Brainstorm, Extract the Details and Execute

How many times have you heard others say "I was going to do this" or "I wish I had done that?" Not just business people, all people. I believe that one of the dividing lines between those who realize their dreams versus those who just have a dream is procrastination, also known as the arch enemy of success. 

Not one person on this planet is void of some type of gift or ability, yet majority will settle for dreaming instead of putting in the time and effort necessary to achieve the dream. As a business owner, when you are interested in streamlining processes or improving your product or service, a simple formula to use is Brainstorm, Extract the details, then Execute! This also works for the planning process before you start your business, or begin to bring your vision to fruition.

Brainstorm

Take time and allow your brain to think about the issue at hand. Do you need to improve your product or service? Are you consistently receiving negative feedback from your customers? How can you bring your dream to life and start your business?

Be sure that you have identified the correct issue, and not mistakenly narrowed down a symptom to a bigger issue. Brainstorming will allow you to assess everything surrounding the issue. Rambling to a co-worker or jotting down notes on a pad might help in this process. The goal is to allow your mind to focus on nothing else but the issue at hand, whether it's your dream, your vision, or anything else you need to address in your business. 

Extract the Details

This is where you begin to organize all of the information your brain just poured out. The brainstorm can leave you with much more than you need, but extracting the details will allow you to stay on task. If you were brainstorming ways to have a shorter turn-a-round on orders placed on your website, you may have thought of pricing the USPS, UPS, and FedEx based on the sizes of your product. Perhaps you realize that hiring a part time courier 3 times a week will really make a difference, and you need to look into hiring someone. This is an easy way to get sidetracked away from the original issue and leave it unsolved. Yes, hiring someone is crucial and related, however, you must continue on in extracting all of the other details you uncovered to make your process run smoother. It might include: setting a cut-off time for deliveries, creating a filter in your website email to make sure no orders are accidentally placed in the spam folder like before, and instead of forwarding emails, setting a calendar reminder on your mobile device to check it every 4 hours. 

It is really easy to get carried away with one side of the solution if you are not careful. In the example above, all of the solutions gathered will ultimately reach your goal, but hiring the courier and the details that go along with that can easily cause you to stop short of solving the entire problem. By the way, hiring a courier might require it's very own brainstorming session -- might be cheaper to have USPS pick up the orders with their flat rate shipping service when you work out the details. 

Execute

You know the problem and you know the steps you need to take, but don't stop there. This is where many stop. Just knowing the problem is solved is a big burden off their shoulders, but unless the action is executed, the problem remains. Take every detail included in the problems solution (as many have several steps involved) and begin to mark them off the "to-do" list. Do not give yourself any room to rest until every solution is implemented. Taking the example above, the solution would include: posting the new cut off time for deliveries on the website; creating rules in your email and checking spam folders at least twice daily; stop forwarding emails from domain email and manually checking it as often as necessary.

ChrissyBiz Solutions provides clients with customized, results-driven web marketing strategies. Our primary business writing duties include: article marketing,  search engine optimized web copy, blog content, social media, press releases, and newsletters  designed to drive traffic to your website and influence buyers decisions when purchasing products and services.

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