Every where I seem to turn at the moment, I come across the word focus. It’s a word that is important for small businesses, and on so many different levels.
Focus on the task
As I have mentioned in a previous post, it is important to single task in business, rather than trying to juggle all the balls and constantly moving the focus and your attention. There is an art to actually keeping your attention on one task at a time, and putting your mind and energy and passion into that particular item.
Focusing on one task at a time allows you to power through items on your action list and really see some immediate results.
Focus on your business output
As a passionate business owner it is so easy to get excited by ideas and prospects and possibilities for your business. You can add bells and whistles and add ons and the “what if” and “if only” discussions can take you down all sorts of paths. But it is important to do what you do, and to do it well.
Keep your business focused on a particular topic or service or product and do that amazingly well. When you start to add options and ideas and products they can take you away from the core business and offering. This is particularly true when first starting up a business. Keep the focus and allow those great ideas and possibilities to be stored up and explored at a time when you need a change of direction or it is important to add more products to your repertoire. But don’t allow these to cloud your every day output of your fantastic business offering.
Focus on the “Why” of your business
We all start our own businesses for a variety of reasons, and these are as varied as the business owners out there. It could be to spend more time with your children, to make a difference to a particular area of your community, to work from anywhere in the world or to make your first million. Whatever the reason, keep this in mind, and allow yourself to be guided by this why. Focusing on the why will help to guide your decision process, to steer your choices, as well as the growth of your business.
If you wanted to spend more time with your children but now work over 80 hours a week and barely get to read them a bedtime story, then it is important to refocus your attention on why you want this business.
By allowing yourself to focus on all these different levels of your business you can ensure that you are doing what you love, in a way that is true to your strengths and ensure that you are getting the job done.