“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
-Aristotle
There is no such thing as an overnight success, although we seem to think people become famous from one day to the next this just is not true. There is a lot of work behind the scenes that goes into becoming successful, like a seed you plant and tend to daily with water and sun. The seed is growing so much under the dirt but we don’t see any results until it finally sprouts. In the same way that our seed needs daily attention and work before we even see any results, your business needs a lot of daily tending. This consistent care and attention is a habit you develop, and the better your habits the more growth you will see. Suppose that you only water your plant every other day, you will get slower and fewer results than if you did so daily. Let’s say you water your seed daily and you provide a fertilizer every single week without fail, you can imagine your results will be improved. And if we add to this routine the habit of clearing unwanted weeds as soon as they come out, you can imagine your seed will grow to be a very healthy and robust plant. It is the same principle when it comes to the habits you implement in your business, even if you think there are no results right away.
Here we share with you 5 essential habits you can put to practice to help your business grow, and a few tricks on how to make sure you make them consistent.
1- Social media calendar- the daily watering of your business. In this day and age, you cannot be a stranger to the global community, and what a great opportunity this is. Make your calendar, get creative (but keep them short), use pictures and sound. Let the world know you are open for business every day! The best way to make this a habit is to do it at the same time every day, for example as soon as you sit down with your coffee that is the first thing you do. Some people do market research to find out the best time of day to post~ but even if you don’t get that fancy, done is better than perfect. You will get better at it the more you do it.
2- Newsletter- Put yourself out there, spend some time sharing your knowledge with others. If your product empowers people, make it a habit with a newsletter. You will remain on people’s radar next time the need comes up for your service. You can make a simple weekly newsletter every Monday with information about your industry that can help people learn something new. You can even do this once a month, attach this task to your end-of-month review, or a new month outlook. If this seems like too much commitment, you can also do a quarterly newsletter, depending on your field this might make more sense. Whichever frequency you choose, make it consistent. Set a notification on your calendar that will send you an automatic reminder to do this.
3- Sales and customer service calls- whatever service or product you provide, learn from your customers. They will tell you what you want to sell more of or less of. Reach out to offer your business, the world needs more of what you offer. If they don’t need it now, they might know someone who does, and they will remember you when they do need it. Schedule time every day for these calls. These are your prospects as well as current customers, ask if they’re enjoying their products or if they need any replacements or additional services. This will build your relationship and their loyalty.
4- Network- on a regular basis, your same old places but also new. This is easy for extroverts, they absolutely love this habit. But if you are more private and introverted, make an effort to attend your local chamber of commerce events, or community forums. These tend to be more open and you can ease into the group dynamic. Make it a goal to meet one or two new people a month and build your existing relationships. In our very virtual world, in-person connections are all that more valuable.
5- Stop and adjust your journey- or what we call clearing out the weeds. Once a week or at most once a month, stop to think about what is working and what is not working in your business. Check for negative people, vendors who are not reliable, customers who pay late or don’t pay, products that don’t sell. All of these are weeds- yank them out from their roots! Sometimes, there will be no roots at all, especially if you are in the habit of checking for them regularly. So make it a point to stop and look for weeds.
Habits that stick
Many times we are inspired to implement new habits only to drop them off after two or three weeks. There are many tricks to make habits stick, according to James Clear in his book “Atomic Habits”, one way is to attach the habit to a satisfying activity. For example, if you love coffee make it part of your social media writing session. This will make you look forward to doing this activity while enjoying your coffee. You will enjoy it so much that you will feel awkward when you miss it. When you begin to see results, sprouts, they will fuel your enthusiasm and this will help you keep your habits going steady.
