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Have you ever been one of those people who would just wing it and hope for the best? I was the master at this when it came to speech class in school. Sure I had a topic, and sometimes I had props, visual aids or even videos to help assist on the speech, but I never really rehearsed any of what I was going to actually say. Sometimes I got off topic, or missed important points. I did fine, but it was never quite as good as it could have been.

The tendency to “figure it out as you go” is common among small business owners. Unfortunately this leads to a situation where a lot of time is spent putting out fires, leading to a feeling that our business is running us.

The alternative is to start with a vision for your business. From there it is easier to formulate a plan and outline the action steps required to execute that plan. Things begin to change. You stop feeling as if you are running in circles. It becomes easier to accomplish goals and complete tasks throughout the day, week or month. There is even time to step back and look at the big picture.

There are lots of tools available to help small business owners. The primary tool we use at Roundpeg is EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System). There are three pieces to this model:

  • Vision—getting everyone in your organization 100% on the same page with where you’re going, and how you plan to get there
  • Traction®—instilling focus, discipline and accountability throughout the company so that everyone executes on that vision—every day
  • Healthy—helping your leaders become a more cohesive, functional, healthy leadership team

Recently we took a morning to discuss our vision. With so many new people, and one returning player (me) it was good to revisit our vision, passion, identity and purpose as a company.  We sat down with an independent facilitator who lead our conversations, helping us discover who we are as an organization and what we look for as we add to our team and the clients we want to attract.

An important part of the EOS system is involving everyone in the process. As a business owner, it can be challenging to step back and let your employees voice their ideas for the business. But when this happens, you can see if their views of the company culture and goals match yours.

If your employees have input into the goals and objectives, they are more likely to actively work to make them a reality. When you are open to other suggestions you may find better solutions then ones you might have developed on your own. And, finally, encouraging team members to step up and take more of a leadership role, helps them to grow as individuals and allows you to focus on bigger issues.

January is always a great time to stop and look at your business in general and your marketing in particular. If you are not sure where to begin, take our marketing audit and we we will happy to review the results with you

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