Over the past 10 years of running our marketing communications firm, I have helped thousands of business owners who have the passion, drive and skill to be very successful, yet they find themselves in a rut. I have found that there is a common characteristic in those business owners who are very successful and those that are very busy but can’t get ahead. Aside from having a product or service that people need, the biggest difference is that successful entrepreneurs know what their job is. They know what their purpose is — not purpose in some vague hyper-spiritual, know-your-way-through-life kind of way. I’m talking purpose as in, “my customer expects me to do this for them well, so I will do that today” kind of way. To put it another way, successful business owners focus on the desired result not on the busy work it takes to get there.

You, like countless other business people, wake up each morning with one goal — and it may be the wrong one. Unless you are a sales person and not a business owner, your first thought of the day should not be “how am I going to get more sales today?” If it is, then you just defined yourself as a salesperson and you are now going to be doing work all day and not your job.  As a business owner, your job is always to fill your customers’ need and not let the other details get in the way. The other details should not be ignored altogether, but they should not be the focus of what you are doing. In fact, all the other details should be worked on after you have mastered your job.  This advice does not apply to every circumstance, but is a problem I have noticed with hundreds of clients.

If you find yourself stuck doing work with no time to do your job, it may be time to hire help. Accountants, marketers, secretaries and other support staff all have their place in helping run a successful business. The best quality for a successful CEO or business owner is the ability to hire the perfect team to support the owner in getting the job done.

If you need help with your marketing, please consider us for your next project or campaign. Let me know what you think in the comments section and thank you for stopping by.