Starting Your September

If you think September starts on the first, you’re already behind.

Here’s what I’ve noticed the very best directors do, particularly in August. They take one hour, completely undisturbed, door shut, phone away, and they look sixty days ahead. Because sixty days after that, it’s Christmas. Two blocks of sixty days, really, one to prepare, and one to actually trade through it. So how are you preparing for the first one?

But here’s the bit that separates the top ten percent from everyone else. In that hour, they’re not making a list of a dozen jobs. They’re focused on one question, and one question only. Not the money question, not directly anyway. The question is this. What would my customers like most? What could I do to make their life a little better?

The answer’s almost never about cost. It’s some kind of service, some way of making the journey easier, or happier, or simpler than it was before.

Even if all you sold was a tin of baked beans, you could still find it. Slip in a proper recipe card, something simple, quick, and genuinely good, and suddenly you’re not just selling beans, you’re making someone’s Tuesday evening a bit better.

If you can find that in a tin of baked beans, there’s certainly something sitting in your business waiting to be found.

So take your hour. Look sixty days ahead. And ask yourself just the one question. What would make my customers’ lives better?

That’s something for the grey cells, isn’t it?

Do you need someone on your side? I’m Mark Smillie.