Are you driving your revenue or just along for the ride?
At some point later today, you will more than likely be driving a vehicle to get somewhere. Whether that is home, to a meeting, to the store, to pick up the kids, etc., you will get in your car, turn the key and drive to your destination. On the way, you will do things such as push the brake and the gas, steer, use your blinker, and adjust your mirrors. You will decide on a route and take it. You will be wary of other drivers.
In fact, a great deal of your journey is dealing with outside influences that are beyond your control. Traffic lights, weather, other drivers, and a myriad of other things are constantly trying to derail your plan. However, you take control of your environment and accomplish what you set out to do. Nearly all of it will be done without even really thinking. It has been turned into a nearly instinctual action. And the majority of the time, you do it very well and the results speak for themselves.
So why is it so easy to drive ourselves to a destination, but we can’t drive our companies sales or results. Think if we could develop the habits and instincts that drive our revenue and do them without thinking much like those that keep us safe in a vehicle. What could we accomplish? How much easier would our job be?
Instead, most people opt for the easy way out and blame all the outside forces at work. They blame the market. They blame suppliers. They blame employees. They blame bad luck. They blame, they blame and they blame… Taking responsibility and control of your own destiny never enters their mind. The really said part is that in spite of themselves, they are taking control of their destiny. They are just pushing it in the wrong direction. They are making a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and destruction vs growth and success. The very thoughts they are having cause them to not do the actions required to reach their goals.
It is as if they are driving the car with no hands on the wheel and hoping they won’t crash. I am pretty sure ‘Jesus take the wheel’ is a song meant as an analogy, not a literal suggestion. Yet we ‘give up the wheel’ in our business everyday when we allow sales to happen instead of making them happen. I often ask clients what else they could do to drive sales. Usually the first response is ‘nothing…’ My response to that is ‘If your life depended on it, what would you do?’ Amazing the ideas that start flowing. Luckily, our business isn’t usually life or death, but if we start to think of it as in our control as opposed to being a victim of circumstances, watch the results change.
I challenge you. Take control of your revenue. Believe you can affect it by your actions. Invest in pushing your business forward with the belief that it will pay off. Worst case scenario, I would rather go down swinging versus fall meekly to the floor with a whimper about how ‘unlucky’ I was.
