Struggling to Grow? You May Be Sabotaging Yourself!
Your biggest roadblock to small business growth isn’t the competition—it’s you. Here’s how to get out of your own way and grow stronger.
KickStart: Face up to the hard fact that YOU are your worst enemy! Then “hold yourself accountable” with Steve’s 5 Action Steps.👍🏼👍🏼
I’ve gotta be honest with you—the biggest roadblock to true success in my residential services business? It wasn’t my competition, the economy, or even that one horrid customer I still have nightmares about! Nope.
More often than not, the thing holding me back was… ME!
I often remind my online training students of the old comic strip where Pogo famously said, “We have met the enemy and… he is US!” I hate to admit it, but this one hits home with me every time! 😮
Think back to when you started your home service firm. Like me, did you launch your business simply because you needed to pay the rent? In fact, to dive deeper…
Were you A) a bit of a rebel, B) didn’t like being told what to do, or maybe you were C) just flat-out “unemployable”?🙄 (OK, I’ll raise my hand 🖐️ for all three of the above. Yep, totally guilty here.)
Reflecting back, when I started out in business, I gloried in the freedom. Nobody breathing down my neck, no time clock, no boss. Just me, doing my thing. But here’s the danger, folks:
Freedom without discipline will eat you alive.☠️ Yep, very quickly what I call…
“Displacement Activities” will sneak in. You know what I mean—busy work, tinkering, little side projects that keep you feeling “productive” while the very real priorities (the stuff you don’t enjoy or even fear doing) sit untouched. Sound familiar? 😟
So, what should you do when you realize that you are your own worst enemy?
The Fix: Hold Yourself Accountable
Here’s the hard truth: Left to our own devices, we “cherry-pick”. We do the fun stuff we enjoy, and we avoid the hard, uncomfortable tasks that actually move the needle. (Can you say “Deeply analyzing my financial reports?”)
Days blur into weeks, weeks into years, and before you know it, you’re stuck in the same spot for your entire life, wondering why things haven’t changed.
💡 But success doesn’t come from comfort—it comes from doing the things most people simply won’t. That means you must create a step-by-step Action Plan that forces accountability from YOU!
Here’s my four Action Steps that have always worked for me:
Define the target. Write down where you want your business to be in five years. Get specific—number of techs, how many trucks on the road, the size of your shop, your gross revenue, your net profit. Put real numbers on it.
Brain dump the steps. Don’t worry about the order. Just list out every single Action Step you’d need to take to get from where you are now to where you want to be. (And no, “daydreaming bigger” doesn’t count—these need to be concrete actions.)
“Divide and conquer”. Break those steps into yearly chunks. What needs to happen first? What can wait until year three? From there, drill down into monthly steps and even weekly tasks that will get you there.😁
Pin it where you can’t ignore it. Put this plan somewhere you’ll see it daily—bathroom mirror, office wall, wherever. And here’s the key: 👉 cross items off as you finish them. Nothing feels better than watching progress (and your bank account) stack up!
👌At the end of the day, no one will care about your business as much as you do. Nobody else is going to keep you on track. So, suck it up! It’s on you—and yeah, sometimes that means fighting yourself.
But if you A) stick to the plan, B) hold yourself accountable, and C) do the uncomfortable stuff consistently, you’ll win this oh-so-very-important personal battle with yourself. So, the big question is: WILL YOU? Hmmmmmm…?🤷🏼
Never forget that your friends “down in the trenches” here at Home Front Success 1) have “been there-done that”, 2) really do care about you and, 3) are ready to help! 💖
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