Are you keeping up? Gotten a bunch done over the last few months? No? What’s wrong with you? It’s not much of a stretch to think it may have riled up your imposter syndrome or maybe a small bit of regret at your lack of productivity vs. “the hustlers”. Take a look at what some people have done. If you make the mistake of adopting it as your standard of what you should have done during that period, then surely you should’ve done more. Taylor Swift created an entire album over a 16 week period.
What’s YOUR story?
Seriously, it’s OK. You don’t know what’s behind their curtain. It’s not the same as yours. You can work on that, but it isn’t the point.
If you read this somewhat often, you may wonder how you’ll get that week’s suggestion done (when pertinent). You might still be working on implementing something from a month ago. How are you going to keep up? Thing is, that isn’t the goal of this for either of us.
Have patience with keeping up
When these things are discussed, my thought process is “I ran across this and/or I do this and it works. If you’re in a similar situation, it might help.” Perhaps you’ll use the info. Maybe you’ll implement some of these things in the future when you’re ready or when they’re pertinent.
Some of the things we discuss each week can’t be done quickly. No one, least of all me, expects you to do them all. Pick the things that make the most sense for where your business is at that moment (if you have time at that moment). Once you start one, keep at it. Don’t take your eye off the ball when seven more weeks of suggestions float by and you haven’t touched them. They don’t matter until they do.
Start fewer things and finish more. There will always be time to start something else once your current tasks are done. You aren’t the only one dealing with occasional chaos.
Many large businesses have the same problems yours has. Maybe the scale of the problem is different – but relative to them, the problems are the same, more or less.
They aren’t perfect either
Let me give you an example. There’s a software as a service (SaaS) vendor we use. As a SaaS vendor, the presumption might be that it’s a reasonably “modern” business that has its act together.
They didn’t bill us for 13 months. Yes… THIRTEEN MONTHS.
This is a large company compared to most small businesses. Yet simple things like getting an invoice out every month somehow failed them for 13 months (and not for the first time). Statements? Nope. Never. Not once in five years.
We were allowed to catch up with those invoices over several months since the lack of them was their fault. Eventually, everything got back to normal.
Before long, they were bought by a public company. Presumption: well-organized company. I mean, by definition, a public company has to have accounting under control, right?
16 months goes by. Still no statements. Most months, we get an invoice. At first, cashing our invoice check takes months, then things smooth out. Because we’re working on a new contract, they recently figured out that three invoices from last fall had not been paid. In fact, the checks had been stopped because they weren’t cashed after several months. We thought they were lost and eventually forgot about them (see, it happens).
They can’t start the new contract until those invoices are paid. We hadn’t received notice about them & soon they were forgotten. $40K of accounts receivable doesn’t typically get ignored when they go unpaid. Neither you or I would do that, but… it happens. We worked it out so everything’s fine. We really like the vendor & they provide quality service.
Stay focused
I tell that story because we’ve almost all had invoicing / follow up issues. You might’ve thought “we’re such a mess I’m never going to be able to do this right” etc.
Yet, the things you beat yourself up about are the same things a publicly held company sometimes does. It happens.
Maybe next week’s suggestion helps. Read them, think about (if) they can apply to your business – but don’t lose sleep over them.
Do the best you can. Improve consistently. Slow is OK, just keep improving.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on LinkedIn or Twitter, or email him at [email protected].