Doing Things Differently or Just Doing Different Things?

After working with so many entrepreneurs over the years, I found that many people take a bits-and-pieces approach to their business. I recognize it, because I used the same approach when I started my own business many years ago.

When I first launched my business, I would wake up and wonder what else I could do to find new clients. If I saw a networking opportunity, I would go to that networking. If someone said, “join this-or-that group,” I would join. If I thought of an idea for an event, I would implement it. As a result of this bits-and-pieces approach, I got slivers of success.

It’s commonplace for business owners to fill their calendar with a lot of events, but never really look at how all of these events interconnect. One day I realized that despite all of my efforts, my business just wasn’t where I wanted it to be. It wasn’t about doing different things, but doing things differently. I began to notice something that I learned years ago resurface.

Many years ago, I learned how to break down a process to solve a problem. Early in my business, I was challenged with bringing in a volume of prospects, so I tried the systems approach. When you take a systems approach, you view the overall system rather than reacting to specific events. I looked at my entire business (including how I was executing my plan). Rather than having a solid blueprint, I was implementing tasks. When I heard of social media marketing, I signed up for LinkedIn. When I thought of conducting an event, I would market that event without thinking of the sales process and how I would bring people into the business after that event. I never looked at how that one event affected or fed into other events.

Years later when one of my clients asked if she should take a LinkedIn class, I asked her a question about her entire business: What’s most important about social media? She thought about it for a minute. This class was one step in a laundry list of things to do, but she didn’t have any plan with how that activity fit in to her overall business. She quickly realized that she was doing a lot of things but that she needed to look at her strategy first. She identified resources that helped her get social media strategy implemented and it didn’t mean her actually taking the class. She used her time to work on the business and the experts to help her market her business.

Another client would routinely conduct seminars, but he did not market them at all of his other preceding events. He also missed opportunities to capture the attendee’s contact information so that he could follow up later. When he mapped out all of the ways he marketed his business and created a roadmap with how each event connected to the other, his marketing became easier and systematic. Not only did he fill his workshops, but he converted the prospects into at least one of his programs. His conversion rates skyrocketed (and so did his income).

Taking a systems approach creates a greater awareness of the basic structures in which you operate. From that awareness comes a shift causing you to think and do things differently. You begin to view your entire business as a system with each action interrelated.

The internet is one big system. Search engines are systems. Social media is a system. Your business has systems in it. Successful entrepreneurs realize that each of these systems connect and have a flow among them. You, as the entrepreneur, are a part of your system and the biggest influence on that system.

It’s easy to think you’re doing everything to grow your business, especially if you’re really busy attending events. When you take a different approach and look at your business in its entirety, you begin to realize that each event is interconnected making marketing systematic and so much easier.

When you use a systems approach, you become aware of the possibilities that exist for growing your business, too. You begin to take carefully choreographed steps that draw in your ideal prospects and reveal the interconnection among yourself, your business, and the marketplace.

If you noticed you have gaps in your business and need to start understanding how it all fits together to bring in more clients and income, you’ll want to tap into the Business Blueprint process detailed in The Entrepreneurial Edge System 3-Day Intensive on May 12, 13, and 14, 2011. Find out more about the systems approach to profitability in this free 5-part video series at www.getmoreclientsnowvideos.com.