3 Simple Steps To Thrive This Year

According to a recent New York Times article, 25 percent of New Year’s Resolutions have fallen by the wayside!

Only 8 percent of resolutions are actually accomplished by December 31st.

Will you be in that 8 percent?

It’s rare for a business to start a new year with a glass-half-empty perspective.

How could you be pessimistic, when the year has barely started yet? How can your plans be unraveled, when you’re only 2% of the way to your goal?

Every plan. Every year. Our numbers look pristine on paper. Our projections make us jump for joy.

This is the year when things will change.

We are going to have the best year ever

But as the year rolls on, you start to notice flaws in the plan.

Revenue didn’t come in neat little rows. Expenses don’t come through in a straight line. Cash flow starts to look tight.

Your cushion doesn’t feel all that soft anymore. Budgets are replaced by actuals.

Reality sets in for the pessimist. They look at how to slash expenses. They expect the worst, and they pray for the best stopped praying years ago.

The ambitions of the business are put on hold. Maybe next year will be better. 

The optimist, on the other hand, embraces the challenge. Even if numbers didn’t hit in Q1, there’s still 3 quarters to turn it around!

Just need to keep on working the plan. No budget cuts. No drastic measures. Work the plan!

But six months into a declining business, everyone becomes a pessimist. There is only so much you can kick the budget can before the numbers appear insurmountable. There are only so many times you can ignore the numbers staring you in the face.

That’s the cutoff; the bail-out point for most entrepreneurs.

Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face.

The plan changes for optimists, and it changes for pessimists. The only difference is timing.

This is a new year, make it count

If this post feels dreary, it’s because I don’t want you to find yourself half way through the year with limited prospects. I don’t want you to have to make budget cuts because things didn’t work out.

I want you to thrive in 2018. And I want to remind you that now is a critical inflection point in your business.

Everyone starts the year out fresh. You have a clean slate that you can use to build on top of things.

But you need to hold yourself accountable now. You need to do the actions that keep you on track. You need to tackle your quarterly rocks, starting in Q1.

Here’s a simple 3-step plan for you to get started:

  1. Commit to working on something major for your this quarter. Leave clients out of this. I’m talking about working ON your business, not IN your business. Take the thing that nags you most about your business, and commit to getting it done by March 31st.
  2. Find an accountability buddy to hold you accountable for reaching this goal. Could be another business owner, or another member of the Agency Course community.
  3. Make it your #1 priority to deliver on this goal by the end of Q1. This is non-negotiable.

If your biggest weak spot is revenue, focus on revenue generation. If it’s a troublesome client, develop a process to make working with them easier.

It’s all in your court. Take the #1 biggest pain in your business, and fix it.

You have 79 days to get it done.

We’re here to hold you accountable.