What's Working Right Now?

Does this sound familiar? You take one look at your to do list and you're instantly overwhelmed. You have no idea where to start for the day, let alone how to get to the biggest goals you've set for yourself as a small business owner. You know that you're not where you want to be...yet. But you believe you can get there. You just don't quite know how. You've experiencing some success, otherwise you wouldn't stick with it. Yet you feel like every time you take a step forward, you inevitably take a few steps back.

Yesterday, Chip and Dan Heath released their latest book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

The guys are the authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, truly one of the all-time greats on how to get the attention of your clients and potential clients...and keep it. I'm 50 pages into Switch, and I've got to say, there are so many valuable lessons in here for small business owners who want to transform their business yet can't quite figure out how to get there.

So here's the first lesson I'll share with you. Find the bright spots! There have to be things in your business that you are doing exceptionally well. Whether it's client interaction, customer service or maybe bringing in new clients, look at the skills you employ, the characteristics you draw upon and the reasons why you experience success in these bright spots. It's these flashes of success that will lead you to success in other areas as well.

So back to that to do list and not knowing where to start. It's human nature to focus on what we're not doing well. So we look at the list and think, am I ever going to be successful? The Heath's give the perfect example of how we all focus on the negative. Your child brings home a report card with 2 A's 3 B's and 1 F. Rather than focusing on what they are doing well (the bright spot), you immediately jump in and try and fix the F. But when they come home with a report card of all A's or A's and B's you don't think much about it.

By first finding the bright spots in your business and second, analyzing what it is that is makes those bright spots shine, you're beginning to light the path to changing those areas of frustration. Check back in tomorrow for step three on how to use the bright spots to reach your big goals for business.