- Who Should I Listen to?
Where should you focus your business attention?
Who Do You Listen To?
Your financial planner says your forecasts. Your accountant says your profit and loss. Your coach says your goals. Your partner says sales. Your vendor says the upcoming product line. Your website designer says SEO.
Everyone has valid points. Who do you listen to?
The Business Merry Go Round
As a small business owner,you’re pulled in many different directions. You may feel like you’re on one of these playground rides and spinning out of control.
How can you have 25 most important things!?! Oh and that’s not to mention the priorities of your kids,spouse,family and other stuff you have going on.
When you focus on too many things at once,you get distracted. You aren’t effective. Where do you start prioritizing? What is the number one most important thing to focus on to have a successful business?
Your customers.
Moving Toward Center
Yep,it’s that simple. Here’s how I figured.
When you’re on that playground wheel,it’s hard to hold on at the edge,right. If you fell off and it was still moving,it was even harder to get back on. If you think about your business as the wheel,you want to move toward the center rather than holding on for dear life out at the edge.
What is the center of your business? What does your business need to survive? What can make or break a business? There are a lot of answers to each but the common answer,then center of the wheel,is your customer.
Focus On Your Customer and It All Falls Into Place
When you focus your business attention on your customer,all the other pieces fall into place. You have sales so your partner is happy. You’re meeting your goals so your coach is happy. You have lots of incoming money to pay bills so your accountant is happy. You get the picture.
A wise friend said to me as I was starting my business,“The first thing you need to focus on is getting customers. Without customers you don’t have a business.”
I’ve taken that to heart and remind myself of that every day.
What do you think? Agree or Disagree?
Jen Vondenbrink is a business life coach who helps small businesses put the systems in place to grow while still finding time to enjoy life. She 
I agree. I like to say businesses only have two strategies. 1st is client acquisition. 2nd is client retention. All other strategies support those two.
Excellent points Greg. When you build your business around your customers and future customers,you’ll always be in business. It’s when we forget those simple points that we lose our focus. Thanks!