Contractors need clarity, focus and execution

FT. WORTH, TEXAS — Contractors, like many small business owners, spend a lot of time doing and not enough time thinking. As a result, some of the things they are doing are not productive.

“Your results change when your thinking does,” business coach Tony Jeary, “The Results Guy,” told members of Quality Service Contractors at the group’s Power Meeting XL here.

Jeary covered a number of topics from his book, Strategic Acceleration, including clarity, focus and execution.

Business owners need to create results, Jeary said, pointing out that results change when the owner changes his thinking. “Results matter,” he said. The owner’s job is to create the correct results.

To get the contractors thinking about speed, he had them break into small groups and discuss their use of social media. LinkedIn has become our Rolodex, Facebook is our yearbook, and Google is our encyclopedia and Yellow Pages.

“How many of you sleep with your phones?” he asked. Jeary used the immediacy of social media to make the point that life is moving faster and perhaps revising your business plan just once a year isn’t proactive enough.

Contractors must efficiently deal with the speed of life, he said, because they have no choice; the pace of business will never return to the way it was.

Contractormag Com Sites Contractormag com Files Uploads 2014 03 Tj Sa Red Bookcover

The three enemies of speed are a lack of clarity, a lack of focus, and a lack of execution. He asked the contractors to think about how clear they are about what they need to do with their businesses for the next year, how focused they are on the right things and how well they are really taking action to get those right things done.

It’s easy to get sucked into tasks that don’t produce results, many of which involve doing something that somebody else should be doing.

To maintain focus, Jeary recommended that contractors put together a list of measurements or metrics, say, 10 things that they need to track every day.

Jeary urged the contractors to think about their thinking because our thinking is based on our beliefs. Our parents, our peers, or the things we learned in school formed our beliefs. Our beliefs filter the way we think. They can create blind spots. And beliefs determine results. To get around the blind spots, he recommended that contractors turn to a mentor, a business coach, a trusted colleague, and use resources like business books, videos, and audio recordings. He noted that while business books can be expensive, most of the authors have recorded YouTube videos with their content that’s available for free. Watch business videos for five minutes a day, he said.

Contractors should try to look at situations from multiples perspectives. For example, visualize what your banker wants, then give it to him. He’ll probably give you money.

Add another 15 minutes a week of strategic thinking, he urged, to focus in on the best use of your time.

Strategic IQ matters. “Without vision you’re just traveling but rarely arriving,” Jeary said. He advocates using “vision boards,” actual physical boards on which you post pictures or text about what you want to be or become. The visual reminder of what you’re aiming for brings clarity.

Clarity pulls us toward the results that we want and acts as a filter so we make better choices. Focus helps us push aside distractions such as paperwork or email so we can figure out where we are and where we want to go. What do you want to take action on now?

Finally, do it now, he urged. Everyone has a tendency to procrastinate. He was thinking about writing a book titled, Do It Later: The Ultimate Guide For Losers, but he didn’t get around to it.

Connect with me on Twitter @bobmader