically or mentally meet my audience’s need and had to put a price and value to my time.
If you are still micromanaging and accounting for all parts, you are not valuing your time. If you are not valuing your time, you are not valuing yourself and are not yet ready to make the transition to team leader yet. Your minutes, your time, and your life are non-refundable. Value every minute and second of it. Guard your time as fiercely as your bottom line.
BusinessCollective, launched in partnership with Citi, is a virtual mentorship program powered by North America’s most ambitious young thought leaders, entrepreneurs, executives and small business owners.
