August 2010
Being Busy and Moving Too Fast
The last two years have been pretty grueling for most of us. We’ve made major cuts in our spending in order to manage cash flow crunches created by shrinking revenues and expanding accounts receivable. Many business owners have been teetering on the edge of financial crisis, struggling to make payroll every pay period.
It’s pretty clear that things have changed and they aren’t going to return to the way they were, at least any time soon. We have all had to change what we do to increase revenues; even then, the profits are usually much smaller. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, phone-payment processing — new thinking and models are required to just stay visible and in the game, much less to succeed at a high level.
I see a lot of exhausted people who are doing more work but receiving fewer results. Driven by fear and worry, they stay busy working at their businesses, hoping to find a magic solution to their own version of the recession. Is this the “New Normal” that we are supposed to find?
I want to challenge you to stop and:
- Take a look at how you have changed, how you have done business over the past two years;
- Evaluate these changes and determine if they are really working for you; and
- Look for ways to work smarter without working harder.
It’s really easy to confuse “being busy” with doing the right things, to get the results you want. Believe me, I’ve experienced this first hand! However, being busy can keep you from “being present and aware” and can cause you to miss opportunities, because you don’t see them or listen deeply enough to hear them.
I recently read two great books that take a look at ways to work smarter while getting better results:
- Barking Up a Dead Horse: Avoiding the Wasted Time and Effort in Business-to-Business Sales, by Tom Batchelder.
- RFPs Suck!: How to Master the RFP System Once and for All to Win Big Business, by Tom Searcy.
Batchelder suggests that all of us are guilty of moving too fast — sometimes out of necessity, other times out of habit. Sometimes it’s because we are afraid to slow down and miss an opportunity.
In the book, he suggests “radically honest” ways to approach finding and engaging new prospects, growing your business, and motivating yourself and others around you to slow down and be more effective. This book is good for the business leader who wants to be more effective and efficient at gaining new customers and increasing sales.
For those of you who find yourself overwhelmed by responding to RFPs (Request for Proposals), Tom Searcy’s book is packed with practical advice, guidelines, and examples to help you make smarter choices and be more efficient in writing proposals.
To sum it up, it’s time to identify and create your own “New Normal,” by critically discerning what works from what you hope will work, so that you can focus your efforts and seize more opportunities while bringing balance back into your life.
To your success!
Gail Schaper-Gordon, Ph.D.
Business Psychologist and
Vistage CEO Group Chair