Finding the Wind: Navigating Business Growth

Excitement vs. Preparation: At The Water Trough, I explore why the unglamorous side of planning is crucial for building a healthy, sustainable business. Let's set those sails for success! #BusinessStrategy #SmallBizTips

Transcript

Ed Drozda 0:10

Welcome to The Water Trough, where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've always wanted. Welcome back to The WaterTrough, folks. This is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor. Recently, a client asked me to review some documents for them. I advised them that I am not a technical expert on the materials that they asked me to review. So I did what I tend to do best, and that is to look at things from a very fundamental perspective, looking to see, what the content is, asking questions about how it relates to the business at large, trying to understand the intended audience for the documents that they wrote, and so on and so forth. In short, my review asked more questions than it answered, number one. And number two, my review also implored the client to ask questions of themselves and to dig deeper. And it got me to thinking action is, I guess you could say, is kinda sexy. You know, if I have some action to take, if I can do something, and better still if I can do something and have a direct positive impact, that's really sexy. That's great. That's really, really cool stuff. On the flip side, the preparation that leads to action is not sexy at all. It's kinda boring. Because while you're engrossed in preparation, planning if you will, you're not accomplishing something that a lot of us think of as tangible. Now truth be told, the planning is a tangible thing because the planning leads to the execution of and completion of an act, of an action. But I think for many of us, the notion of planning is, again, boring. It's not something that really sparks our enthusiasm to the level that physically doing something, acting upon something can do. And so the review that I had done of these documents was just that. To the client, it may well be boring to review what I gave them in response. They might look at it and say, "Gee, uh, okay. Well, yeah, some of those things make sense, and yeah, I hadn't thought about that before. But hey, what if we just get down to it and try it out?" Well, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, the idea of boredom versus sexiness is not really the point of this conversation at all. I'm merely trying to point out that we tend to gravitate towards those things that have a little bit more flair, that give us a little bit more immediate gratification, if you will. And we all need that. There's no question about it. Immediate gratification in business, as in any other facet of life, is something that we seek. Hopefully, that immediate gratification can give us the enthusiasm to go out and do even more. But when it comes to building a business, and this is particularly important for new businesses, it's really, really important to take the time to develop that plan. I don't mean just a business plan. I mean to legitimately get a deep understanding of who you are, what you look to accomplish, and what are the possible means by which you can do this. My wife used to say to me when working with a client, she'd say, "Ed, you're taking the wind out of their sails. You're telling them that they have to focus on things that aren't really going to be leading to the end result." And as I reflect upon this now, I can see why she would say that. Because it is not as exciting as taking action. Instead of saying, Client ABC, this is what you should pursue," which by the way is not a coaching approach anyway. But instead of saying, "Pursue this," the question is posed, "Well, what do you hope to get out of that?" And naturally, the idea is so that when you've looked at things through this lens, you can formulate a more effective plan, a plan that's not only reasonable to execute, but a plan that is catering to and acknowledging your needs and true intent. So in response to my wife when she'd say, "Ed, you're taking the wind out of a client's sails," I would often say, "Well, actually not at all. I'm asking them, I'm encouraging them to find out which direction the wind is blowing. Now, a sailor knows that when the sails go slack, you have to find the wind. If you're going to be going somewhere, forward or back, left or right, you're gonna have to engage the wind to help you. And so it is in this process of planning and building a business. That wind is not gonna blow consistently either in its direction or its speed. And it requires an astute sailor to be mindful of those things. And much of that wind is inherent in the business owner themselves. It's a very fundamental approach, and it's an approach that I believe in completely. You can't build a house without some form of foundation. Merely putting your studs in the sand will not lead to a stable structure. Likewise, when building a business, it's important to make note of the fundamentals. And the fundamentals in a business invariably are not just the business itself, but it is the people, the persons that are creating that business. They are the foundation. It's their hopes, dreams, ideas, and concepts that will become the foundation. The next layers are those that result from that contemplation, that recognition of self, that understanding of what is desired, and what is possible. So I encourage you to consider that while you're engaged in actions and you're finding them to be fun because the answers are readily apparent, sometimes good and sometimes not, don't lose sight of the importance of preparation, of planning. Just because preparation and planning doesn't seem to have an immediate gratification does not mean that it won't give you something far more important. What it lacks in immediate gratification is more than made up for in the long-term stability that it can provide. This is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor. I wanna thank you for joining me today at The Water Trough, and I want to wish you, as always, a healthy business.