Ups And Downs By John Phanchalad

It happens to everybody…but, if you know what to  do it is

infinitely easier to deal with and prevent for the future.

The thing that happens is that you out run your schedule. You have a big month and then a little month, then a big month and then a little month, over and over. This is a signal of big trouble looming.

The big trouble is that you can’t plan or anticipate production and income. It is a sure way to have significant cash flow problem.

These ups and downs are an indicator of a lack of organization. When the month is down you have time to work on marketing and selling as well as all the other parts of making your business sing.

Your efforts pay off with a visible upswing in productivity. This upswing can come in as little as two weeks, but more likely six weeks. So now you are busy delivering your products and services. So what is the problem? You are too busy to do the things that got you productive in the first place! New sales consults are fewer as there is just too little time to get them done. Marketing efforts fall off. You are so busy in the now that you fail to plan and make the future.

This pattern will repeat itself over and over. The difficulty is planning for staffing, expenditures, time to train, office work, etc. It is a feast or famine. A statistician could say you’re fine if you just average the two. As Lee Corso of ESPN fame would say, ”Not so fast my friend.” This vicious cycle can eat your profits.

So what do you do to handle this vicious cycle?

You can do as my dear departed father-in-law used to do. He was a builder, subject to up and down cycles in the building construction industry. When times were good he would save and build up reserves.

He did not add capacity, staff, equipment, etc. When the boom slowed down, he would count on his reserves to provide a smooth continuous flow of income. It worked for him. This may be the solution you should use.

The problem with the solution is that he permanently capped how far his business could grow. He built it for lean times. He couldn’t take advantage of the booms because he limited his capacity. He missed out on oodles of projects that could have paid him handsomely at the time. He didn’t have a real marketing effort; it was all word of mouth. He never organized his business beyond what he himself could take on. These concepts of organization and marketing weren’t foreign to him. He just didn’t see himself as being more than a small builder and he didn’t want the “hassle and headaches” of growth. He choose a lifestyle that fit his income and was fairly content with it.

He also was tied to his business, he couldn’t leave it. He limited his income. He could have been a multi-millionaire. He never took those trips that he and my mother-in-law had always talked about. His health deteriorated. He retired. A few years later my mother-in-law died from breast cancer. A few years after that, he died from complications of lung cancer- 70 years young. I miss my in-laws; they were good, loving people who raised six kids well.

So what is the other choice? Delegate your work so you can concentrate on only leading, planning, marketing your business and doing your job - a simple answer with a more complex implementation. Almost all high performing people doing too many other things besides the above. It’s a shame.

Here’s a starting point.  Figure all that you do. Make a complete list. Make a rough guess of time you put into each area. Immediately delegate any and all activities that someone else can do without a significant amount of time training them to do it.

If there are actions you like to do because you enjoy them, fine, do them. Just realize that doing so takes away from other activities that may be more profitable financially.

Take your list and prepare materials and training so that someone else can take over the more challenging actions. This can take quite a bit of time. But to not do it is asking for an unending enslavement to tasks, activities and jobs that limit your productivity, income and time off.

Yes, it is a lot of work. Yes, it will take a lot of time. Yes, it will be a challenge. And it is so worth it in the end.

Think and plan more, but do less. Here’s to you doing what you do best.

To know more tips and ideas about Internet Marketing by John Phanchalad, visit http://jpdigitaltech.com/.