Roslyn's Food for Thought - Time for Change

Today’s guest post is from my business partner and partner in life Roslyn Rozbruch. This post is a perfect reminder to look at the power of change...we cannot have change unless we are willing to change! 

"If what you’ve been doing doesn’t give you the results you want, whether it be your business or personal life, consider changing the way you do things."

Over the holidays, I was on the phone with a friend who has her own small business. It was late at night and, as she described it, she was in gift wrapping hell as she toiled away wrapping gifts for over 300 of her clients. When I asked her why she didn’t have one of her assistants doing it, she said they were paid hourly, and she didn’t want to spend the money.

I get it — we solo and small business people need to be aware of the money we spend. But
I’m also a big picture person, and more important, I’m a marketer! The point is, when my friend said she didn’t want to spend money to pay someone to wrap presents, all I could think of was, “But what if you used that time to implement a marketing idea and you ended up making more money than you spent paying someone?”

If what you’ve been doing doesn’t give you the results you want, whether it be your business or personal life, consider changing the way you do things. Take a moment to think about something you aren’t happy with and find a different way of going about it. But even if you decide to make some changes, it’s not always that easy to do. With the start of the new year, many of us have the mindset to eat healthier, work out more, and mail out more referral letters! We start off like gangbusters and slowly peter out and go back to old ways.

So of course you need more than willpower to change. Everyone has a different course of action that works for them, but what works best for me is to take baby steps and make small changes. A perfect example is the referral letters. People mail them out, business comes in, they are happy with the success, and they stop mailing them. They email Michael and say “What happened?” Then they tell him they need to start up their mailings again. Referral letters are one of the least expensive and most effective ways to get new business, but somehow mailing them is like going to the gym as part of a New Year’s resolution — January you are going every day after work, but by February you are only telling yourself you’ll go — maybe you’ll start up again in the summer.

So instead of sending out a ton all at one time and then burning out from massive action, how about sending them out on a regular basis but in smaller intervals, like on a daily or weekly basis? Think about spending some money to hire a temp, college intern, or a part-time person to help you mail out those referral letters! And that goes for anything you want to change — switch it up. Hopefully with your new way of implementing, you will feel more motivated, because motivation is key to making that change of habit. As you think about what you want to change or your to-do list for the New Year, go about it with a new attitude, and do it differently!

- Roslyn Rozbruch