Next Steps After Achieving Success in Business

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For every business, there comes a time to pause and evaluate. September is a good time for this because planning for the next calendar year has begun. Determining success can be tricky. Once you achieve your goals, do you run by them and continue continuing? Or do you stop and celebrate, and then keep doing the things you did trying to duplicate your accomplishments?

Start by Defining Success

Before you can figure out your next move, you have to answer a more basic question: what does success actually mean to you and your organization? This is the single most important factor in the whole process, and it is the one people skip most often.

What does success mean to YOU. Not what did someone tell you it is supposed to mean to you.

Success cannot be universally defined, even though the world, your industry, your friends, your family, and other businesses may try to enforce their definition upon you. For one business owner, the primary goal might be revenue growth. For another, the most important achievement might mean working fewer hours while maintaining the same income. For a nonprofit organization, the best result might lie in the impact made that year — the number of people served, not dollars raised. Without a clear, personal and organizational understanding of success, you have no way to know what you have achieved. Therefore, no compass exists to decide what comes next.

Take the Pause for Reflection

Take the time to write your vision of success down on paper. Be specific. Are you trying to achieve a sales or profit number? Are you working towards a lifestyle? Is there a milestone for your team to achieve? Your answers will shape every decision that follows. The meaning of success as defined by you is critical to everything – your plan, your strategy, and the actions you will take to move forward.

This discussion reminds me of my client. I will call her Sydney. When we began working together, she expressed her feelings of exhaustion, frustration, and dissatisfaction. Her business had recently achieved the highest numbers since it had opened. Yet, she felt she had no time or energy to celebrate. She felt drained and missed the moments of tranquility she remembered from the past.

“When I talk to most people, they congratulate me on the brand awareness and high revenues and tell me to keep growing,” she said. “I want to maintain the momentum, yet I need some R&R.”

As you might have guessed, Sydney decided to focus on building a team the next year. Her goals were to hire an excellent virtual assistant and a smart director of operations. She continued to run her business with those two tasks heading her agenda. She believed success for her would exist only when she once again found moments to breathe and enjoy the business she built.

Feeling the Pressure of Achievement

Dealing with success often brings anxiety. Clients who achieved all their goals tell me this is the most dangerous place to be. They fear scaling their business means they will lose their lifestyle. The new work pouring in requires working more hours.

Hiring more staff is equally time-consuming. Reaching out. Finding people. Training people. Firing the wrong fit people swiftly. Then finding someone else. A circle of time suck. Maybe or maybe not. The strategy and executing on a well-developed plan can make a great impact on the results.

One of the scary things about becoming successful is needing to evaluate, strategize, and delegate. If you bring in more work, it does not mean you have to work more. It means you have to learn to trust, plan, build a team, and trust the team and the plan.

Why is it scary? The unknown enters the mix. Many people fear the risks you take by trying something new. It is safer to stick with the present. That philosophy kills growth of the business and of people.

The Strategy Must Match the Business Need

I coach emerging and established businesspeople in professional services and nonprofit organizations. As we work together, they learn to create the habit of taking a break to reflect, consider, and examine their success.

Businesses need different things at different times. To help dissipate some of the uncertainty around what the next steps might be for your business, I created a list of a few that are common.

• Expanding the team.
• Purchasing items to streamline the operation. This can include software like CRM (Client Relationship Management) systems, billing and accounting programs, and items particular to the business such as computers and machinery.
• Finding new space which fits your needs and your budget.
• Learning a new skill. Professional development to increase leadership skills for owners who are now leading a team for the first time is one possibility. Or, you may realize you need to earn a certification specific to their field so they can offer more services to their clients.
• Starting a new line of business. For some, “what’s next” means looking at avenues for passive income — an online course, a membership, or a licensed product. This can be a way to grow revenue without growing the workload in lockstep.

The key to the solution is that it solves your particular problem — and that problem only comes into focus once you know what success looks like for you. Take some time this weekend to define it, reflect on what you want, and write it down.

Think about how it will feel at the end of the year when you endeavor to evaluate the performance of your organization. How will you acknowledge success? When you see the results, celebrate!

And if you need support in finding your direction, give me a call. I can walk you through it and help you develop your new strategy.