Working closely with online entrepreneurs I understand firsthand that checking the done box is not all that exciting to them. Why is this a problem? Missing deadlines leads to issues with achieving a goal and/or finishing an important revenue-generating project on time. I know what you’re thinking how do you making it task completion exciting? The solution is simply creating a winning record in online business.
Stay with me here I'm not necessarily talking about the number of leads, or the number of offers, or the number of clients, that's not what I'm talking about with creating a winning record in online business.
In The Game
I spend a great deal of time at sporting events and talking about sporting events because my kids loving playing sports in school. And that's great. I love it. I love it. I love it.
Prior to any game, we discuss the record of the opponent, along with who they played and the individual statistic of the players. Y’all numbers tell stories.
This got me thinking about how do you keep track of a winning record in online business? To gauge how things are going. Look at it from a different angle, besides the everyday metrics which cause a glazed-over look in the eyes of almost every online entrepreneur I know.
Why is this important in your business?
You must be wondering why is this important, how does this relate to creating a winning record in an online business, and it's pretty simple.
Let me break this down for you if an action item is completed on time it’s a clear win. If it’s not completed on time it’s a clear loss. Pretty simple right!
And here's the thing as an online business owner you play an important role in taking a project across the finish line or achieving a business goal. Those action items aren’t always exciting to the owner.
Break it down
In order to achieve a goal, it needs to be broken down into action items. The same thing in order to complete a project, it needs to be broken down into action items, everything that you're doing and trying to accomplish in an online business needs to be broken down into action items.
If your online business is not at a place where you can hire a project manager or OBM to figure out the project plan for you, this is how you’d figure out the action items for yourself.
Begin with a mind sweep of all of the possible action items that you need to either complete the project, reach the goal, do whatever it is that you need to get done in your online business.
Next, you put those actions in order how they need to be completed.
Start with the end date in mind, working backward from the last action to the first action begin to assign a completion date.
If you want to reach this goal by x date, then you're going to work backward on your timeline assigning dates.
Note, this is important if you haven't done that action before make sure you overestimate the amount of time it will take to complete. Add a little buffer.
When I’m breaking down a plan if I feel it will take a team member 3 hours to complete, I’ll estimate it to take 6 hours, always double up that time.
I can almost hear you thinking, what about Parkinson's Law? The old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted.
Still, I’ve found it’s better to have the extra buffer time than asking a team of contractors to find more time in their already full calendars. If it takes less time, great! Getting a bit of extra time in a project is super exciting, guaranteed you’ll find something else that you can fill it with.
Creating a Winning Record
You must be wondering how do you create a winning record in your online business?
Here’s how it works for every action that you complete on time is considered a win.
And every action that doesn’t get completed on time and on the due date, that's considered a loss, boohoo.
I’m a Notion enthusiast for almost all of my task management, I’ve added two fields one for the win and one for the loss. To figure out my record at the end of the week or the end of the month I filter on the date range in a table view and sum the total at the bottom.
Here's my suggestion on how you can go ahead and track to make sure that you actually have a winning record, because what you track actually improves.
If you have a project management system that allows for custom fields, then create a win field, and a loss field. You could also use the same field and either give yourself a 1 or -1, depending on if your win or loss.
If you're not using a project management system that allows for custom fields you can create a spreadsheet with your action items with a column for your wins and a column for your loss. Summing them up at the bottom for the record.
What does creating a winning recond tell you
Creating a winning record will shine a light if action items are getting completed on time or if action items aren’t getting completed on time.
Occasionally things come up and the action item isn’t completed by the actual deadline or due date. The keyword is occasionally.
If the record has more losses than wins, it’s time to take a look at what’s going on inside the online business to cause this.
That’s valuable information to use and improve on the record.
Is creating a winning record something you’d like in your online business?
How fun is this little spin on getting action items done? I'd love to hear if you found this beneficial.
So go ahead and leave me a comment below if you did. Thank you and I appreciate you have a wonderful day.
Little Side Note
With action items, it's essential as the business owner to only be working on action items that ONLY you can do. Can the action be done by someone else?
✁ Just a Snippet
Here is just a snippet of the important points, you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪
- Feel like creating a winning record in your online business?
- This inspiration came from the many sporting events and discussions we have in our household.
- This got me thinking about creating a winning record in online business.
- What could be a simple way of creating a winning record in online business?
- Give yourself a win when you complete the action item on time, a loss if you do not.
- Yes, see simple right.
- Here is the thing, in order to achieve a goal it needs to be broke down into action items.
- If you do not have a project manager or OBM to do this for you, begin with a mind sweep of every action possible to reach the goal.
- Put each action in order by how they need to be completed.
- Every action item that is completed on time is a win! Woohoo.
- Every action item that is not completed on time is a loss. Boohoo.
- After you've reached your goal, you'll have a Win-Loss record that you can improve on for the next goal. (: