The 5-Step Plan to Business Happiness
To a large extent, happiness is the difference between your expectations and reality. If reality meets or exceeds your expectations, you’ll be happy. Frustration is created whenever there is a discrepancy between what you think your business should be doing versus what it actually is doing.
So how do you remove frustration in your business and replace it with happiness?
Here are 5 steps to take you there:
Step #1: Set Your Goals
Write out your actual goals and expectations for your business. Make sure to include all areas, especially monetary, performance, image, culture, and productivity.
Examples:
- 50 sales a month, average of $400 each = $20,000 a month in sales
- Reputable as the best service provider in the area
- Employees love working in our company
- Our company is efficient and productive
- Increase market range by 10%
Step #2: Reality Check
Take a look at reality. For each of those goals and expectations that you set, where are you now? Are you on track to achieve your goals, or does your current situation make your goals seem more like a fantasy? BE HONEST – tricking yourself will only prevent you from achieving your personal nirvana.
Step #3: WHY?
For those goals that don’t seem to match reality (and if you’re doing this exercise, likely there’s at least some discrepancy), ask yourself WHY. Why is reality different than your expectations? And keep asking WHY until you have the root of the problem.
Some examples:
- Your sales numbers aren’t good and customers don’t buy from you again. Why? Because your item quality is poor. Why? Maybe because you need a better quality assurance (QA). Why don’t you have good QA? Because you don’t want to pay the right salary. Why? Because you didn’t recognize the value. Well, now you do.
- Your employees don’t like being at work. Why? They don’t like their manager. Why? She was recently promoted, but doesn’t know how to handle employees. Why? She has no training in management.
- You thought your service would be a game changer and brought it into a new city, but no one’s biting. Why? The market isn’t as receptive as it was in your hometown. Why? There’s less of a market here than you thought. Why? This city has different dynamics.
Step #4: Problem Solving
Develop some solutions that will resolve the root of the problem. Set up a plan to put the solution into action.
Some examples:
- Contact a recruiter to help you hire a qualified QA specialist and add in QA measures to make your current production more reliable.
- Enroll your manager in a leadership training program, or re-position her somewhere where she’s more effective.
- Modify the service you produce to be more attractive to the buyers in your area.
- Readjust your goals – maybe your expectations were unrealistic.
Step #5: Act!
Implement your changes and monitor progress to make sure you’re closing the frustration gap between expectations and reality. The smaller it gets, the happier you, your business, and your employees will be.