You may have heard the saying “how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!” My last posting discussed prioritization and using stop / start / continue strategies. This week, we will discuss creating small victories. It is the same as eating an elephant – breaking large projects into small tasks. Task still too large? Create smaller checkpoints for a win. If you tried to eat the elephant in one sitting, one wouldn’t even notice your teeth marks! It’s your business – take charge and control it and your time. This is part two of the two part series to help put that into practice. The small wins also release dopamine and a short article titled Your Brain on Dopamine: The Science of Motivation explains why small wins matter and why you feel good as a result of that.
This concept can be applied to projects, sales, and life in general. Imagine wanting to climb Mt. Everest. Do you wake up and say “I will do this tomorrow”? It takes significant planning, and all of it is broken into smaller tasks. Maybe the first part of the plan is ensuring you have the time and money for the adventure. The second might be are you fit enough for the climb? If not you will need to start training with smaller climbs and hikes. Over time each step gets you closer to your goal and ensures you have the endurance to achieve the goal.
If a task is too large – it feels overwhelming and can make you not even want to attempt anything. Is procrastination pulling your business performance down? Not sure what you need to do to get started? Let’s break this down for increasing sales as an example:
1) Define the desired outcome – The outcome should be defined using SMART goal-setting – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound. If the outcome we want is to increase sales by 50% in the next 12 months. Run it past the SMART criteria. As written it follows the methodology – the question is it achievable. If so, great. If not – extend the time or change the growth target.
2) Break activities into small measurable tasks – Break the overall goal into smaller and measurable tasks. What needs to be done and when to achieve the results. Multiple small tasks and different people executing on them might include.
a. monthly marketing campaigns with specific number of leads expected
b. target a specific number of daily outbound sales calls and targeting number of meetings scheduled
c. a weekly / monthly sales growth target
Note these all need to include greater detail to follow SMART.
3) Go even smaller – If you are still feeling like you are not seeing any progress or feel overwhelmed – break it down to even smaller chunks. It doesn’t need to be every waking moment of everyday planned. Maybe spend 30 minutes each day researching what competitors are doing – well and not so well. That information will help make better calls and engaging discussions with prospects. For the marketing campaign it could be broken into smaller “bites” – develop the message, have the creative produced, begin campaign execution, mid-way check point, alter if needed, etc.
Think through
Don’t let procrastination and a feeling of being overwhelmed slow your business down. Get your fix of dopamine and get small wins under your belt. Success creates success!
Would love to hear your ideas and feedback. Feel free to post comments or email them to me. Small Business, Big Lessons ® How will you eat an elephant today?
Small Business
About the Author:
Gregory Woloszczuk is an entrepreneur and experienced tech executive that helps small business owners grow their top and bottom line. Gregory believes in straight talk and helping others see things they need to see but may not want to with a focus on taking responsibly for one’s own business. He and his wife, Maureen, started GMW Carolina in 2006.
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