It’s always exciting to start a new year and decide what you are going to accomplish in the future. Many of the decisions you make early in the year help determine the outcomes for your business and your future.
However, these decisions require a plan, and they require constant reinforcement of that plan. This is why most people hit the gym for a few weeks and all the regular “gym people” get frustrated with the lack of space. These “gym people” also know that they just need to weather the storm.
They know most people will give up.
They aren’t really committed.
It’s always easy to get distracted or come up with a reason why you don’t have to do it today. One excuse leads to another and, soon, people are sleeping in when they were just committed to that gym life.
Business is no different and, with the new decade here, it’s a great time for you as business leaders to take the time to focus on your top three priorities. Write them down. (No more than three.) Focus on them. Work on what you’ll do to attack those three. Talk about them all the time. The decisions that you make now, and the effort that you place against them now, will have lasting impacts on your business in the future.
It won’t change your business tomorrow, but it’s the start of lasting change that will take you to where you want to go.
As a business owner, your to-do list is never ending. There are always countless priorities, and you are always needed in multiple areas. That will never change. That will never end. That’s why you have to stop and lead. Take a moment and focus on the future of your business.
Ask yourself this:
What are your top three priorities that you must focus on so that you can have the business you want at the end of this decade?
The word must is intentional. This applies to not only business owners, but to everyone looking to accomplish great things. If you can’t see where you want to be at the end of the decade, that’s a bigger problem. Start there. Then define the priorities. You are creating a focused, prioritized roadmap to that destination. One that, as a business owner, will give you a sense of accomplishment that otherwise may not have come.
I know that it’s difficult to think that far ahead sometimes. You have a laundry list of other things to do, but the important and critical parts of your business make the real difference. As speaker and author John Maxwell talks about frequently, 20% of your effort will drive 80% of your results. More importantly, not having a list of true priorities is the equivalent of having a boat without a rudder.
Going around and around is for NASCAR. Not for business.
I’ll give you an example with Scorpion. We went through a full rebrand. While, yes, we have a wonderful new logo and messaging, what was most important to me was what we do to reinvent and constantly improve our experience with our clients. I’ve been in this business for a long time and what still gets me as excited as when we first started is the feeling that our clients have when they work with us. They feel something different than they have with other companies. We’re friends with more of our clients than I could possibly count.
That doesn’t happen by accident.
The experience our clients have is incredibly important. In fact, it’s one of our top three priorities.
Think back to the rudder. We have nearly 1,000 passionate Scorpions here—and every single one of them knows that this is not only my priority, but our priority.
They haven’t heard it from me once or twice but multiple times, and it’s only the 15th of the new decade. It being a priority means that everyone has a focus on it.
We care. We want to walk together with our clients toward their success. We work hard. It’s part of who we are. We want to celebrate their victories together. It’s who we are—and that genuine commitment builds lasting relationships. It’s not something you can write a program to do. You have to mean it.
As an innovative company, we always ask ourselves, “How can we do this better?” This leads us to questions like, “How can we improve our client experience?”, “How can we deliver better results?”, “What can we build to allow our clients to take advantage of ____” and countless other questions.
As you as a business grow to have more and more people, you have to work even harder to keep what makes you, you.
When it’s a priority, it creates an incredible focus.
Everyone who works at Scorpion knows that there is always a better way. It's our job to find it. It’s our job to do what others won’t do. There’s pride in that for us.
By the way, sharing this content with you is all part of that priority. As business owners, we can learn from each other and if I can help you by giving you perspective about Scorpion, I’m creating a great experience. Because our client experience is a priority, we talk about it—and we don’t just talk about it, we do it. As a leader, I show the way and because of that…this blog exists.
All because of the focus of that one priority.
Without these three priorities, and without that laser focus, perhaps I don’t spend this morning writing to hopefully inspire you to make your business even better. We’re all in this together and my wish for you and your business is that you have the best decade ever. Aim high, set “impossible” targets, but put together your top three priorities that you and the company will focus on in order to get there.
Never stop talking about them.
Never stop working on them.
I personally was inspired by Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, and what Disney was able to accomplish because of this very same prioritization. If you have kids (or perhaps even if you don’t), you know about Disney+. That all happened because it fell in line with Bob’s prioritization of embracing technology and finding other ways to get their content in front of audiences when he took over as CEO of Disney back in 2005.
In 2019, he was named Businessperson of the Year by Time Magazine.
Again, not by accident. Focus.
If you want to read an incredibly inspirational book to start off your new decade, read The Ride of a Lifetime.
Best of luck to you and your business as you guide it toward incredible success.
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