Borrow this Technique from Football and Basketball to Dramatically Improve Your Contracting Business Results in the 2nd Half of this Year

July 8, 2019
Category: Achieve Consistent Business Success,Be a Highly Effective Owner,Business Tips,Define Your Vision and Plan

If you watch sports like football, basketball or soccer, you know that what happens at halftime is critical to the success of the team. That’s when the team discusses what worked and didn’t work in the first half and decides on what adjustments are needed in the 2^nd half to win the game.

Well, when the clock struck midnight on June 30^th, it marked the end of the 1^st half of this year for us small business owners and it’s a great time to pause, head for the locker room and make the halftime adjustments you need to ensure that you have a winning year.

Unfortunately, because this is such a busy time of year, I’ve found that most business owners don’t do halftime or make halftime adjustments. Do you? If you don’t, you should!

So, I’m going to share a simple, but powerful technique that I use with my clients that I call it the “Check-In” process. This “check-in” process will only take you about two hours and has the power to improve the growth and profitability of your business dramatically in the second half of the year. It sounds like a great use of your time, doesn’t it?

Here’s how to do your two-hour halftime check-in

To make it easy for you to stop and check-in with your business, I’m going to give you a step-by-step outline of what you need to do. But I’ll only give it to you if you promise to block out two hours of uninterrupted time to do it. And when I say block out 2 hours, I mean 2 hours with no phone calls, texts or questions from employees. Put a do not disturb sign on the door or whatever it takes to help you stay focused. Do we have a deal?

OK, here are the steps:

1. Take stock of where you are compared to where you expected you’d be at the end of the first half of this year.
   • Take a look at your financial results (your sales, gross profits and net profit) compared to your goals and compared to last year. Are you where you expected you would be?
   • What are the top wins or successes so far this year that you want to celebrate? What other positive things happened?

It’s important to celebrate the successes as well as be critical of what’s not working. So, pat yourself on the back for all the good things you’ve done over the last six months.

1. • Also, list the things you intended to do in your business in the 1^st half, but didn’t get around to?
2. Determine what’s working and not working in all areas of your business.
   • Now let’s look at positives and areas needing improvement in different areas of your business. Think about your financial results, your team, your service delivery, yourself and any other area of the business you can think of.
     • What are the positives?
     • What areas stand out as clearly needing improvement? Which Areas? What needs attention?

Write down as many things as come to mind. The idea in this step is to come up with as many as you can think of. Don’t edit yet.

• Write down any challenges or barriers you see to reaching your goals for this year?

3. Set your priorities for the 2^nd half of the year
   • Now, boil down that big list of challenges and areas needing improvement that you created in Step 2 to identify the 2 to 5 key priority areas that you will work on in the 2^nd half that will make the greatest difference in achieving your goals this year.

Why only 2 to 5 areas? Because most of us business owners only have time to tackle 5 or fewer priorities at a time, and it is better to get a few important things done well than to have a long list of priorities that never get done! Been there, done that, right?

1. • Also, list the things that you did in the 1^st half that worked well and you’ll continue doing.
   • Finally, create a simple action plan for each priority area you will work on in the 2^nd half describing the steps you will take and the timing. This will help ensure that you will complete your key priorities.
2. Get back in the game

Ok, your two-hour halftime us up. It’s time to get back in the game. Keep your 2^nd half game plan close at hand and use it to guide you to a winning year!

It works! You will make you thousands more and save countless hours if you just add this two-hour halftime “check-in” process to your business game plan.

This one simple activity of checking in and making halftime adjustments can literally make the difference between success and floundering in your business. Really. It will keep you focused on your goals and help you focus your limited time, energy and money on the things that matter most to achieving them. It will also save you countless hours because you won’t be wasting time on things that are irrelevant or don’t work.

One final thought: if you have a management team, have them do this check-in process for the area of the business that they are responsible for too. It’s a great way for you to make sure that they are doing everything that they need to do to ensure their function’s success this year and, if you find that they are not focused on the right things, it’s a great coaching and development tool!

Give it a try for you and your team. You’ll be glad you did!

Tweet