It’s a Marathon…Not a Sprint…and your brain is not helping

I’m a firm believer that most entrepreneurs stop things just before they’re ready to make a real breakthrough.  Now…why do I say that?

Well, to truly “change” anything in your business takes two things.  Guts and pig-headed determination.  And if you’re missing either…your brain will give you ample opportunity to give up and return to what you have done for years.

Your brain does three things very well

1. It procrastinates on big projects by visualizing the worst parts

Hmm…does that sound familiar?

2. Your brain will “abandon ship” at the first sign of distress

Think diets, the gym, marketing your salon

3. Your brains loves mindless busywork disguised as progress

Think social media, looking at the numbers without taking steps to impact the numbers.

Knowing this…is it any wonder we get anything done!

Well, the good news is that you don’t have to do very much to succeed in this world.  You just have to do the right thing and do it over and over and over again.  And effective salon management is not much different.

Let me give you some examples:

Let’s say you wanted to have a highly trained staff of exceptional hair stylists.  A staff that was truly better than anyone else in the area.  If you have them “trained” one day every 2-3 weeks like clockwork on one aspect of their job…it would be a very short period of time and you would reach your goal.

Let’s say you wanted to really utilize your salon management software to build your business or to make it more profitable.  Take one feature and start using it each week and before you know it…you’re using it to track and grow your business.  You’re identifying key areas of opportunity and making your life easier going forward.

But here are three key things to making BIG things happen in any business  (yours too)

Do something towards the goal…even if its tiny…every day.  Form the habit and it will start taking care of itself.  Perfection takes time.  Very rarely will you accomplish any big goal in a small period of time.

Breakdown the big goal into a bunch of smaller goals.  This is referred by many experts as “chunking”.   For example: if you’re trying to straighten out your inventory…do one product line a day.  Succeed with these little goals instead of tackling the entire project .

Or if you’re trying to clean up your client list, start with the clients with the Last Name starting with “A” on day one, then go to “B” on day two, etc.  Succeed every day and you will start to build momentum.    

So what if it takes a month to get it done.  Remember that success in business is a marathon and not a sprint.

Oh and one more thing… 

You have to track your progress otherwise you will get frustrated. 

So, if you’re trying to get more client email addresses…check every day how many more got entered by the receptionist.  You can do it very easily in Check System Data.  Check it EVERY day…not once a week or once a month.  Employees need feedback almost daily to stay on track.

As always, aim high…and dream even higher…

Steve Sampson