ARTICLE 1

Acceleration Tips for Home-Based Women Entrepreneurs
Use the 1-3-6 Exercise

By Dan Coughlin, author of the new book,
ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum
Visit Dan at www.businessacceleration.com 

Home-based entrepreneurs and senior executives of Fortune 500 companies have a few things in common. Each of these decision-makers needs to decide on the following:

What activities to do, AND what activities not to do.
What to spend money on, AND what not to spend money on.
What to invest time and energy into, AND what not to invest time and energy into.
Whom to have lunch with, AND whom not to have lunch with.

However, these decisions are even more important for the home-based entrepreneur than the Fortune 500 executive. If the Fortune 500 schedules an unfortunate lunch that wastes 90 minutes, someone else can usually keep the business going. If a home-based entrepreneur waste 90 minutes, there usually is no one who can step in to cover for the person. If a Fortune 500 executive makes a poor decision and loses money, he or she can usually rebound from that. If a home-based entrepreneur takes a big financial risk and loses, he or she may have to change their life style rapidly.

Wise Advice from BMW

One of my favorite ads is a print ad for BMW. Above the picture of a beautiful BMW is the word, “NO.” I thought that was kind of odd because I thought the idea was for customers to say, “YES” when they saw the product, but this one said, “NO.” Then in the small print under the picture of the car, it said, “At BMW we say no to a lot of good ideas, so we can say yes to a few great ideas.”

That is such great advice.

I encourage you to develop as many ideas as you can think of to generate sustainable, profitable growth. Write them down, and combine ideas together to make even better ideas. Just don’t try to use them all at once. Keep sifting through your ideas until you land on a few really great ideas. How many? How about two or three at the very most. Then develop an action plan for those few great ideas, and execute your plan as well as you possibly can.

It’s far, far better to do a few things extremely well than it is to do a mediocre job on two dozen ideas. With every interaction with a prospective customer, you are going to leave an imprint. No one customer is going to see all of the effort that you’re putting into your two dozen activities. He or she is only going to see the few things you’re doing at that moment. Are those few things demonstrating excellence or mediocrity?

The 1-3-6 Exercise

Here are the three questions for you to answer. Actually write down your answers before moving to the next question. Good luck.

1. What is one important business outcome that you want to improve?

2. What three things can you do that would have the greatest positive impact on improving that outcome?

3. What six things do you need to stop doing or spend a whole lot less time doing so you have the time and the energy to do the three things that will have the greatest positive impact on improving your most important desired business outcome?

Take your time, and write out your answers to all three questions before reading on.

Ok, ready to continue reading?

Here’s what usually happens. My client has no problem answering the first or the second question. When he or she gets to the third question, I usually hear, “Dan, you don’t understand. I can’t stop doing anything. Everything I’m doing is important.” To which I always respond, “I do understand. Everything you’re doing is important; otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it. However, not everything is as important as everything else you’re doing. Something is more important than something else in terms of improving your desired outcome. If your plate is already full, and you just put three more things on top of everything else you’re doing, then you’re simply going to dilute the impact of all of your activities.”

Now, seriously, what are you going to stop doing or spend a whole lot less time doing?

About Dan Coughlin

You can visit Dan at www.businessacceleration.com . He is the author of ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum. As a keynote business speaker and management consultant, his clients include Toyota, Boeing, McDonald’s, Marriott, Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Quoted in USA Today, the New York Times, and Investor’s Business Daily, Dan’s articles have appeared in more than 100 publications. He will speak at HBWE in August, 2008.

Click here to download this article as a Word Document.

Top