In any business, there are months of extreme success and months of struggle. So how do you close a fiscal month with a bang?
When you are in the early startup phase, there are usually more months of a struggle than success. Simply because you are trying to figure out how to generate consistent success in your new business. While we all know to expect tough months, knowing it and living through it are two different situations.
What I typically see happening to newer business owners is that they start off doing the right thing. They set targets. Then, they miss those targets for one month. “That’s ok, we will hit them this month!” Then they miss them again. After 3 or more months of missing targets, they want to avoid that pain of “failure” so what do they do? It’s usually one of 3 things:
1. They stop creating targets, thinking, “If I don’t have targets I can’t miss anything and therefore I can’t fail.”
2. They have targets but they stop tracking how they are doing once they realize they are going to miss that month. Again, “if I don’t face reality I didn’t really fail.”
3. Or, they are tracking through the month, they realize they are going to miss, so they simply give up altogether and say “maybe next month.”
All 3 pathways are not paths I want you to go down. You can overcome this. You simply need a strategy. So how do you close a month or a quarter when you are missing the target? You must create “go-to” wins that will help you deliver to your targets.
You need to create what I call your Bang List. That is a list of go-to products, services, or add-ons that are always a money maker and allow you to close your mouth with a “bang.”
Once you create that list of items, write down how much revenue each one of those items on the list will generate.
And here’s the deal, when you review your performance in the 2nd and 3rd weeks of the month, if your financial revenue isn’t on target, activate your Bang List. Decide which actions you will take, how many you must sell-off of that list, and get to work.
Now, instead of feeling the pain, you are working towards actually preventing it! You have a plan. No pain means you are creating positive momentum, which means will keep creating your targets, you will keep reviewing your performance, and you should be able to deliver to your monthly targets because you have a plan!
Go create your Bang List and let’s get to work!
Be Legendary!