Are you being reactive or proactive with your business? There is no real right or wrong way to be, and each has its benefits. But if you’re someone who wants to reach higher levels of success faster, you’re going to need to focus on getting more proactive.
Because when you anticipate problems and work to create solutions before they happen, you’ll not only make things happen for you and your business, but you’ll also find yourself reaching higher levels of success faster.
Are you being proactive with your business?
Being proactive in your business means you’re always looking for ways to improve and streamline things, so you can provide a better level of service. You’re focused on the future and stepping up to be the CEO and business owner you want to be.
If you’re more reactive, you much prefer to let things unfold before you deal with them. This may initially help cut down on the amount of work you’re doing as you only deal with things on a needs must basis, but it’s also a way to just keep things ticking over at the current level. And if that’s working for you, great. But if you’re looking to grow your business further, you’re going to need to get a little more proactive in your approach.
Actively work towards your goals and business growth
So if you’re looking to become more proactive with your business, start by actively working towards the goals and growth you want. Get clear on What business growth means to you. Does it mean reaching a certain level of income, or are you more focused on growing your reach and visibility? Are you happy staying at current levels of success or are you looking to upscale or reach for more? Do you want to stay working on your own or look to grow a team over time?
Know what goals you need to set to reach that level of growth, and actively commit to working towards it.
Get comfortable with planning, tracking and monitoring
Planning, tracking and monitoring all help you analyse your results. Because you can’t improve anything, if you don’t know the results you’re already getting. Without the ability to track and monitor progress, you cannot plan – and without plans, you cannot grow.
They’re also a great way to illustrate what is and isn’t working for you. As a proactive CEO you need to understand the figures and the meaning behind them. You can use those figures to forecast future results and make informed decisions about improvements and changes.
Focus on making changes to improve things
When you have the right information to hand, you can forecast what areas of your business need improvement. Are there areas of your business that can be improved with automation? What benefits can you glean from hiring a Virtual Assistant to handle your administrative tasks? Do you have enough time to complete orders already on your books and are you able to take on any more clients? Can you streamline your onboarding process or improve the customer journey through your website to your shopping cart? Is there going to be recurring revenue in place to cover any additional investments you have in mind?
These are all areas you can be more proactive in, especially if you’re focusing on the right things in your business.
Be the CEO of your business
The biggest difference between a proactive and reactive business owner is this. One is working firmly IN their own business. The other is allowing themselves the time to work ON their business as well as IN it.
Give yourself the time and space to run your business, not just be a worker in it.
Reactive CEOs focus on reacting to problems as they arise. They spend so much time working within their business, they don’t have the time, space or ability to see the bigger picture. They’re often the business owner who feels overwhelmed or like they’re constantly firefighting.
If you want to be in a position where you’re not waiting for things to happen, as you’re making them happen, you need to become a more proactive CEO. You’re then giving yourself the time and space to get a birds-eye view of your business. You’re taking time to plan and steer your business in the direction you want it to go.
And you’re consistently monitoring and tracking your progress. So you can course-correct and implement improvements before things go wrong, as you focus firmly on reaching the goals you’ve set for yourself and your business.
If you need a little help taking the helm of your business and finding the time and space to run your business, we have a programme that will help. The Getting Organised Programme covers everything you need to put you in control of the critical areas of your business, so you’re running your business (and not the other way around!). It helps you to create the business you love on the solid foundations it needs. You can find more about the Getting Organised Programme here.
