Three truths:
It takes about seven years for every cell in your body to replace itself. So, basically every 7 years you are a whole new person.
Each year you are in business, your skills are growing, your knowledge base is growing and you are learning more about your customers, what they really need and what others in your industry are doing.
Change is constant. These days, it’s not only constant, the speed of change is accelerating.
What do these three facts mean to you as a business owner? Every 5 – 7 years you need take time out to look at your business from the perspective of evolution.
Incremental change can happen anytime, but evolution is a commitment to look at really shaking things up. Every five to seven years I slow the business down to give myself time to look at every aspect of my business. What have I learned and how can I use it. What is happening in the business world in general and what do I need to bring into the business. What is happening with technology that can help my business or help my clients. How is the brand working? Have I changed so much I need to upgrade the brand, the image and all the core elements of my marketing.
Over the years my colors have change from brown on beige to blue on white to a more full color blend of blues, greens and yellows. My tag lines went from non-existent, to “The Business Organizing Professionals”, to “Liberate Time to Think and Space to Act”. My job title has evolved from consultant to professional organizer to time liberation agent. My service offering started as general office organizing – filing systems and the like to business organizing – a much broader perspective beyond just the office to the business as a whole. You get the idea – shake it all up!
I guarantee you that if you regularly come up with incremental improvements and shake everything up with an evolutionary shift every 5 – 7 years you will never burnout, never get bored, and never run the risk of becoming irrelevant in the markeplace when change happens.
How would you evolve your business?