When most of us hear or say the word “multitasking” we think we are talking about a way to be more productive.  The truth is that “multitasking” makes us less productive and leads to burnout.  In fact, if you are seeking to grow your small business, you must be focused. 

Whether you are starting up your own business or running your own business multitasking is the opposite of focus.  It is about having several focal points at once.  The truth is that we cannot do several things at once.  In fact, studies have shown the human mind is only capable of doing one thing at a time.  We don’t multitask.  We switchtask.  And, every time we switch back and forth from one task to another there is a switching cost. 

Switching costs come as we have to momentarily review where we were at before we can start again.  And, the more complicated the task the higher the switching cost.  In fact it is estimated that the average worker loses 2.1 hours per day or over 8 hours per week in lost time by switch tasking. 

Even computers, where the term multitasking came from, do not multitask.  A processor, CPU, performs many tasks in sequence and can switch from one program to another very quickly that may make it appear to be multitasking.  The only way a computer can multitask if there is more than one processor.  This is sometimes called multiprocessing. 

Take a look at your business and your day.  To grow small business and to have a successful performance strategy you must focus your time.  If you don’t you will have too much going on and burnout.  Successful small business is about focus.  And when you lose focus you end up doing many things and few of them well. 

As a result your business and you will stagnate and fail.  If you want to learn more about multitasking I highly recommend the book by Dave Crenshaw, “The Myth of Multitasking”.  It is a short, quick and entertaining book that will give you some immediate insights on how to better utilize your time and move your small business forward. 

Owning your own business is a great challenge.  Start focusing and stop multitasking and the challenge will become more manageable and you will be more likely to succeed and much less likely to burnout and have the business fail.

In the last post we looked at the “people plan” and how a lack of it can be an “elephant under the carpet” that could cause a successful business to fail.  Making your small business successful has several components.  Not only must you have a people plan but you must have “good processes”.

You may be saying at this point, this doesn’t sound very interesting.  I have watched small businesses grow, be successful and fail because the processes for doing business or how to approach business for continued growth were never addressed. 

 Lack of good processes is the second “elephant under the carpet.”How come they were never addressed?

You will hear phrases such as, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  That’s the way it’s always been done around here.”  There is one constant and that is change.  You either must embrace it, or it will run over you. 

A good example is a business that starts out using contract labor.  It needs help periodically with certain jobs or tasks.  Independent contractors are a great way to do this.  The business grows and now it is demanding most, if not all of the working time of an independent contractor.  In fact, it is dictating hours and other things. 

Much as you may not want to, it is time to switch these people to employees.  Yes, it is more costly.  But, I can assure you, the cost is much higher if you don’t switch.  Yes, there are industries where independent contractors are standard practice.  But, there are many where they are not and I have watched many businesses operate under the illusion that somehow they will fly under the radar.

To have your small business successful, it is important that you get into the right process for doing things.  Pay your people as they should be paid.  You may save money in the present by treating them as contractors but you can easily lose your business in the end when the IR S comes knocking on your door. 

All it takes is one disgruntled independent contractor to start the process that could do you in.  In owning your own business and running your own business having good processes is critical to your success. 

Think about this.  You have good people.  You put them in a bad process or one that makes the business extremely vulnerable and what do you get?  You get bad or disastrous results.  To have a successful performance strategy address those “elephants under the carpet” that have to do with your processes. 

Do that and do it regularly and you will have a greater likelihood of having a more secure and prosperous business.

One of the concerns of most small businesses for the first few years is failure.  One of the interesting things is, even if a business is successful, the fear of failure can be huge.  Why is it when things are going well and cash flow is good would you be concerned about failure?

There are many answers but I would like to focus on one of the things I see in my practice as relates to failure.  In running your own business you can get caught up in the “doing” and let some “elephants under the carpet” develop.  A good example of an elephant under the carpet would be starting a business with partners and not having a buy-sell agreement and/or key man insurance.

When a person who is a significant contributor or a necessary part of the foundation of a business dies or suddenly becomes disabled it can be disastrous for the the business.  One of the keys to success in owning your own business is to make the business bigger than you or the key people.  The sooner you do that the better off you and the business will be.  If something happens to you where you are sick for and extended period of time, or disabled, then at least your business will be able to provide for you and those who are involved with it.

How come business owners put themselves in this situation?  They never get a vision of the business being bigger than themselves.  Somehow everything is going to work out.  Unfortunately, life has a way of throwing us some pretty big challenges.  Challenges that are unexpected.

The first step to small business growth and having a successful performance strategy is to have a clear vision and plan when it comes to people.  Be ready for the unexpected.  If you have a corporation make sure you have an exit strategy.  If someone isn’t working out and wants out it is best to have an agreement up front as to what the terms are. 

If you do that then you won’t, as a rule, be subject to expensive litigation.  And, I can assure you, litigation is one of the quickest ways to kill a small business.  Regardless of where your business is now it is critical to  create a “people plan” and address those “elephants under the carpet”. 

When you have your people plan not only will you feel better, but your business will be more secure.  You will give the gift of certainty to the people who work with you and support you.  And, you will be demonstrating leadership by showing you are concerned about their welfare by creating a more stable and predictable environment in case life does throw one of those big challenges your way.

How often have you gone to a funeral and you hear people say that this is a celebration of a person’s life?  If you are like me, I have heard that quite often.  And, there was a part of me that was always confused.  I have lost someone I cared about and therefore it is hard for me to celebrate. 

My mother, who I was close to, died last week.  Her funeral service was yesterday in Pennsylvania and I was in charge of conducting it.  At times I felt overwhelmed with emotion and a sense of loss.  It was a challenge. 

Afterwards many of the people came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed the service.  They used terms such as “feeling a sense of closure” and “freedom to express gratitude”.  Everyone got to talk about my Mother and what she had meant to them.  It was a remarkable experience that I will never forget. 

But, what the funeral service was truly about was embracing change.  It was about celebrating the past and moving into a future without my Mother, who had been a great, positive influence on me and many people’s lives. 

To have a successful small business you must embrace change.  Too often, when we think about change we procrastinate because we focus on all the difficulties in making it instead of the benefits that will come from making it. 

There are some businesses I have worked with over the years that have a “celebration” when a change in completed.  In one instance, the new accounting system got installed and they had a party.  They celebrated the death of the old system and bringing something new and better into replace it.

To have your small business successful it is good to have funeral’s for those things that should be dead and gone.  Those are the things that hold back a business.  We should celebrate change and focus on the positive that is going to be open to us as a result. 

A successful performance strategy for embracing change is to practice the art of detachment.  You must learn how to detach and do it regularly.  It’s hard to move forward at the pace you like when you are holding onto something from the past.  That past can become like an anchor.  Every time you celebrate the past you are pulling up your anchor and you are moving forward.  You are detaching from your current mooring which allows you to sail in a new or better direction.

When you dwell on the past you are anchored in it and stuck.  In running your own business you must take a look at what needs to die.  When you do you will be embracing change and moving forward because you will be bringing death to what is holding you back. 

Now there’s something to celebrate!

Friday morning at 1:30 March 27 the phone rang.  As most of us know when you receive a phone call at that hour it is almost never good.  On the other end a female voice said very tenderly, “I am sorry to tell you Mr. Scott that your mother passed away at 1:15 this morning. 

Immediately I was caught up in and sucked into a vortex of emotion.  Where things had been moving along well in my business and life they now began to swirl.  I am a small businessman, like many of you reading this post.  Owning your own business presents many challenges.  One of the biggest ones is how you handle what goes on in your personal life.

Before I had a chance to think my sister was on the phone.  We talked briefly.  I told her I had to go because I had to call the funeral home. 

I reached the funeral home and got things underway.  Friday was a day of many calls.  I was in charge of my mother’s affairs.  She had not been well the past few years.  Yet, her death came suddenly and unexpectedly. 

Emotionally, I have been riding a roller coaster.  Most of the time I have either been flat or down.  Today has been better.  I have received many great e-mail tributes that recognize her and her contributions to others.  I have felt more up.  Early tomorrow morning I will fly from Texas to Philadelphia and spend the next four days closing the book on the life of my wonderful mother. 

She taught me many things that have helped me in small business.  One of the things she would always talk about when I was growing up was coping skills.  She felt it was important to be as good as possible at handling adversity.  How well you coped with adversity would determine how quickly you could get back on track.  As we all know, in growing your small business, as in life, there can be a great deal of adversity that can knock you off course. 

Right now I am off course.  Don’t ask me about my marketing business plan or my performance strategy for success.  At the moment, I could care less.  Yet, because I have coping skills, learned from my mother, I do have a personal marketing business plan and a personal performance strategy for success. 

My marketing business plan is to take care of me.  I must let all this wash over me.  One of the things she taught me is to not ignore your feelings.  If you don’t deal with them and acknowledge them now they will show up later and can cause greater harm.  A stifled emotion is like a beach ball that you try to hold under water.  It takes a lot of energy.  And, eventually the beach ball springs to the top with great force.  When our emotions do that it can be destructive. 

My marketing business plan is to take care of me.  And, my performance strategy for success is to take care of myself by not plowing into more work.  In the long run I will accomplish less if I dive into work.  I will accomplish less because of all that energy I will be using to stifle the beach ball, my feelings, and keep them underwater will actually cause me to accomplish less and be less ready for opportunity at work. 

If you are facing challenges with small business growth or in running your business take a look at the beach balls you may be trying to keep under water.  I promise you they are holding you back because they drain you of energy and focus. 

Develop a healthy coping strategy by facing them and doing something about them.  You won’t believe how free you will feel and how much energy you will create.  Since my mother is no longer with us you can’t ask her.  But, if she were here that is what she would tell you. 

Develop your coping skills.  Get rid of your beach balls.  Eliminate or minimize your tolerations.  When you do you will more quickly get back on the road to business success.

In the three previous posts we have looked at three other challenges you face in starting your own business in a bad economy.  In fact, they are challenges you would face even if the economy were good.  They assume even greater importance when things are not as good and your margin for error is smaller. 

The three earlier challenges were:

1.  Do you have a market for the product or service you wish to provide?

2.  Is the market you wish to pursue vulnerable to economic cycles?

3.  What type of business should you get into during an economic downturn?

The last challenge is:  What should you stay away from?  This may ruffle some feathers. 

The first type of business that I would be very careful about is multi-level.  Most of them provide great products or services.  But, are the products or services necessary?  Will the products or services save the customer money?  If your answer is yes to these questions then I would pursue it further. 

Multi-level is easy entry and it takes hard work.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Just remember that getting rich overnight or well off quickly happens to a very small percentage of those involved in multi-level.  If you have a good network of people who would be receptive to you, your product or service then you have the right things going for you that could move you forward more quickly. 

During a bad economy the second thing about multi-level, or any business for that matter, is whether or not you have to create a market.  For example, if your product has to do with weight loss you are in a good area.  This is an accepted market.  You are not having to create anything new.  People are already spending money in this market.  And, weight loss ties directly to people’s health, sense of well-being and their image. 

In summary, stay away from businesses that have you creating a market or doing a lot of pioneering.  Pioneering is necessary for any new product to get established but pioneering by its very nature has lots of casualties. 

In looking at businesses to stay away from I would avoid anything that promises you overnight success.  Yes, overnight success can happen.  But, the odds are less than one in a thousand.  And, even if you read a long string of testimonials about the success of the business remember that, more often than not, thousands failed and lost their investment for the very few that succeeded. 

A successful performance strategy is to look at these businesses very closely and skeptically.  Small business growth is about having a good marketing business plan.  The marketing business plan may look good but is it really executable?  Growing your small business will be about being able to execute a workable marketing business plan. 

Obviously, there are many more questions and answers about starting a business in a bad economy.  The goal of these blog posts was to give you some things to think about from a different perspective.  My wish for all of you is to have the best in business and life.

Inflexibility is one of the deadly mistakes that can prevent small business growth or to cause a small business to fail.  A successful performance strategy for growing small business must include flexibility.  After all, if you don’t embrace change you will be run over by it. 

I came across this solution for dealing with inflexibility.  It comes from one of my favorite authors, John Maxwell.  Go to www.JohnMaxwell.com and find a book of his to read.  It will be well worth your time.  The following shows the humorous, and often truthful responses, that come when people are inflexible. 

Inflexibility is the enemy of personal growth, success and achievement. 

The Top Ten Strategies For Dealing With A Dead Horse

1.  Buy a stronger whip.

2.  Change riders

3.  Appoint a committee to study the horse.

4.  Appoint a team to revive the horse.

5.  Send out a memo declaring the horse isn’t really dead.

6.  Hire an expensive consultant to find “the real problem.”

7.  Harness several dead horses together for increased speed and efficiency.

8.  Rewrite the standard definition of a live horse.

9.  Declare the horse to be better, faster, and cheaper when dead.

10.  Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Most of you have probably seen these solutions enacted at some point in your business career or life. 

So, how do you deal with the challenge of inflexibility.  When your horse is dead and your inflexibility is causing you to hold onto something that isn’t working, dismount. 

Small business coaching is about helping people to learn how to dismount, let go of thoughts and processes that aren’t working and to bury them.  Only once the things that don’t work are buried or put in a safe place, may you move forward. 

And, the way to move forward is to come up with a new performance strategy. Embrace change.  Embrace flexibility.  When you do, you will be able to mount a live horse and gallop forward to the success you desire.