Please let me know in the comments if you found this helpful. I’d really like to hear from you!
Keep it simple, do it well, repeat
Success in business comes from doing six things really well that you repeat thousands of times. This is called the compound effect. Most people think that success comes from taking giant leaps, but that’s not common. It’s rare that you strike gold overnight or have one thing lead to massive success. Mostly it’s a handful of things that we do really well, over and over. Don’t chase dozens of ideas—start simple, and master half a dozen things that you get really good at. Simplicity is a good place to start.
Knowledge without action is useless.
You don’t need more knowledge, you need a new plan of action. I talk to so many people who have gone to such-and-such conference or took so-and-so’s seminar, or are in a Mastermind Group, or took this business program and that coaching program. They’ve accumulated so much knowledge over the years that sometimes it results in conflicting advice. With this approach, all you do is create confusion. Instead of collecting knowledge, you just need a plan of action. Put one foot in front of the other; take one step, then another. You have to ACT.
What’s the ultimate key to success? Consistency.
Over the years I’ve found that the people who consistently show up for our Mastermind meetings, who stay plugged in, continually asking and answering questions, who share ideas and post challenges end up being the most successful. They are continually engaged with the community and not left alone to struggle and guess their way to success. They consistently follow the steps in our Cleaning Business Fundamentals group. They don’t just take off on a fast sprint and fizzle out or take a seminar and do things for a few weeks before doing nothing for a few months. They are consistently marketing, posting every day on online channels. I’ve seen some people who set up their pages, make a few posts, and then don’t post anything for months. It’s the same with cleaning. You are not going to succeed if you give your customer an inconsistent experience. You’re better off having consistently good cleaning instead of a perfect clean followed by a mediocre clean followed by a great clean followed by an uneven clean. All that inconsistency creates customer dissatisfaction.
If you aren’t better, work harder.
This is simple. Get better at running a business. Most of you are good at cleaning, but have you gotten better at business? It involves marketing, customer service, figuring out how to scale your business, managing your online reputation, understanding your margins so your profits don’t erode as you grow. If you aren’t seeing success, work harder at getting better at business. Figure out how to control and scale your business, how to be amazing at attracting the best cleaners and at keeping them long term.
Let the compound effect work in your favor.
I talk about this throughout the entire Cleaning Business Fundamentals course. The compound effect is the strategy of reaping huge rewards from seemingly insignificant actions. It is those really tiny things that we do that make a BIG difference. It’s the small steps that we take consistently every day. A little bit of marketing here and there will add up to massive results. It’s those little things that we do every single day that will help us achieve success.
Small choices matter over time.
If you consistently make the same small choices over time, you’ll get significant results. For example, I talked with someone today who decided to take the Cleaning Business Fundamentals course and who signed up on the spot. Another person I spoke with today said she wanted to take the class but needed to save up some money. The person who made the small choice to sign up for the class is already on the path to reaping bigger results. The one who didn’t sign up, well, what if a week goes by and her resources haven’t gotten better? And then two weeks, and later five months go by. She tells herself “I’m going to do that someday.” You know what she’s doing? She’s consistently procrastinating. She’s not doing anything to get her business unstuck. If we check in on the person who signed up today in a year’s time, she could have gotten out of the field or doubled her income. The other person most likely will be in the same place a year from now.
Knowledge uninvested is wasted.
You can’t just learn, read books, listen to podcasts, go to seminars. You have to put that learning to use and take action in your business. Learning without investing that knowledge in your business does nothing.
Choice is central to success and failure.
The choices that we make every day will determine whether or not we’re successful. The choice to procrastinate is a decision not to change your life. What we choose makes the biggest difference. Too often we sleepwalk through our choices and do what society tells us we should do. Take personal responsibility. My success or failure is the result of my own choices. That is such a freeing feeling. Making better choices puts you in control of your success. This is freedom. We can make better choices and succeed more.
Keep a daily gratitude journal.
Every day, write in your journal about something you are grateful for. It could be about life, your kids, your spouse. If you do this every day, your journal will be massive at the end of a year with all the things you are grateful for and you’ll feel encouraged about all the support and help you get in your life. Gratitude is acknowledging that there are people in your life who do things for you that you can’t do for yourself. What you appreciate (have gratitude for) will appreciate (get bigger). Do you appreciate your employees, your business metrics? If they’re important to you, they’ll get better.
Was this helpful? Please let me know in the comments. I’d really like to hear from you.
This is just a sample of the kind of help I can offer in my Cleaning Business Fundamentals course.
