I’m going to share a secret with you today that will explode your business.

Every business has what are sometimes referred to as “impact areas”. These are the major areas of your business such as marketing, sales, and customer relations. Every business is different. Some businesses may have 7 impact areas, while others may have 17.

The key to growing business success is strategic improvement in each of your impact areas. If you want to look back 1-2 years from now and see that sales have improved by 40%, this is the way.  You’ve got to beat your head against the wall regularly, repeatedly asking the question “What can we do to make it better?” Then do it again the next week. And so on.

The method for having impact meetings is simple. Meet once per week, for one hour, with the key members of that impact area.  Leaders ask their staff important questions and gather feedback. Key questions to ask during impact meetings include:

*What do you think are the top 3 things we could do to improve this business?

*What objections do you get the most from customers?

*What area of your job do you enjoy the most, where it doesn’t feel like work?

*Which part of your job frustrates you the most?

*What would make you more motivated?

Before we started doing this, my business partner and I would talk about 3-5 different areas of the business within one conversation. We’d make comments in passing like “Yeah, we need to work on sales” or “I heard about this cool new direct mail piece” and next thing we knew we were discussing  new markets! One of the strengths of organizing your discussion by impact area is that it allows ONE area to be discussed to completion, marching orders handed out, with the plan to reconvene next week and do it all over again.

Initially, you and your team are likely to default to the  “Everything’s fine, I don’t know what we can improve” kind of mindset. This is normal. It is the easier path – the one our brains like to take. Continue to challenge yourself by going deeper. “Yes, things are good. However, if we could do anything and had any resource at our disposal, what could we do to make things better?”

Benefits of Weekly Impact Area Meetings:

1) Your team feels more important. Team members are for opinions, suggestions, and what they would like to change about the business. This is unprecedented in business and will show them that they really work for special business. They get a sense of control over their position by being able to give feedback and instigate positive changes in the company.

2) It forces you to do the hard work. Every business needs to be thinking of how they can improve in every area. If you’re profitable and happy, it’s way too easy to get complacent. If you want to explode profits and reach more customers, you must continue to do the creative thinking necessary to maintain improvement.

3) You get answers to problems for free. The team members that work within each impact area often know more than you do about what is going on in your business. They are a great source of ideas on how that area can be improved! As the great business leader Chet Holmes put it “If you have a good staff, the only thing you need to bring to the meetings is your judgment” (I feel that I should mention that it was Chet from whom I learned about impact areas, and more can be learned about this topic in “The Ultimate Sales Machine”, his legendary business book).

4) Discussion becomes organized. No longer will you be discussing ideas and thoughts about all different kinds of stuff. This focuses the team. It also drastically cuts down interruptions. Team members and leaders who get ideas should save them for the weekly impact area discussions instead of knocking on the CEO’s door every time they have something to say.

5) Results. Business is similar to strength training. We all know that those workout machines and secret formula prune juices are bullshit. Any good trainer will tell you that you need to strategize and then go put the hard work in to get results. Each area of your business is like a muscle group. The sales is the core. The marketing is the back. The leadership is the legs. And so on. Regularly improving each impact area is like getting a well-balanced workout. If you want to go from a skinny punk to being Arnold, you have to workout like a madman. And if you want to go from a small deli on the corner to being McDonalds, you’ve got to “exercise” each area of your business consistently until you get there. No shortcuts.

Implement these strategies and let me know how it goes. And please leave comments.

Thanks for reading!

Brian

Think about how the hours of the day stack upon one another. The first hour of the day is the pure one. The second is affected by what took place in the first, and so on.  There is a reason why Brian Tracy refers to the first hour of the day as the “Golden Hour”. If you’ve been a huge stress ball all morning, the afternoon doesn’t look promising.  Your responsibility is two-fold:

First, you must start your day out in a state of positivity, gratitude, relaxation, and FOCUS. Get feeling good before you go out into the world and take action. If you feel bad, all of your thoughts and actions will be tainted by this negativity, and you will feel like you are running uphill all day long.

Second, you must be vigilant. Don’t let events of the day take you out of the state that you have created. Watch the thoughts that pop up as you begin to feel negative or stressed. Let them go before they take up permanent residence in your body.

The Routine:

1) Spend 30-45 minutes doing something that you enjoy. Something that relaxes you. This could be exercise, reading for pleasure, or simply sitting. By doing something that you want to do, first thing, you tell the world that you are in control of your time. You carry this relaxed energy of being in control throughout your day. The opposite, rushing out the door, creates a rushed energy and a sense of victimhood, that you are being pulled around all the time.

2) Write down some things you are grateful for. Oprah once said that keeping a gratitude journal is the most powerful thing she has ever done. This will gradually shift your focus from all that is going wrong in your life to all that is going right. Not only will you have a lot more fun, but you’re inviting more of the good stuff to come in.

3) Write down your top 1-2 priorities for the day. Complete this sentence “Today, my top 1-2 priorities are….”. Write them in your journal. It’s best to come up with these priorities before you open the computer. These are the 1-2 most powerful things that you can complete today, that will move you in the direction of your desired lifestyle.

Step one relaxes and centers you. Step two implants healthy thoughts into your mind, which will flourish. Step three navigates you in the precise direction.These three combined are powerful, and done over time will produce massive results.

Thanks for reading!

Brian

We all could name the 1 to 2 things that would move us the closest to our goals today. This is what every good high performance training tells us to do. Set goals. Take massive action. But, what we don’t talk about is just how fucking uncomfortable those things will have to be. 

If you’re going to move the needle, you have to talk to people who are more successful than you.. You’ll have to learn complicated things. You have to network and be around those who are playing at a higher level. You might end up “looking stupid” in front of someone. You might stutter or be at a loss for words. Stay calm. You are about to grow. There’s no way around this. It’s awkward. You’ll have to ask a ton of questions, and stop acting like you already know everything.  When someone tells you something interesting that you didn’t know, you ought to be responding with “Really? Tell me more!”. Be a sponge. Be humble. Admit that you know very little. People appreciate you being raw, vulnerable, and real. They will want to help you. This is what you want. If you have a chip on your shoulder, you’re done.  Asking for help is the key to rapid growth. Asking for help with humility is the only way it works.

Prove that you are truly grateful for the talents you’ve been blessed with. Stretch them out. Challenge yourself. Get uncomfortable. Where’s your edge? Find it. Then push an inch further. Grow! Climb in bed completely drained, and smile. The money, freedom, and satisfaction you’re after will soon follow. Then you’ll see that they are really just the icing on the cake. The ribbons and the trophies. The real gift is the person that you have become in the process.