Attempting the impossible: Juggling all areas of your business at once

If you’re trying to do it all at once while running your business, you’ll soon run into conflicts and find it’s impossible, said Angie Herbers, founder and CEO of FourPointe Consulting.

Herbers recommends dividing a service-based business into eight types of activities:

• 1. Leadership
  2. Corporate finance
  3. Client service
  4. Operations
  5. Management
  6. Human capital
  7. Sales
  8. Marketing

Since the areas are interrelated, the constant balance between them becomes complex. Changes in one area often affect the others, Herbers said at her 2018 MDRT EDGE workshop. Solving business challenges requires consideration of the other areas. It’s more than spending money on a problem; you have to look at it strategically. “We get stuck on the illusion that we can invest a little bit of money and then, boom, everything is going to turn around,” Herbers said. “It doesn’t happen that way most of the time.”

The power of focusing

The owners of the best multimillion-dollar firms know how to focus, Herbers said. While it can be appealing to go in at full speed, moderation is much better than agitation.

Start by looking at your business and asking, “What are all the options?” Consider the possibilities, whether you’re working with your staff’s suggestions or considering the hundreds of ideas in your head, but don’t try to figure out everything all at once, Herbers said. Your aim here is to simply list the available options.

Once you have your list, envision the chart of your company’s performance as a stair-step of continuous progress, always forward and up. Then pick one or two things to focus on so you can incrementally grow your business. Over time, you’ll be able to create strategies around each of the eight types of business activities.

In the face of several thorny challenges, avoid the temptation to do nothing, though. Aim for steady progress forward, not procrastination. If you don’t work on solving your business challenges, Herbers cautioned, those issues only grow bigger as your business grows bigger. It’s important to work on your business, not just in your business.

Once you selected your one or two areas of focus, tell your whole organization about it — and then stay with that focus until you’ve completed your plan.

This was taken from the presentation, “Building an organizational culture.” (MDRT members only) 

For more information

• Listen to “How I knew my business plan had to change”
• Watch or read “Change your thinking, change your life”
• Watch “Change is mandatory, stress is optional”  (For COT and TOT qualifiers only)