Show notes
What are the things you can control in your business? What are the things that we can look at? Identifying the very specific companies, the very specific industries that we need to be able to interact with, to be able to get our customers as close to what they need as possible.
We might not be able to get them exactly what they want at the price they want it. But most of them are going to understand that. Most clients are not going to blame you for the fact that the economy is doing certain things, or that there are things happening in the world.
David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, cohost Kevin Rosenquist and I will be discussing focusing on things you can control. Welcome back, Kevin.
Kevin: Hey, it's great to be here, David. I always am a big preacher around the house of "control what you can control." You know, I can't do everything. So control what you can control. So I'm excited to talk about this.
David: Yeah, it's a really good topic, both from a personal standpoint and from a business standpoint. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day of what's going on outside our own environments. Especially with the news. Everybody's talking about different things that are happening regarding the economy, the stock market, all kinds of things that are happening.
When we focus too much on the things that are outside of our control, we basically abdicate the things we can work on that move the needle for us.
Kevin: Do you feel like people are even more focused on stuff they can't control? Like what's happening in the world and in the news now because of how much news is thrown at us in so many different ways with social media and whatnot?
David: I think so. Yeah. I think it's always been like this. But yes, it does seem to be more of an epidemic lately, than maybe it has been in the past.
I remember being exposed to this concept, I think it was in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Stephen Covey was talking about your sphere of influence.
Kevin: Mm-hmm.
David: Where you basically draw a circle and you say, okay, inside this circle is what I can control. And everything outside. It is what I can't control, which is basically the world and everything else. Right.
Kevin: Which is, which is a lot of stuff.
David: It is a lot of stuff. If this is the circle, then everything outside the circle off into infinity is the stuff you can't control. Exactly.
In a situation like that, the more you focus inside your sphere of influence, the bigger it gets.
So when you're focusing on the things that you have control of, you end up having control of more things.
When you focus your attention outside the sphere of influence, the smaller it gets. That's because you're not working on the things you can actually control.
And so for those of us in business... When we are able to really pay attention to that, you can grow your sphere of influence. You can control more of your own environment to accomplish the things you're looking to accomplish.
Kevin: Absolutely. So let 's get a little specific here. Let's talk about sales for a second. 'cause one of the things I think about with sales is that sales teams can get really tied up with market conditions and what competitors are doing and all that.
How can sales teams kind of focus on what they can directly influence.
David: That is such a brilliant example because it's so true. In sales meetings very often you'll have conversations. "Well, this person's doing this, or this person's doing that. Or these people are cutting their price." It's all valid.
Those are all things that may actually be happening in the marketplace that we have to respond to.
But the first thing to do in that situation is to say, how can we flip the script on this?
How can we turn this into something that we can do that is going to be better, different, and received by the market in a way that makes what they're doing less important.
Because we're not going to be able to control what they do, or how they do things. That's outside our sphere.
Now, being aware of those things is good. But then it really boils back down to what are we doing in our business that is causing that to be a problem to us?
Because if we're doing things well in our business, then whatever it is that they're doing shouldn't be a problem.
Of course, that's not always the case.
I mean, there are things that they'll do that are going to cause us to have to adjust, adapt, all that sort of thing. But when we focus on the things that are actually within our control, then all of that becomes a lot easier.
Kevin: Sticking with sales a little bit, I feel like a lot companies or a lot of sales teams have a really long sales cycle, which can make it really tough to focus on the things you can control.
Is that something you see? Is there any advice for people on how to take their sales cycle and bring it down to a place where they can manage it better?
David: Yeah, that's a great question as well. I think a lot of times the sales process is maybe longer than it has to be, depending on the frequency of contact and the way that we're able to interact with people to accelerate it.
Now, as you indicated, there are some professions where the sales cycle is going to be longer in some than in others. you can't really change that.
The only thing you can really do from a circle of influence standpoint in terms of what we can do, is to make sure that we are there in front of them in advance of every bit of information we need from them, all the things that we're going to need to be able to get from them, and to make sure that they're staying on track with whatever they have to do in order to move the sales process forward.
Kevin: Mm-hmm. You know, we talked a little bit last episode about automation, ai, stuff like that, which I'm sure it's going to come up probably every episode.
But can businesses get too distracted by that, where they're not focusing on what's already working and they're just sitting there chasing the next cool new thing?
David: I think shiny object syndrome is real. Yes. That can definitely happen. I imagine that's happening in some organizations. In a sense I almost wish that more people were paying attention to it and trying to figure out how to integrate it now as opposed to later.
It seems to me that a lot of people are sort of thinking about it in general terms and focused on it in general terms, which is sort of outside the sphere, right?
So if we're looking into things like how to best use AI in our business. Then you want to say, okay, well how can I apply it with what I'm doing now?
What can I do to be able to utilize AI to allow me to be in touch with these people in a better timeline, a better timeframe to be able to provide them with more helpful and useful information in a faster way so that we can keep things moving forward.
So I think as long as we're utilizing the tools that we have available to us to be able to focus on our primary goals of whatever growing business, growing sales, making sure that we're outperforming our competition, then we're focused on the right things.
Kevin: How do you kind of coach people or business owners when you talk to them about staying with the times, but not going too far and chasing that shiny object?
Especially if someone may be not all that tech, you know, they might be tech averse. So like how do you coach people?
David: A lot of times in the conversations I'm having with clients, the shiny object thing is definitely an issue.
So part of it is just pulling back on that and saying, okay, let's see how that actually works into what you need to do. Because it's really tempting. You see something shiny, you want to go after it.
I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people and they're like, well, you know, I want to focus on sales, but I really need to get my website done first. And I'm like, okay, well, that's usually a big project. It usually takes a lot of time, more time than you need.
It usually takes more money than you need and it needs to be funded by something.
So there's an example of where I will say to a client, listen, I think if we focus on this one thing first, we can allow you to generate the money, the revenue you need to be able to fix up your website without you having to take a lot of time to do it because you can pay somebody else to do it.
So I think a lot of it boils down to identifying what is the thing that they really need to get done so that we can then gear their time and attention, gear their activities toward the activities that'll make it happen.
Kevin: About five years ago, almost exactly I think, we had one of the ultimate things that we cannot control in a pandemic.
How do some businesses Thrive? What do they do differently in those situations to stay alive? I mean, obviously certain ones, there's only so much you can do, but when you saw what businesses survived or even might have thrived during that time, what did you see them do?
David: The biggest thing was the ones who stuck their heads in the sand, they were DOA.
They were just out of luck. Because they were too scared to move and too scared to move is not a good recipe in business.
So at the time, the biggest focus that we were working on with our clients was to make sure that they were just remaining engaged. They were getting in touch with their prospects and clients in the ways that they could, because all of a sudden it all changed.
Right? And there are salespeople who only sold face to face. So the first thing for them is, okay, can't sell face to face. How are we going to do it?
Which different marketing vehicles are we going to use to reach people? Is it going to be more email? Will it be more text? Is it going to be more Zoom meetings? What is it going to be?