cf - extreme business makeover

8/8/2019 CF - Extreme Business Makeover

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Cover story

www.cleanfax.com May 2006 CM/ Cleanfax 51

Start noticing the successes, even if they seem small.

What youll discover is that the moreyou focus on whats going right, thenmore right things are going to happen.

3. Hire your weaknessesand focus on your strengths

No one is great at everything, and noone likes to do everything, so get reallyclear on what you are great at and whatyou love to do (that makes you money).

Once you have that clear, make a listof what you are not good at, and whatyou hate to do.

Then track how much time youre

spending on the things you enjoy doingmost at work, and how much time yourespending doing the things you enjoy least.

Most people discover, especially if they dont have a team, that they arespending a lot of time on things they aresimply not good at.

Just like having someone type a paperwho is a hunt-and-peck typist, itll takehim 10 times as long to do what some-one with the right skills can do easily.

So in the quest to save money bydoing things yourself, you end up wast-ing time and money and end up havingmediocre results to show for it.

Make a list of what functions you wantto hire others to do.

This might mean hiring a neighbor fora few hours to fold and mail newsletters,or hiring someone from a temp agency todo data entry part-time, or hiring a com-puter programmer for a few hours to getyour network finally working right, ortesting a new person on the truck.

Hiring out tasks you dont enjoydoing frees you up to focus on themoney-making tasks you do enjoy.

And if you have chosen the rightpeople to do tasks they enjoy, youllcreate a highly productive and positiveworkplace.

4. Remove thepollution in your life

Sometimes the source of pollution in a

persons life is toxic people.Maybe a family member tears you

down. Maybe an employee complains behind your back (but you find out aboutit) about what a crummy boss you are.

Maybe some of your customers complainthat your prices are too high.

If you want good things to come yourway, youre going to have to make room

by getting rid of the sources of negativi-ty that arent helping you feel that youdeserve success.

Just as trees need pruning to growstronger, you may have to cut off some

people to allow your personal confi-dence and dreams to grow stronger.

You know what is nurturing for you,and what is not. What people you feel better when youre around, and whichones suck the life right out of you.

And you also know what habits youhave that are nurturing to you, andwhich ones are not.

Ultimately, no one fools himself.We all deep-down know what things

hurt us and what things help us, andwhat we need to do on a daily basis is tosubstitute success-impeding habits withsuccess-supporting ones to change the

When I was young, dumb, and stupid, I wouldask my customers what the last guy charged them.

Then I would offer to beat that price if theywould just let me do the job. I would always getthe job.

They would call back the next year and say,You can clean the carpets again, if you haventgone up in price.

Guess what? I did it year after year for thesame price. And then these same customers wouldtell me that if my price was right, I would beallowed to clean their rental properties.

It was just a ploy to keep the price down on their personal homes. I never did get therental property work.

This went on for years.It was not until I got so mad about it, and I did not care if I lost a customer or not,

that I was able to see past this game.In 2002, my thinking changed, and so did my life.I learned the correct way to run a carpet cleaning business.

I now raise my prices just about any time I want to.We just get busier and busier. Go figure.

(Continued on next page)

Hiring out tasksyou dont enjoy

doing frees you upto focus on themoney-making

tasks you do enjoy.

Steve CameronSunrise Clean Care, Georgia


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52 CM/ Cleanfax May 2006 www.cleanfax.com

momentum in our lives.If you dont treat yourself well, do

you really think others will?

5. Be part of a mastermind

The biggest danger for entrepreneursis isolation.

When you dont have an outlet fortalking about fears or problems, and asource for options and solutions, itseasy to convince yourself theres just noway out.

Coaching programs, business train-ing, entrepreneurial organizations andother betterment groups offer a sup-

port structure that builds confidencethrough the shared experiences and tal-ents of others.

By tapping into the expertise of oth-ers you learn how they have overcomethe current struggles youre facing, and

gain access to the tools and systems thatothers have found to contribute to theirsuccess.

It is extremely energizing to be part of a group of like-minded individuals who

are focused on bettering themselves andhelping each other.

If you dont have access to a group,another way to feed your mind withwisdom is through the vast library of audio books that exists on every topicimaginable.

Most of us spend a dozen hours ormore a week in our car. Using that timefor learning can make dead time intogrowth time for you.

6. Expect success, and lessons

Successful people believe that as longas they are creating value in the world for their clients, their team, their fam-ily, their community that life is going

to give value back.They believe that their outer world

will be a reflection of their inner world.This expectation for success is cou-

pled with the belief that problems are

life lessons.They might have life knock the wind

out of them, but instead of giving up,they regroup and think not, Why me? but, What next?

Life happens, and for reasons beyondour capacity to grasp.

Though we cannot control the worldaround us, we can control how we react,respond and grow from it.

People on the success track dont take

life personally, they just take it as itcomes and do the best they can withwho they are and what theyve got atthe moment.

7. Train like a pro

Running a business is a massiveundertaking, and the difference betweendoing it poorly and doing it exceptional-ly rests on whether you are operating itlike an amateur or like a professional.

Letting important things pile up,procrastinating on things you reallyshould have done weeks ago, not get-ting enough sleep, not taking care of your health, putting more effort intoexcuses and complaints instead of get-ting things done these are all signs of an amateur.

This is someone who says he wantssuccess, but is not seriously willing tocreate it.

The amazing and frightening thingabout success is that it is entirely up toyou to decide and act to make it happen.

Professionals commit themselves totraining to get their minds, bodies andspirits in top shape.

They seek out knowledge they donthave so they can get an edge.

They seek tools to help them perform better. They seek guidance and supportfrom those who can help get them acrossthe finish line.

They envision the person they want to

Cover story

There were many contributing factors to mycompanys turn-around, but if I had to choose asingle component I would choose goal setting.

I always had goals, but I never sat down andphysically wrote them out, and I never reviewedthem on a regular basis.

I would think of the total sales number I want-ed to do for the year and then hope and pray wewould get there. There was no plan and therewas no system to achieve these goals.

When I started writing my goals down, this forced me to continually ask myself whatI needed to do in order to achieve these goals, and how was I going to measure theprogress.

It motivated me to make sure our marketing was going out on a continual basis andto look for new opportunities that could help us reach the goals quicker and easier.

As we know everything measured improves, everything measured and recordedimproves exponentially.

If you can live by this one concept, I believe you can be successful in any area ofyour life.

Robert StewartAll Brite Cleaning & Restoration Inc.,New Hampshire

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