You are at a cross street and there is another car in front of you. The intersection is a four way stop sign intersection. You see the car approaching from the left and the driver is clearly looking down at their phone. The car coming from the left continues on through the intersection without even slowing down. Each of the cars at the other stop signs are each shaking their heads in disbelief. The driver of the car which went through the stop sign never looked up from their phone. Do you see this taking place often where you live and where you drive? The term we hear to describe this behavior is distracted driving.
My question to you is, are you conducting your business as a distracted business owner? An easy way to test if you are is to ask a few simple questions of yourself. Are you focused on one or two specific areas of expertise or products to market? This focus means you are spending your time selling and marketing directly. You are not yourself creating web sites, logos, looking up trademark rules and regulations, running personal errands throughout the day. You are clearly focused on the one or two specific items.
Do you know the value of one hour of your time? Do you delegate or hire in people to conduct the work you are not of the expertise to handle or to conduct the work which you should not conduct? Based upon your answers to these questions it should be clearly obvious to you or anyone else if you are a distracted business owner.
It is critical to have a clear and unobstructed focus on your business direction. There should be written down goals and objectives for your business for the year. These are then placed into goals to achieve each month, each week, each day to support the objective for the year. You and your team should hold yourselves accountable by checking in often to see if you are on track or off track. If you are off track, understand why and establish what must be done to get back on track. If you work alone you must have a business coach or a trusted advisor working with you to at the very least hold you accountable.
In the driving example it was obvious and very clear to the other drivers that the distracted driver was distracted. Did the distracted driver ever recognize they were distracted? The same example holds for your business. People around you are able to see you are a distracted business owner. The problem is you do not recognize that you are a distracted business owner. Take action steps now and pay attention. Find a business coach to work with. Get focused today.
Mitch Tublin is an advanced certified executive and personal coach who resides in Stamford, CT.
Mitch, we live in an era of distraction, good points in tying this theme to business.
I find most small biz owners (especially home based) are in fact distracted. Good analogy to point out the importance of focus, Mitch.
Focus is key, I agree! and it feels good to be focused on 2 areas : anxiety and emotional eating
Focus is critically important, but not everyday the focus is the same — especially for the small business owner or entrepreneur. Often these people have to wear several hats … and as long as they are hyper-focused on that one task when wearing that hat, I think success can be found!
Great tips, Mitch! I couldn’t agree more. As a small business owner, you just can’t afford to be distracted.
I couldn’t agree more… wait, what am I agreeing with I got distracted? No, seriously, I get so much more done when I leave my home office, that I just joined a swanky gym so I can have wifi and sit by the pool… and THAT will be less distracting than working at home.
We’re almost encouraged to be distracted by all of the technology, social media, etc, some days it’s a challenge. Thanks for the reminder to stay focused.