Are you busy, busy, busy in your company now? If so, CONGRATULATIONS! “Busy” for sure beats sitting around hoping/ praying that your phone will ring! (Especially in the ‘winter doldrums’!)
And yet… WHAT have you been ‘busy, busy, busy’ doing TODAY? Hmmmm…
Think about it. Like me, was your initial priority as a cleaning or restoration contractor to simply buy groceries and pay the rent? I get it! But over time…
Has your ‘end goal’ evolved into building a Critical Mass Business that will run with you… or without you. If so, you’ll enjoy the financial freedom that (once again, ‘hopefully’) will translate into ‘Personal Freedom’! So now for an introspective (and very serious) question…
Did your ‘busyness’ today move you closer to your ‘end goal’ of Personal Freedom? OR was your day consumed with what I call ‘Life’s Hum-Drum Details’? (Some good, some bad but still more or less ‘filler stuff’?)
The challenge we all face? We very easily get ‘detoured’! Why? Because it is so darned easy to let the ‘urgent overwhelm the important’! Fight back with one essential question to ask yourself every day:
“What is my ‘highest and best use’ TODAY to achieve my End Goal(s)?”
Here’s some “NOT your highest and best use” candidates:
1. Building (painfully) your own website. Sure, you should have a working knowledge of web marketing. (If only to hold your web developer and/or SEO people’s ‘feet to the fire’!) But very likely your time spent on a (crudely built?) website would be MUCH better invested in working in and/or building your business!
2. Doing your own maintenance and repairs. If you’re a solo ‘Lone Wolf’ then you may have no choice. But once you grow into a multi-truck operation strongly consider hiring a part time ‘Maintenance Tech’.
NOTE: As you grow you’ll need to introduce restocking and inventory control procedures for your techs. (Your ‘highest and best use’ is NOT restocking your tech’s vans!)
3. Payroll and bookkeeping. Yes, you totally should keep your finger on the pulse of your company with a weekly Financial Flash Report. But your routine financial chores should likely be delegated to an employee or an outside sub-contractor.
4. Profit sucking jobs. Sure, you may be ‘making money’ on any given job. But every hour you’re tied up on low-profit stuff is one hour less to look for and/or perform much higher profit work.
5. Spending quality time together with your family. Seriously? Some of you thought I would promote making financial success a priority over your family? Listen carefully here: Some things are MUCH more important than business success and ‘family comes first’!
6. Doing anything you hate and despise. Why are these things “NOT your highest and best use”? Because if you hate it you won’t be any good at it or worse… you simply won’t do it! For example…
Let me guess- you (probably like 99% of my SFS Training students) hate and despise making sales calls! I’ve recently realized that over 20 years I’ve been flogging my SFS students to spend just one weekly Dedicated Sales Morning to make 15-20 new contacts. Guess what- they don’t (won’t) do it! Let’s talk about this challenge soon!
Think carefully on the above points. As Sam Walton of Walmart famously said: “Time is the only resource you can’t buy more of.”
So let’s keep talking about how you (and your company) can be more profitable AND give you ‘Personal Freedom’! After all, should your ‘Highest and Best Use‘ be ONLY focusing on ‘pushing the wand’?
What ‘time traps’ do you struggle with in your business and/or daily life? Share them (and get solutions from our thousands of cleaning and restoration contractor members) in our Strategies for Success: ‘Growing Your Business’ Facebook Group. (All are welcome- you don’t have to be a SFS Training graduate to join us HERE.)
Steve