Go Ahead, Repeat What Works Well.

We Plant Every Seed Exactly The Same Way When They Grow Well.

Is anything in your business model working well right now?  If it is, do not stop doing it.

You have heard the phrase...if it ain't broken, don't fix it.  That usually means it is not a good idea to change something that is working well.  If for some reason you discover a method of operation that works well the chances are good that if you change how you do that method you may actually interrupt the good results it was producing.  Do not alter what is working well.  Do not tinker with changing the way something is performing well.  Leave well enough alone.  Let it do what it does well.  Do not try to improve improvements.  These recommendations are all good ideas.  If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

However, when you find something that works well in your business model learn how to do a lot of it.  That is a lot different than trying to fix it.  Sometimes we discover something that works well and we drift away from doing it more often.  We are so busy trying to discover new ways of doing things that work well we can easily walk right by one of them that produces well.  We actually will stop doing what works well.  I have watched businesses set up a wonderful customer appreciation day with a parking lot barbecue, door prizes, specials and gifts.  I watch them set volume records with such an event and for two weeks they discuss how well that event performed.  Then for eleven in a half months they quit doing that kind of stuff and produce the second annual customer appreciation event, when the next year rolls around.  Seriously.  Somehow they have come to believe they can only succeed with this kind of event once per year.  It puzzles me.  Why do well just once per year?  Maybe every weekend is too much to make it happen consistently.  However, what is wrong with twice per year, or three times or even quarterly?  I would take four record weekends over one per year any time.  Go ahead, repeat what works!

Spiders Know How To Spin A Successful Web Every Time.

I met a business owner who helped solve this puzzle for me.  She had been in business for almost 40 years.  She was beginning to struggle with some volume production and was concerned about having to close up operations if it did not get a little bit better, soon.  She was not a rookie at this kind of challenge.  Think about it, she had 40 years of experience under her belt.  Business failure was not one of the things she knew a whole lot about.  The idea of losing the battle was real to her and it was fast approaching.  I asked her what types of things worked well for her in the past.  She recalled some of the bigger events she had produced in the past that did very well.  Not only did they produce memorable volume results, they also brought some great experience memories as well.  She shared a couple of great stories about some of them.

During the discussion we shared about the big producing events of her past she also described how hard they worked to make those events do well.  The more the conversation continued the more she described how hard they had to work to make those events do well.  She began talking more about the hard work and less about the results they produced.  All of the adjoining good memories also disappeared from her thoughts.  A pattern was beginning to reveal itself.  Her forty years were simply running out of gas.  It was becoming more difficult for her to step on the gas and continue to do the things that worked well for her business model.  Her slowing numbers were more about her slowing efforts than they were about any other problem her model was experiencing.  She was reaching the mark in the career of her business ownership that measured more of the efforts needed to do well than the results they produced.  She was simply running out of gas.

It takes a lot of energy to produce well.  It takes a lot of doing to do well.  A lot of doing requires a lot of attention to detail and as a result, takes up a lot of valuable time.  Success is not hard to do.  It just takes up so much time.  It takes a lot of time to produce a great customer appreciation day.  It takes a lot of time preparing the event, the food, the specials, the products, the marketing, the staffing and the additional details that are needed to make the event happen well.  It takes a lot of energy.  Success requires more energy than non-success.  Did you know that?  It does.

If you decided to get into business for your self because you wanted to be successful without putting in a lot of new energy, you went into business with the wrong approach.  The two do not mix well together.  Low energy applied and business ownership are complete opposites.  They mix well together much like oil and water.  It takes a whole lot of energy to perform well in a business model.  It takes twice as much energy to perform two customer appreciation days per year than it does to offer only one.  Get used to adding more energy when your events are more successful.  Success does not come from eating potato chips while watching T.V. on the sofa.

If you have produced some things that work well, learn how to add more energy to those things.  You want to produce better results, more often in your business model.  When you discover what works well, do more of it.  Do not put off success.  Become much like a prize fighter who increases his punching when he sees an opponent begin to stagger.  Step on the gas.  When the ducks are flying, shoot!  Repeat what works.

If you have been in business for a little while it might be a good idea to look back at what kinds of things you did that produced well in the past.  If you find some, do them again.  Do not ever believe that one filling is all they can ever produce.  See if you can get another filling from them.  If you have two great events you discovered, try to schedule doing both of them again in the near future.  Add the required energy needed and begin producing larger bank deposits.  That is exactly how you break volume records.  That is exactly how you separate your model away from all of the 'also-ran' competitors.  Add the needed energy.  Stop worrying about how much work success brings.  Go ahead, repeat what works well.

Some business leaders are very creative leaders.  They come up with some of the most imaginative marketing ideas.  I am always impressed with imaginative marketing methods.  I like to see how other business models discover great ideas.  I try to work a really good idea I have seen into one of my business models.  A good idea is usually worth giving it a try.  The problem I have discovered is that the really creative leaders tend to quit each new idea they discovered.  They do not like to repeat what they created.  They are so busy working on the next creation that they move out of one and onto another one too quickly.  They rarely repeat a good one that worked well.  That is just simply too stupid to talk about.  Who in their right mind would throw away a wonderfully painted picture?  Hang it up and parade it around, more than once!  Repeat what works.  That is exactly why we have words.  Words repeat what we said.

Learn how to repeat what works well.  Go ahead, repeat what works.  It is one of the best laws a business can practice.  Do more of the things that work and less of the things that do not work.  It is not rocket science.  Unfortunately, very few owners actually go back and look at what worked well in the past and figure out how to do it again.  Most owners are either too busy to give it more time or are not interested in doing the same thing all over again.  As a result, stuff that worked well in the past are no longer practiced.  We quit doing what works well.  As is the case in the example given earlier, we then begin to complain about how well we are no longer performing.  We complain about how much time it takes to succeed.

Add the energy required.  Take the time to produce.  Repeat the stuff that works.  Those are some of the prerequisites for success.  You cannot bargain with success.  It does not listen to that kind of stuff.  Some owners may actually believe that success is negotiable.  It is not.  It requires a lot of hard work.  It requires a lot of new energy.  It requires doing a lot of the stuff that works well.  It does not respond well to stuff that does not work well.  In other words, repeat what works well.

Most success is very boring.  Just produce great numbers and repeat what works.  Measure the bank deposits, not the hard work you do to get them.  Know the difference.  Repeat what works well.

Until next time...