Quick Hacks To Improve Your Business

It’s hard to mesh the notion that we should be faster and more productive with the idea that we should track our business, analyze our time, and optimize what works.

If you can’t find the time to add systems to your business, try a little addition by subtraction. Let’s look at the fast, simple things that you can do to make your business more profitable:

1. Cancel services that aren’t working for you.

If you’ve been paying a monthly or yearly fee for services and software that you’re always “getting ready” to use… get ready to dump those services and reclaim your money.

Ask yourself if the monthly services that you’re using are really living up to their promises. Are they paying for themselves right now, or are you going to need other elements to take full advantage of them?

Look for more cost-effective solutions, and look for services that combine two or three features that you’re already using.

There are many times that you’ll want to “make the switch” but you’re hesitant because you’ve got data there, or the process of changing over would take time that you don’t have.

But when you finally block off some time and make the move, you’ll be surprised at how good it feels.

Look for companies that give you great benefits to switch. Usually, the services that are “stickiest” know that it’ll take a generous set of benefits to draw new customers.

2. Develop the courage to quit.

Sometimes, you get stuck with a business plan that just does not benefit you.

Look, it’s important not to give up on something easily, but every business has something called “sunk costs”. That’s the point where things aren’t going to get better, and the more you invest, the more you’re going to lose.

Look for elements of your business that are keeping you from accomplishing MORE and doing something BETTER. Look for the items in your business that you can quit. And if you aren’t sure that you can quit those elements, try to step back and find ways to tackle the same tasks more effectively.

3. Learn more efficient ways of doing business.

The time that you spend struggling to finish a task can sometimes be spent asking more efficient and advanced people their methods for doing things.

Look up blogs and books discussing the very specific stumbling block that’s impeding your process and start applying those fixes.

Also, there are plenty of paid services that charge for convenience – so if there’s a skill you can learn to save yourself some money, take the time to learn it.

Don’t treat this improvement as a one time thing. Sign up for newsletters and resources that will gradually improve your skill. You won’t learn a skill overnight, but a small amount of time can give you compound results.

Remember that cash is an amazing source of leverage. If there’s a task that’s critical to your business and requires a lot of skill, consider leveraging your money and hiring a specialist to do it. Cash is always tight, so if you’re smart, you can get a lot for a little.

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Bridging The Gap Between Knowledge and Action

Chances are, you already know what needs to be done. You know you need to stop procrastinating. You know you need to watch less TV. You know that you need to set smart goals and intelligent deadlines. And hopefully, you know you need to track your work, track your results, and put more of your effort into the aspects of your business to give you the strongest results.

But there’s a very big gap between knowledge into action. Think of all the money that’s spent on knowledge: whether it’s a large companies trying to improve their efficiency, or housewives and stay at home dads trying to get into better shape. They know the adjustments they need to make, but they always fail to set habits and follow though.

Let’s look together at some of the gaps that keep you from turning knowledge into profitable and useful habits.

The Fear Of Change

Failure can be comfortable. It represents a continuation of a routine that, at least on some level, has brought us a lot of pleasure. Now where this breaks down is that pleasure and happiness are two very different things. Pleasure can be bought with a cookie, it can be found in the bottom of a bottle, you can get a short rush of it with a few minutes on Facebook.

Happiness is harder, and the road towards it is longer, winding, and littered with distractions. The constant pursuit of pleasure, ironically enough, keeps more more people away from becoming happy.

You Won’t Learn By Doing

There are too many people who tried to do by learning instead of learning by doing. Talking about problems to death rarely solves them. People talk too much already. It’s natural to want to go into a scary situation with knowledge at your back. But once you’ve learned the basics of a skill, start acting on it. Then look for new information once you’ve run into a serious roadblock, or have a smaller aspect of the skill that demands your attention.

You Rely On Motivation Instead Of Habit

It’s okay to “feel unmotivated” sometimes, to hit a roadblock and need something positive to dig you out. But you’re always needing to be motivated for any kind of positive action in your life, it’s a sign that you haven’t really put the energy you should into setting habits.

Habits aren’t subjects that need motivation. Habits are things that we just do, whether it’s a good time or a bad time. If you can devote one month to establishing a positive habit, chances are much better that you do it for a long time to come.

Accepting “Life Excuses”

Too many people take “life happens” as an excuse not to do the things that they should. It’s almost like there’s no effort to leap the obstacles that life puts in front of them. It’s important to set uninterrupted times and uninterrupted places for the most important priorities cannot be violated. When you give yourself a choice between any two things, there’s a chance you will take the less beneficial choice.

Set up at daily routine that eliminates those choices.

Going From Zero To A Hundred

When it sinks in how far behind we are on our goals, it’s easy to try to do too much at once and destroy our desire to improve altogether. While there are people who can handle this sort of drastic shift, for most people it’ll be best to start small, focus on repetitive action, and scale up from there!

No More Excuses

The time for learning and not doing it over. Step up and start making a serious change in the way you approach problems… right now!

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Are You Busy Being Busy?

Imagine this: you’ve been filling out applications for weeks and weeks looking for a new job – and finally you get a callback. They’re excited about your application and they want to meet you tomorrow at noon!

You can barely sleep the night before, and when the time comes, you’re burning with energy. You hop the bus to get there and rush in the building, only to find the elevator is broken.

But you don’t let that stop you. You rush up the stairs, and by the time you make it to the top, you’re completely out of breath. It’s only then, when you look at the sign hanging above the receptionist, that you realize you were in the wrong building the entire time!

Now you’ve both late AND worn out. You might have been busy, but you didn’t DO anything.

We live in a culture that empathizes hard work over everything else. Rarely do we stop to ask whether we’re working hard on the right things for the right reasons.

If you feel like you’re climbing a whole building’s worth of stairs in the wrong building, chances are that you’re not working very effectively.

First: Take a couple of days off.

This can be a very tough decision to make, especially if you’re hanging on by your fingernails. But the fact is that you need to have a clear head when you analyze your business. That’s very difficult to do when you’re burned out. Give yourself a little time to emotionally and physically reboot, even if it’s only for a weekend. You’ll be amazed at how much better you feel.

Second: Are you being a perfectionist?

Too many people try to do everything perfectly because they’re afraid of being “caught” or looking bad, or they have a “personal standard” they feel they need to live up to.

Drop the idea that all your work needs to be flawless, because it will explode the amount of work you need to do. Chances are that you need volume, more traffic, more customers, and more buyers.

So start going after it!

Third: Give Yourself An Audit

Take a look at the time you used for the day – rate their activities on a scale of 1-10, with a 10 being very helpful to your business, and a 1 being something very counterproductive. What were the reasons for doing the low-rated tasks? Can you attack them and get rid of them?

Remember, your goal isn’t be be busy, it’s to accomplish more. Work less and spend more time thinking about how to improve your efficiency, and you’ll love the results you get.

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