Cloning the Bright Spots

Yesterday I outlined two steps to finding the bright spots
in your business, as discussed by Chip and Dan Heath in Switch: How to Change Things When Change in Hard. The bright
spots are the key to changing your business, gaining more balance, clarity and
focus. Step one is to find the bright spots in your business (or in your life).
Then, step two is to analyze what it is that makes those bright spots
shine.  Don’t just take them for
granted. Go under the hood, tinker around and uncover what it is that makes the
bright spots shine.

Now on to step three. Take the analysis you’ve completed in
step two and find ways to clone what you’re doing in the bright spots and
incorporate into your not so bright spots.  If you find that your bright spot is in selling, but you
struggle with planning, what is it that makes selling work for you? Is it the
thrill of uncovering exactly what your client needs and satisfying that need
with one of your products or services? If that’s the case, approach your
planning as identifying needs for a person aka your business, and going on a
hunt just like you would with a client, to find the perfect solution to that
need. If you need to increase sales, what resources do you have access to that
can best meet that need for your business.

Is it the interaction with another person that makes selling
a bright spot with you? Approach someone you can talk to about your plans. Bounce
ideas off of them and in return, offer to do the same for them or something
else that they need help with. Create a social planning process so that it’s
more appealing to you than being in a room alone thinking.

Being a successful business owner does not require you to
reinvent the wheel.  Look out into
your network. Who are other successful business owners do you know? What are
their bright spots? Just because they aren’t in the same business you are in
doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them.

Talk to these people. Find out what makes them successful. Take
them to lunch, coffee or for a drink. Then, synthesize the bright spots across all
the different successful business owners you know. Whether it’s 3 people or 20
people, discover what those common factors are to their success. How can you
clone those commonalities and bring them into your business? Again, by shifting
your focus to the positive and bringing more positive, successful practices
into your business, you’re taking a BIG step to changing your business into the
revenue generator you desire.