It occurs to me that most of the success I have had in life has been in spite of any discipline or focus on tasks. This is beginning to create problems at my new company, and I am determined to fix it.
Not only does Charisma Sciences have our coaching service, but we are also working to develop products, including a few eBooks, some CDs and a few DVDs. The coaching business is going well – we are beginning to fill up most of our events, and since we run them three to four weekends a month, it is easy to come home on Monday and want to relax for a few days.
Then there are little things that come up. My partner is often asking me to make little updates to the website, which somehow become big updates and take three days instead of the half day I’d budgeted. So too, we’re both creative thinkers, and we’re always coming up with new ideas. We just started podcasting, which is fun and cool and has been a good marketing tool for us. But it came at the expense of some longer-term product priorities.
I can see how this happened: we are victims of our success. We are trying to move in too many directions to satisfy the demand in our market for many different products/services. But this can also happen when you’re not having enough success. No one is buying your product or your pitch, and you make so many tweaks that your company dies a death by a thousand cuts.
What is happening here is a classic symptom of being disorganized – we have become reactive, not proactive. This does not create excellence within a company. A market leader knows where it is going and proactively pursues that path.
This is why you have a business plan! Of course, if you have any questions on business plans, go back to your copy of Open for Business.
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Anyways, my partner and I are currently taking a few days off from all production activity. We have committed ourselves to setting concrete goals and deadlines that reflect all of the new information we’ve learned since we wrote our last business plan.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where a few months have gone by – in business or in life – where you have not accomplished your goals, I encourage you to do the same.
