“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein
Entrepreneurs – I’m sure you are not going to be happy if someone tags you as “insane”. However, unfortunately, many of us fit Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity. That’s right – we are often doing the same thing over and over again with our business, yet we expect thing will be better for our business.
I am occasionally in such situation, too. In fact, it’s not too uncommon that people are doing the same thing with their business for years, and hope things will be different someday.
In today’s uncertain economic situation, there are many of us who expect things will be better but NOT doing anything in our power to turn things around for the better of our business. The bottom line, many struggling entrepreneurs just love to wait… and wait… and wait… until everything is too late to recover from.
That’s insanity. And I believe I – and you, too – don’t want to be insane. Now, how to be entrepreneurs with the right state of mind (lol)?
1. You may do things that are positively insane
Escape from your and your industry’s “norm”: Try different things.
I never wonder that a spa and an auto repair shop would be one, great package to offer customers, but some entrepreneurs manage to do that: Having a spa for pampering customers while their cars get repaired. So, if you have a repair shop that’s not performing so well, you might want to consider trying that :)
Perhaps your business was burned by the expenses of your office premise – then why not sending all of your staffs away for remote working; doing their jobs wherever they want, anytime they want. This way, you can nearly eliminate all operational expenses related to office premise and improve employee satisfaction (and yes, happy employees mean increased productivity.) Even better, use cost-effective virtual office for a regular meeting with your mobile workers.
2. Implement the 80/20 rule
Most of the time, what hinder businesses from growing is because the owners are focusing on the wrong thing. Pareto’s law – or popularly known as 80/20 rule – is often a solution that is underrated.
Perhaps you focus on 80 percent of customers who nag you all the time with their often unreasonable requests – but they only contributed 20 percent of your total revenue. It’s time for you to “fire” them and focus on the 20 percent of your great customers who bring in 80 percent of total revenue.
Perhaps you are working hard to get things right on 80 percent of business activities that contribute less to your business. It’s probably best for you to find ways to eliminate some – if not most – of those activities so that you can focus your effort on those activities that are responsible for generating most revenue for your business.
3. Take action. NOW.
The above are worthless if you are not taking action. So, the main key to cure your “insanity” is by taking action. Stop standing in the middle of the road: Choose your sides, and keep on going.
While you are at it, don’t be afraid of failure; just keep on going. Why? Because in one way or another, you will meet one somehow. If you fail, be sure to make the most of it – learn lessons well; otherwise, your failure is a useless gig. Adjust your actions and try again… and again… and again…
THEN you will start seeing results and become one of only a few entrepreneurs that are entirely sane.
I am working hard not to be insane; I hope you do, too! Good luck in your endeavour!
Ivan Widjaya
Properly sane