Last week I started this series around the 3 key factors for business success. Clarity. Focus. Momentum. Today’s topic is FOCUS.
So here is a little exercise for you.
- 1. Take 2 pieces of white paper (ideally A4).
- 2. Place them in two separate rooms (paper A in room A and paper B in room B), on a flat surface where you can write on them.
- 3. Write on paper A all the letters of the alphabet and you will write on paper B numbers from 1 till 26.
- 4. Prepare your timer.
Ready?
ROUND 1
Set your timer, start it. Go first in room A and write down all the letters of the alphabet, then when you finish, go in room B and write the numbers from 1 till 26. STOP the timer when you finish and check how much time it took you to complete both tasks.
ROUND 2
Reset your timer, start it. Now you will go in room A, write the first letter of the alphabet, run in room B write number 1, run back in room A and write the second letter (b) and run again into room B to write number 2… and so on. When you finish, STOP the timer…
Nooo… you will not finish the second round because you will get bored of it.
Guess what, if I made this exercise easier and asked you to stay in the same room, you would most likely finish ROUND 2, however it would have taken more time.
I can also make it more complex and ask you to cover what you have written… Do you know what will happen then? You would finish round one with no mistakes but it’s likely you would make a lot of mistakes in round 2.
Our brains can cope with multiple sectors of activity and as women we always pride ourselves on our ability of multitasking. Now, that said, it is proven that we CAN’T think 2 things at the same time. Studies show that, our brain is not as efficient, as fast and as precise when it is operating on multiple things. In life, when there are too many projects, too many focal points either we lose ability to provide our best or we get overwhelmed or burnt out…
Doing one thing at a time is simply in line with our brain function, and FOCUS is merely using our brain at its best to be able to deliver the best results, in the shortest period of time with least effort.
In business terms, this impacts our 5 Power Hubs of business:
Personal Development Hub
From a personal development perspective, focus implies gaining personal efficiency by minimising multi-tasking. Deep Work is one of my favourite books giving tools of engaging in short but highly focused work in our world of connectivity, beeps and social alerts.
Plan Hub
I guess here the mantra would be “Stay the Course”. As part of my personal networking rule, I meet one very successful business owner per week. They enlighten me, inspire me and bring me energy. To date, I’ve met millionaires and even one billionaire and I haven’t found yet one person telling me “Oh it was easy, it took me 3 months to make my business a success”.
This is the reason why, I am pretty annoyed with all these “high-ticket” transformational business coaching offers which mislead many great entrepreneurs and turn them into “quick fix” course junkies. The long story short, there is no quick fix… Actually, from what I gather, the quickest way is to focus on the plan and execute with persistence and consistency… and slowly compound effects start to pay back!
Promotion Hub
This is the place where focus works its magic the best. Focus in this hub means niching… actually no, don’t just niche, go even deeper: micro-niche… Micro-niching makes your message more impactful your channels more precise and your tactics more targeted. What else could you want as a micro-business owner. How efficient would that be?
People Hub
Depending on the stage of the business the focus for this hub can change. If you are a new company, your focus would be all about growing your network and putting yourself in front of the largest audience possible. If you are in a phase where you are growing your focus would be your team, and if you are in phase of scaling up, your focus would turn into people who might have a bigger role in helping you grow (stakeholders in a sector, investors, bank etc.).
Profit Hub
We called this final hub Profit for one reason; because for a micro business the main focus should always be profit and cashflow;)
During our last monthly planning session, one of our members said to me,
“These sessions are so amazing, they keep reminding me what is the priority and allow me to take small but consistent steps toward my goals!”
