The Three Factors That Will Give You An Edge
Commitment
Have you ever wondered why you don’t always get the results you want? As unpalatable as the answer is, it is likely to be that you didn’t commit enough energy and resource to it. There are, of course, many situations where it simply wasn’t worth any more effort! Fine, but don’t whine about the result and don’t tell yourself that you didn’t have the resources or someone else beat you. Someone else worked harder, committed more time to research, to practice, to the job, checking their work, making 100% sure, slept less and spent less time doing the things that they wanted to because they “did what they had to” to succeed.
My business partner Les Probert has a saying for every situation and one of his favourites is “You can’t outsource your own press ups”. This says it all and is a great test of your thinking and your commitment to what you want to achieve.
Peter Beck of Rocket Lab just released a report on why their first rocket didn’t reach orbital space. It was because a third party component had not been configured correctly. The end result is only as good as the weakest element. In this case resulting in a safety motivated termination prior to reaching orbit because of a false reading in the 3rd party equipment indicating the rocket was not where it actually was which was caused by a delay in the readout re-calibration.
The thing to take away from all this is, not to expect fantastic results if you aren’t applying a comprehensive commitment across every area, and that includes your partners.
Strategy
Having a superior strategy will give you an edge and in many cases will be the only difference between the results achieved by two groups working equally as hard. In business one of the best strategies I have ever used to improve profitability is the magic matrix. It typifies all good strategies in that it is multi faceted, simple and easily implemented!
A 10% improvement in a couple of areas together creates a magic compound effect that can change a business beyond belief.
– Number of new customers
– Average spend by each customer
– Frequency of purchase
– Gross profit
One of the outcomes may mean lifting your prices next week. If this is the case, be confident in the knowledge that a 10% increase will be questioned by less than 15% of your customers so most will not be concerned, especially if you are 10% better than your immediate competition.
Resilience
This is the ability to hang in there, stay committed to your plan and belief, and keep going. This is easy to talk about but much harder to put into practice as hanging in there will at times mean you need to endure significant adversity.
We have seen recently in our local elections with Matiria Turei and Andrew Little. However, everything has a turning point and if you can stay true to your plan, things will eventually turn around and start to work in your favour albeit that it may be different from your original plan.
Resilience often requires a stubborn belief, an inability to give up, a conviction to absorb the discomfort and to stay on course and go to the end. There are some great stories that encapsulate the attitude of cultures through history, that incorporated resilience into the very way they lived and survived. These can seem to us like impossible feats of super-human mental and physical toughness. In times of great need, the human psyche seems to be able to go within and find a super strength that we don’t rationally know exists. To that end some of the human race’s greatest shows of resilience seem to have occurred when there was no other option but to prosper or be wiped out.
In modern times we can take heart from knowing we are capable of enduring far more than we are prepared to commit to our life’s endeavours, so challenge yourself to endure right from the very beginning.
Mark Collins is a business advisor markcollinsnzltd.co.nz
Read more of Mark’s columns here.
