Doing this one thing can bring sizable results to your business
Maybe your business is booming, and you can hardly keep up with the demand from prospective clients, current clients, and your daily responsibilities.
Or maybe your business is hardly staying afloat, and every single day you are exerting yourself to an uncomfortable degree to just capture the attention of someone—anyone—who may want what you’re serving up.
While these two businesses may seem to be on opposite ends of the success spectrum, they have more in common than you think.
Both businesses are operating from a place of hustling, rather than thoughtful and strategic action.
Unfortunately, this level of hustling is incredibly common in the small-business-owner space. We are so focused on staying busy and accomplishing our to-do lists that we don’t even stop to ask ourselves if there could be a better way to do things.
Or sometimes, we know there’s a better way of doing things, but we don’t make time to figure out what these things are, let alone implement them.
This is where the whole “work smarter, not harder” concept that you hear so much about comes into play.
But how do we get to this place of working as smart as possible and still bring in the same or more income?
By strategically taking days away from the chaos to think.
Scheduling a few workdays each year to intentionally take time out of your business can be the best thing you do for your business.
I like to call these Planning Days.
Here’s why having business planning days can bring you sizable results
Planning days give you time to think productively
Ever have someone give you a huge task to complete while you’re in the middle of completing a thousand small ones?
That is precisely what you’re doing when you try to focus on making big changes during a traditional workday.
By taking a day away from your typical task list, you’re giving yourself permission to ignore daily responsibilities, projects, and worries.
Instead, you’re able to just think—creatively, critically, and strategically on whatever it is you are building.
A great way to get the creative juices flowing is by revisiting why you started your business, what you’re working towards, and asking yourself if your current habits will lead you to your desired outcome.
It’s a different part of your brain you’re using, and you’ll find that giving yourself time outside of your typical workday can result in some wild epiphanies.
Real results happen when you give yourself time to make them happen.
So step away, put on an out of office, unplug, and start thinking.
You’ll be amazed at what you come up with.
2. Planning days allow you to see things objectively
Have you ever had one of those moments where out of nowhere, you’re just hit with the reality of your life?
When all of a sudden, you’re asking yourself “What am I doing? How did I end up here? Where am I going? Is this life?”
(Ok, maybe not that last line, but you get my drift.)
This is what it’s like to miss the forest but be amongst the trees. And it’s so relevant to what happens in business ownership.
When you are IN the forest, you feel so entirely lost.
All you see are trees and brush for miles, and you don’t know where you started, where you are, or how to get out of it. You just wander around, hoping and praying that you’ll find your way out.
But if you were to have a birds-eye view, you would find that you really aren’t lost at all. The forest isn’t that big or scary, and there’s actually a pretty simple route to take to get out.
This is what it’s like to step away from your business and analyze and audit your data.
You begin to see things objectively.
This may look like auditing your clients from the past year and noticing trends of where they came from.
This may look like analyzing your social media platforms and figuring out which one brings the most traffic to your website.
Or maybe you look at your calendar and realize that it’s a hot mess, and you begin to design an ideal schedule for yourself.
Whatever it may look like, stepping away and looking at it from the outside will be unbelievably crucial towards your success.
3. Planning days reset you on what matters most
Our businesses today are direct outputs of what we prioritize daily.
And unfortunately, what we prioritize often includes busy work and not actual needle-movers in our businesses.
But when we step away from our businesses, we are able to reset ourselves on what these needle-movers are. And hold ourselves to them.
Here’s an example:
You may have thought for months about how you need to refine your sales script. You’re at about a 50% close ratio, which isn’t bad, but you’re feeling like there are missed opportunities and money you’re leaving on the table.
You’ve been applying your “working harder” method for months: Working your ass off to get more referrals.
Your working smarter method: Enrolling in 1 half-day sales course, which results in you closing 80% of your phone consultations.
Doesn’t this seem like an obvious move to make?
But most of us aren’t making moves such as these. We are just out there prospecting our cute little butts off and hustling to the end of the earth when the real opportunity to change drastically lies in just a few tweaks.
You know, those tweaks that have you muttering, “I know I really should do ____ but there just isn’t time.”
Stepping away from your business for a day gives you a chance to recognize what’s really going on, think about what makes the most sense, and then implement a strategy that will give you a different result.
Do us all a favor: Work smarter, not harder. I promise it’s best for everyone.
Two final pieces of advice for planning days:
TIP 1: You’ve got to show up, do the work, and be all-in for this to work.
Throughout the years I have definitely been guilty of booking urgent tasks and appointments over my planning day/half-day/hours and forgetting to reschedule them.
I am telling you, that has led me nowhere.
In fact, it actually has led me to a whole lot of working really hard for way too long, without the results to show for it.
So word to the wise: put the day on the calendar and show up for it.
You will not regret it.
TIP 2: Create an accountability system
You are going to have some really big takeaways from your planning day, and implementing them will take more energy and discipline than you realize.
Plan to create an accountability system with a friend that forces you to work smarter.
Whether you put money on the line or an embarrassing bet if you “don’t do something for X amount of days in a row”, having skin in the game will make a big difference.
This all may seem like a lot, but if you say you’re serious about changing your business, then you’re going to have to get serious about it.
Planning days, strategizing, and accountability are ways to show your business that you're serious.
Show up, put the work in, and make it happen.
