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Why do most people fail at starting a business? I know it’s a bit of a negative concept, but it’s true. 95% of startups fail within their first five years. The majority of people who start a business end up failing and not reaching the size of business or income they had hoped to achieve.

The truth is, we’re in business to make money, to build wealth and to gain freedom. When you make money, you get more free time. And if you follow certain principles, you are guaranteed to be more successful.

Success is rarely luck. It’s an intentional mindset and strategy that you take in your life. People are not born successful, but it’s something they have to work toward intentionally. Success is available to everyone, but it’s true that some people have to work harder than others. I’ve had to work really hard to be successful, but it’s available to everyone when you follow certain steps.

What’s one of the most important factors to success? Focus.

Now don’t dismiss me out of hand because that’s something that you already know. You know you need to focus, but I’m asking you to read that again and really take it in. You need to be reminded over and over again about the things that drive success, and focus is profoundly responsible for success. Lack of focus is what causes failure.

You have to be hyper-focused on one thing—being the best in the world at what your core business is. Since your business most likely doesn’t service the entire world, you can narrow that down to being the best and most successful maid service in your community. That means providing the best service and leaving homes looking gorgeous and smelling fabulous. It also means having a business that is highly profitable, scalable, with smooth operations and a high quality of life for you, the business owner. You need to have a better business than everyone else—the kind of job that employees want to work at and a business that functions with a decent amount of time from the business owner.

Once you are successful, that’s when you can add on other services and extend your brand. But don’t shift your focus and dilute your attention to go down rabbit holes of other income opportunities while you are building your core business. If you chase two rabbits, you won’t catch either one of them.

Being focused is the best way to succeed and it will help you accelerate the growth of your business.

Here are some things to think about:

  • Be careful about switching around too much. Some people come to me when running a janitorial business who can’t get it to work so they want to switch to residential, or vice versa. It’s not that one is better than the other, but just pick one and do it really well.
  • Don’t be a serial entrepreneur. I hate this term. It’s usually code for not being able to make one business work so you switch to something else. Stick with one thing and build it. The baggage that is keeping you from succeeding in one business will follow you to the next.
  • Don’t try to be everything. This will dilute your focus and confuse your customer. If you try to be all things to all people, you will be nothing in people’s minds. You won’t stand out. Focus on one thing and be amazing at it and better than everybody else.
  • The thing you focus on doesn’t even have to center around cleaning. If you ask people in my community what stands out to them about my maid service, chances are they’ll mention our charitable commitment and outlook. We’re givers, and we give back to the community. What’s the one thing that summarizes you?
  • Distractions are lethal. Don’t allow them to hijack your day. You should have a weekly plan of how to move your business forward that you focus on without allowing other people’s urgent matters to distract you. Your focus should be on how to make more money and grow your business.
  • Do the important things, not the urgent things. Of course, if it’s both urgent and important, you can drop everything to handle it. Otherwise, let someone else deal with it for you. Spend your time in the most productive way for your business.

Got it? Good! The key is focus, focus, focus. With that in mind, here are steps that can help you achieve focus:

  1. Decide what you want to do.
  2. Write it down. Create a goal.
  3. Set a deadline for your goal.
  4. Make a list of everything you have to do to achieve that goal and create an action plan.
  5. Take action! Do something every single day that moves you toward your goal.

A lack of focus will guarantee that your business will not be as big as it could have been.

This is just a sample of the kind of help I can offer in my Cleaning Business Fundamentals course.


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