3 Keys to Excellence
And Business Success
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There are certain non-negotiables for business excellence if you want to stack the odds in your favour. And even then there are no guarantees.
But without these 3 keys, you’re guaranteed struggle-city.
1. Career Capital
This is what you bring to the business that is truly valuable. It’s the skill or expertise you have been applying for years.
What are you truly excellent at? Look closely. It’s often not related to a job title.
Even those who have made the switch to a totally different career path, I can usually pinpoint a history of excellence in their wake – excellence in sport, academics, one or several musical instrument, organising their child’s school fete, the effortlessly stylish house, the investment portfolio built from a careful savings plan despite a tiny teacher’s salary, the beautiful garments sourced from second-hand stores…
It’s often strongly linked with a person’s value system. And that’s why most people have blind spots about this.
It’s also not something that jumps out at you instantly and most miss it expecting a big explosive epiphany that may never eventuate.
“But what about following your passion?”
Look, I think it’s useful to do work you enjoy, but here’s the thing, if you haven’t spent enough time developing that skill, it’s virtually impossible to know whether that ‘passion’ is going to be sustainable or whether it’s a passing infatuation.
“To get really good at anything requires sustained interest and commitment plus dedication to incremental improvement and the capacity to weather failure and setbacks” – Angela Duckworth, Author of Grit
In my experience, if you’re searching for ‘something else’, it’s not because the work you’re currently doing is grinding – it’s the environment, e.g. the people, the politics (relationships), the pressure…
Don’t confuse that with your great work which is often tied to years of honing your career capital.
2. Commitment
I see this often and I’ve been guilty of this myself – working the side hustle. It can be useful for some, but truly I’ve found the fastest, most efficient way to get results is when there is no Plan B, meaning you’ve “Burnt the Boats”.
In 1519, eleven ships carrying 600 Spaniards landed on an inland plateau that would one day be known as Mexico. Their goal was to conquer an empire that had amassed a massive fortune of gold, silver, and precious gems. However, with just 600 men, most of whom were vastly under supplied, the prospect of conquering the vast Aztec empire seemed like an impossible task. Hernán Cortés, the Spanish commander, gathered his men on the beach and promptly gave the order to burn the ships they just arrived on, effectively destroying their only escape route. The only choice left was to push forward and succeed.
There’s no better way to harness commitment. And to ensure that we will go ‘all in’ to make our new venture work.
Too many people start a business, new projects, new goals…and never follow through. A few obstacles or challenges in and they give up.
“It’s not working”
“It’s a sign from the Universe / God / Spirit”
“I’m not good enough”
“I can’t do this”
Some truths we all have to get used to in business…
#1. We’re always going to come into tough times.
#2. We’re always going to be in situations when things take longer than expected.
#3. We’re always going to feel the pinch when things / projects get REALLY expensive. More expensive than first anticipated.
We can all agree that commitment isn’t going to look pretty.
Commitment can be a battle – It’s a fight. It’s one hit after the other. And it’s you rising back up to fight back.
There’s plenty of research on the psychology of goal achievement that shows the more prepared you are to acknowledge the obstacles and challenges, AND the more you prepare to dig in and brace yourself when you face tougher than expected situations, you’ll be able to move forward intentionally. When things are more expensive than you first thought, you’ll be more resourceful. And when things are harder than first expected you’ll step up and push through….to break through.
3. Consistency
Even the best business plans will fail without a focus on consistency.
Here’s why…
- Consistency allows for measurement.
Until you have tried something new for a period of time and in a consistent manner, you won’t be able to decide if it works or not.
How do you measure effectiveness if what you are measuring isn’t performed consistently?
How do you feedback tweaks and amendments to your strategy if you’re not implementing consistently?
It typically takes at least 6 months before judging a new initiative, process or structure as a success or failure. And all it takes is usually minor tweaking instead of major overhauls that make the difference.
- Consistency creates accountability.
The simple fact that if there is a set time to report and review progress – that’s going to be the catalyst to move your projects (and business) along.
- Consistency maintains your message.
Consistency in your leadership is how you set the tone and culture for your entire organisation. It’s what your team will model for your business and it’s going to be the same message that gets relayed to your clients and your audience at large.
Your team and your clients need a consistent flow of information from you. All too often I see businesses, both small and large, adopt a campaign or initiative only to end it before it gains traction.
You can be just as, if not more effective running fewer advertisements, blogs, promotional events, emails etc..BUT doing them consistently with regular reviews, reporting and feedback. This way you are continually seeding goodwill in your market – and it’s this long term perspective that will have you slow down and avoid the hustle burnout whilst speeding up your results at the same time!
- Consistency establishes your reputation.
Over time, your business will be able to leverage your reputation to grow. Far more difficult to establish a track record if you’re constantly changing gears and trying new tactics.
Many efforts fail before they get to the finish line, but that’s not always because the tactic was flawed or that the goal wasn’t clear. The problem is usually that the business team simply did not implement consistently to achieve the goals
These have always been the 3 keys to business success in my experience. And that comes from having over 15+ years in business, and 10+ years specifically in small business turnaround – taking over leveraged, underperforming businesses and making them profitable again in a short period of time.
Every single one of these businesses had to engage with these 3 keys to turn their business around.
Every single one of the 57 businesses I worked with that were on the brink of having their doors shut and filing for bankruptcy had to dig deep and face the truth of what they had that was truly valuable and how they could make it work for them.
But you don’t have to wait until such a crisis point to act.
When you focus on what makes you truly excellent – and that means…
✅ putting the blinkers on to stop the distractions of comparison and competition from taking over …
✅ intentionally developing valuable skills…
✅ applying, reviewing, re-adjusting, consistently…
✅ adopting an always-learning-always-improving attitude…
…you’ll be focusing on your most valuable asset: YOU.
If you’d like us to walk you through our signature system that shows you how to accelerate your business by focusing on these 3 key elements, then book your complimentary call here.
We’ll show you how it flows through every aspect of your business so that you can scale profitably using our Multiplier Method.
