The Owner's Manual for Small Business. Rhonda Abrams

to your new project, employees will feel uncertain about their future and will hesitate to make the necessary changes and sacrifices to help ensure success. You have to believe. You have to stay the course.

      That doesn’t mean you can’t examine and readjust the details of the choices you’ve made. You can and should. But be careful: I’ve seen many companies that either pull the plug on a project too soon, or, more often, commit only half-heartedly to new undertakings. Both approaches lead to failure: Ending a project too soon means you haven’t given it enough time to prove whether it can succeed; half-hearted commitments inevitably lead to failure.

      When you don’t commit yourself to the turn, you’re going to end up facing straight downhill.

      As you make a change in your business life, indeed in any part of your life, follow through sufficiently to give it a chance to succeed. Give your new direction enough energy and commitment to create the momentum to carry you through the inevitable rough spots. Commit yourself to the turn.

Guidelines for Goals

      Tips for a productive goal-setting process:

      

Make certain the goals are well defined, quantifiable, and time bounded. Example: “For the next three months, I’ll call twelve new prospects a day and go to all my daughter’s after school activities.” This gives you a good yardstick by which to measure progress and helps you set priorities for how you spend your time.

      

Be realistic given the many demands on your energies. Example: “For the next three months, I’ll call eight new prospects a week and go to my daughter’s soccer games.”

      

Translate those goals into achievable short-term objectives. Example: “This week, I’ll call eight new prospects and go to my daughter’s soccer game Tuesday.”

      

Put the most emphasis on goals within your control rather than those determined by the actions of others. Example: “I’ll make eight cold calls this week” instead of “I’ll get three new customers.”

      

List when you will re-evaluate your goals, measure progress, and set new objectives. Example: “I will examine these goals on June 30 and set goals for July.”

      

Put limits on selected goals. Some goals will be outside your complete control (“I will increase sales by 25%”), so it’s important to put limits on how long you will focus on such goals. “If I can’t sell this new product after calling ten of my current customers, I’ll put my efforts into a different product.”

       Reward yourself when you accomplish your goals. Rewards keep you motivated to set and reach other goals, and as an entrepreneur, there’s usually no one else to acknowledge your achievements but you. So if you land a big sale or make all your calls for the month, give yourself a reward.

Seizing Opportunities

      When it comes to figuring out how to succeed, many business owners remind me of the man in this joke…

      A flood threatens a town, forcing everyone to evacuate. But Joe thinks, “I’m a devout man; God will save me” and stays put. As the waters start rising, Joe’s neighbor comes by: “Joe, come with me; we’ve got to go.” But Joe declines, “I’m a devout man; God will save me.”

      The waters keep rising. Joe scrambles to his second floor. A firefighter in a rowboat floats by Joe’s window. “Get in the boat or you’ll drown,” the firefighter says. Joe again declines, “I’m a devout man; God will save me.”

      Finally, the flood waters are so high that Joe is forced up on his roof. A police helicopter comes by and throws down a rope. “It’s your last chance, climb up or you’ll drown,” the policeman yells. “No, I’m a devout man; God will save me.”

      Soon Joe drowns. He arrives in Heaven and challenges God, “I’m a devout man; why didn’t you help me?”

      “What do you mean?” God replies. “I did help; I sent a neighbor, a firefighter, and a helicopter.”

      Many of us are like Joe—we wait for something to rescue us while missing opportunities to help ourselves. Whether in our business or personal lives, we hope for a lifeline—a new customer, rave reviews of our product, or a great relationship—to just show up.

      Alas, life isn’t like that. While we wait for success to fall in our laps, real life keeps trudging along. But like Joe, if we want things to be different, we must learn to recognize opportunities and seize them; we have to do something.

       We keep waiting for something to rescue us while missing opportunities to help ourselves.

      Let’s face it: if you want your business or your life to change, you have to be an active participant in your own transformation.

      But where do you start? How do you learn to recognize an opportunity when it’s being thrown your way?

       Make a plan. Form a vision of what you want to achieve and then develop a plan to make that vision a reality. You can’t judge whether an opportunity is one to seize or let pass unless you have a context for understanding whether it fits into your goals. Developing a plan gives you a framework for decision making.

      

Get accustomed to making choices. Moving forward means seizing some opportunities but allowing others to pass by. Entrepreneurs have many great ideas on how to improve their businesses, and life will present you with many tempting prospects. You can’t act on every good idea.

      

Recognize that the “perfect” solution is never going to come along. Often we fail to act because we’re waiting for the perfect opportunity or the perfect timing. Life doesn’t offer perfection, it offers chances. Looking for perfection is a way of avoiding making choices.

       Get out of your “comfort zone.” Sure you’re comfortable doing what you’re doing, but if it’s not bringing you the results you want, you’re going to have to change. And change is always uncomfortable.

       Make a commitment. Get used to saying no. Get used to saying yes. But whatever you do, do it with commitment and conviction.

      Like Joe, we have to learn how to recognize opportunities and then grab on.

       4

      Embracing Change

      Things Are About to Change

      You’ve finally got it right. Your product is almost perfect. You’ve got loyal customers, and your sales are clicking. Your employees show up enthusiastically and do their jobs well. Your suppliers are steady. Everything’s great! Know what this means? It’s time to start worrying.

      It’s not that I’m a pessimist, not at all. It’s just that the one certainty I have about business life (as in all life) is that things change.

      Knowing that things will change is good to remember in the midst of bad times, but you’ve got to keep it in mind during good times, too. If you’re overly complacent, happily believing you’ve figured everything out, then you’re unprepared for the changes that are inevitably just around the corner.

      Some