If only I had known a year ago, what I know now, one of my clients told me, his comment made me smile, because I totally can relate to that feeling perfectly and that’s why I want to dedicate this week’s post to share what I have learned about: How to grow your service business consistently.
In just a few weeks, we will be saying goodbye to a year and starting a new one.
The difference is that this time, we will also be starting a new decade.
Every year I write about the lessons I learned and the mistakes I made, this not only allows me to share my progress with you but now also allows me to go back in time and read where I was years ago, which is fantastic and priceless at the same time.
The key to learning how to make progress in your business.
If you are like most entrepreneurs I know, this is the time of the year where you check how you did this year and look at the results that you got and at the same time you renew your goals for the following year.
It seems like such a simple exercise that you can’t really do it wrong.
And here my friends is exactly where the trap is.
Because it’s so easy to choose the wrong goal and as a result be stagnant, and that is precisely what happens according to the recent Forbes article that explains why it is so common for companies to fail.
I will lift up the curtain and will share the lessons I learned this year so you can have a peek inside my world and what I have learned about the decision-making process that I use to choose my goals.
How to grow your service business consistently: Lessons from 2019
Lesson # 1: You need to learn to overcome fear
A few days ago, I talked to a businesswoman who feels trapped in her business, and in our conversation, she told me how her most significant problem is her indecision.
And she shared with me how this affects her in her business; simply put, she doesn’t make decisions for fear of being wrong and making mistakes.
The result of this over time is that her situation only worsens, but the worst part is that she can see how her competitors move forward and get everything she wants for her business.
If you know me, I think you already know that I always write about fear because it does no matter at what stage of the business you are, there are still new steps to climb, and there is always the fear of falling and not making it to your destination.
This year I made many decisions that caused me a lot of fear; however, I already have evidence that when something in my business scares me, it is an indicator that this is the direction I should follow.
And the worst thing you can do is stop making decisions in your service company because you are afraid.
Lesson # 2: You shouldn’t do this alone
Imagine for a moment what the experience of taking an exam in college or university would be like, if you are the person studying, taking the exam and also grading the exam.
The experience would be entirely subjective, and you would never learn anything.
The same thing happens when you try to do everything alone in your business, you lose perspective, you give up way too soon, and you think that nothing you do works or even worse that you are doing everything right and again, you don’t understand why you are not getting the results that you want.
I had an experience this year, where exactly that’s exactly what happened to me.
I was feeling doubt and second-guessing one of my goals, to the point where I was questioning the idea of abandoning the goal altogether. And this was also the message that I was receiving from my loved ones.
Luckily, I had a coach by my side who reminded me of the importance of my goal and why it was not time to quit, and it only took a few more days to make my goal a reality.
This is possibly one of the most important lessons of this year, the danger of giving up early.
Lesson # 3: Invest in transformation (and not in physical things)
Some examples of how we sometimes invest in material things are: investing in a new office or commercial premises, making renovations, investing in a new truck, investing in machinery, etc.
The problem with just investing in material things is that they don’t solve the real problem, that is how to grow a service business consistently, in other words, how to increase your sales or attract more clients.
And no matter how much you invest in physical things, if you don’t understand how to achieve the transformation between where you are now and where you want to go, for example: how to go from having no clients to getting new clients consistently every month.
Investing in physical things usually does not have a return on investment unless you first solve the problem of how to sell more in your service-based business.
This is the reason why when I am deciding what to invest in, and what will allow me to take my business to the next level, I always consider beforehand the transformation I need to go through; and who are the people who can help me achieve that transformation.
Before continuing, I want to share with you an infographic that illustrates: How to grow your service business consistently.
But before continuing to lesson number 4, I want to share an infographic that illustrates: How to grow your service business consistently.
Lesson # 4: Not all results can be measured in the same way.
Thanks to the fact that I have been documenting the growth of my business over the past few years, I can now see the result and fruit of many things that I started more than a year ago, results that a year ago were invisible to me.
That’s why it is so important to have a long-term vision in your business because many times, we are planting seeds even without realizing it.
It has been a slightly different year from all other years. This year has made me reflect more on the work I do and why I do it.
If you are committed to diving deeper into this topic, I invite you to read the following posts: What to do when your service-based business is stagnant, How to take my business to the next level (in 3 simple steps)
If you want to learn how to grow your service business consistently, you must remember that sometimes in order to go fast, you first need to go slow; I think that during several moments during the year.
I found myself feeling that I was not going quickly enough; the difference is that now I understand how to recognize those moments. And now, I welcome those moments because I know that it is precisely in those moments that I receive the key that will take me to the next level.
