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It’s not uncommon to have times in building your business where you feel like you’re not making any progress. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, many very frustrated small business owners have felt this way. You may have been afraid this is due to lack of prowess. More likely, however, you have come up against one of the common problems in building. Realizing this can help you work through to the other side. Here are a few tips to help you achieve greater progress in building your business.
Set Clear Goals
To reach a goal, it has to be set in such a way that it is specific, attainable, and has a time scale for when it needs to be finished. Often those setting goals make the mistake of accidentally setting goals that are too nebulous. Sure, you can have a five-year plan for the future, but your next step needs to be attainable within a feasible amount of time. This way your team members know that it’s possible to achieve, and with measurable outcomes in a realistic timeframe.
Identify and Eliminate Problems
The goal of a Gemba walk is for a manager or business owner to learn from those who are doing the work itself. Your responsibility is to watch how work happens, and ask what complications there are in specific actions. Is there a place where injuries happen? Is there a spot where heavy lifting could be prevented with specialized tools? Is there a backlog at some point? A Gemba walk involves managers observing processes firsthand. Finding an efficiency specialist can help you as well.
Look to your Mentors
It’s easy during a pandemic experience to feel isolated from your mentorships! Take time to see who is in your network, and who has had similar experiences. Chances are that each successful small business owner in your network has had similar feelings of being “stalled” at some point. To haul your business out of the ditch you feel like you’re in might take some specialized equipment in the form of better networking and asking better questions of your mentors.
Your business benefits from your prowess every day, and you can benefit from the experiences of others. Try a Gemba walk to break yourself out of your rut, and then talk to your mentors. Your network and mentorships will have ideas that work! Only then can you set your goals effectively.
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