Stop grasping at straws in business – Have a clear plan of action

Do you have a clear plan of action?  Something that I see a lot of small business owners doing is people grasping at straws when things aren’t going that well in business and I find it’s usually when the money isn’t coming in.

I’ve definitely fallen into this trap.

What is grasping at straws?  It’s basically the equivalent of someone falling off a boat out at sea and trying to grab onto anything in the hope that it will keep them afloat.  In this stituation grasping at straws would not help at all.

Let me give you few examples: Jennifer is a freelance writer and she isn’t getting enough work in, so she spends hours and hours searching the internet for the thing that’s going to change her life.

Adam’s small high street shop is struggling and he’s signing up for all kinds of things that could give him his break and he’s getting more and more into debt. He’s got no focus anymore and is not fully committed to anything.

Whilst I think it’s a great idea to research new options, what I call this is grasping at straws.  There’s no clear plan behind the actions and can often end up being incredibly costly and getting you nowhere.

Can you relate to this?

If you can here are a few tips

Have clear goals and a clear plan of action

For me, I think this is absolutely essential.  There are definitely those people who can just fly high on the success plane with no goals and no planning, but for most people, it doesn’t work that way.  They get lost without the goals and action plan.  This is definitely true for me.

I wrote a whole (long) blog post on Business Goals and Action Plans

When you have clear goals and a clear long-term, monthly weekly, daily action plan, you are productive every day and focused.  You’ll be taking planned out action rather than just grabbing at straws and hoping to find the key to success.

Track what’s working and what’s not

The things that I personally track on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis in my business are…

• Income
• Page views and session for each of my blogs
• Pinterest reach and click volume
• Facebook Page – Likes and reach
• Mailing List growth, open rates and clicks
• Where are viewers to my blog actually coming from?
• TIME and how well I’m actually using my time

A post I’d encourage you to read is ROI for business This post helps you to monitor the return for time spent on each business task.

I used to spend loads of time tracking all kinds of things but not all stats are actually that important.  For me, these are the things that make the biggest difference in my business.

Conclusion

With clear goals, a clear plan of action and tracking, you stand a much better chance of staying focused and achieving your business goals.

I’d like to recommend two downloads that will really help you.  They are the Simplicity Goal Setting Pack and the Law of attraction Business Planning pack. I have included details of each below.