Building Momentum in Your Business

“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.”
— Herb Kelleher, founder Southwest Airlines

Building momentum in business is often difficult. I sometimes ponder other companies ability to crank out products quickly. Ideas aren’t worth much if you can’t make them a reality, fast. There are a surprising number of companies that are able to get a lot of stuff done. How do they do it?

Well, here are things you should be doing:

Making Decisions Fast — It took Congress more than a year and half to actually get around to buying Alaska after the Russians made the offer to sell it. Astounding. Don’t sweat over decisions. Successful people make decisions fast. In most situations, making a fast decision is to your benefit, and in more than half of the situations, you can probably change your mind later.
Just Start — At some point you have to stop planning, and actually start. Doing this sooner, rather than later, is key. Doing stuff vs. talking about it.
Outsource & Delegate — Attempting to do everything in business by yourself is a recipe for disaster. If you’re not good at a certain aspect of running a business, then outsource it! You’ll get more done than you would have by opening up time to do the things you love. And you will be happier.
Focus — The ability to reduce your distractions and control your work environment is very, very important. Being able to focus means you’re not worried about a deadline tomorrow, and you can maximize productivity each day.
Really Spreading the Workload — There are a lot of people out there who work in their own tiny world despite having willing coworkers. Whatever you are doing in your business, if you evenly spread the workload around it makes the project half the size. Try it.
Automate! — There’s a saying: “Penny-wise, pound-foolish.” If you’re spending hours every month invoicing customers one by one, find a way to automate the process. There are hundreds of tools available today that give you the ability to do things automatically.

“There’s no limit to what a man can achieve, if he doesn’t care who gets the credit.”
— Laing Burns, Jr.

What are some ways you have built momentum in your business?

RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Building Momentum in Your Business”

Skip Shuda Says:
December 27th
Chris – nice, crisp, concise rules for building momentum in today’s global, Internet-driven businesses.

On the “Just Start” piece, I find that people are worried about the “first impression” being the only impression. In the world of business up until this century, I would say that was a good rule of thumb. Now… people reinvent their businesses quickly – as it is required to find a stable, profitable formula.

Good metrics and good tracking are essential tools along the way. Thanks!
Chris Tingom Says:
December 28th
Thanks Skip! Really appreciate the comment.