Three steps to guarantee success for your business

The end of the first quarter has passed and though some of us might have ticked off many off our targets, others may unfortunately be behind. However, don’t lose hope; it’s not too late to start afresh and get those first-quarter goals going.

As opposed to throwing in the towel, here are a few clear steps to getting on track towards a year of success.

The first step is to:

EXAMINE PAST FAILURES

What was the last year or quarter like? Were there failures, mistakes, missed opportunities? Take a look at them and examine them.

How could they have been avoided? Are they recurring incidents? What could have been done differently?

Face the outcomes not with a sense of defeat but instead without self-judgement and with an acceptance that it is the past, and cannot be changed, but only learned from..

The Jamaica Observer spoke to Jeffrey Azan, motivational speaker and founder of

Select Start, who shared his professional point of view on these steps.

According to Azan, “To put it simply, intricately understanding past failures can be one of the best things any business owner can do. There are many who know the quote, ‘success leaves clues’, but ignore the rest of the notion ‘failure leaves blue prints’. As Thomas Edison said, he did not fail 9,999 times in his attempt to create the light bulb; he learnt 9,999 ways how not to make a light bulb. Don’t ignore the lessons you got last year in the form of failures; they are the keys to unlocking your businesses full potential.”

CELEBRATE THE WINS

Though you may have made some mistakes in the first quarter, it cannot have been all bad. There were inevitably some wins and successes. Look at them, celebrate them, congratulate yourself or your team for the work done and great things accomplished.

Did you have the courage to tackle a difficult issue? Did you take a bold step that worked out even better than you could have envisioned? Did you manage to go to bed on time and get more sleep, or find more time to spend with your family? Whatever it was, no matter how small, celebrate those wins! Even if no one else is celebrating them.

Says Azan, “Small wins are not to be forgotten or pushed aside, each win is a milestone. You could not have achieved it without hours of work, focused effort, and consistent action. Celebrating your small wins can be the very springboard one needs to achieve a bigger win.”

Jeffrey continues, “Might I add as well, drawing a comparison, if you don’t know how to manage your salary, there is no way you can manage a company’s revenue — celebrating the small wins is practice in handling the big achievements.”

STRATEGISE FOR THE FUTURE

It’s so easy to either get stuck in the failures of the past, or limited by old successes, but neither is a good thing. Neither your failures nor your successes define you. You are not a failure because you have failed. Success is a journey, so we should continually press on to to try new things and attempt new challenges and hopefully achieve new successes.

It is for this reason that as an entrepreneur and business owner you should strategise for the future. Based on the assessment of your past failures and successes, what can you learn? This information can successfully inform your next steps. Could it be that you have realised you require additional training in an area so as to better master it? Maybe you discovered a new strength in an activity and can include this in your repertoire of possible offerings or can apply it in your business? Could it be time to drop some old goals and add others?

“An idea without action is a dream; action with out an idea is wasted energy. An idea and action carried out without a plan is a pointless journey,” shares Jeffrey.

“In everything we do in life there are a certain number of constants: where we are currently, what we want in the future, why we want it, and how we are going to achieve it. Your strategy is a plan made up of these constants… Many business owners don’t strategise because they have failed to seriously address one or more of those four questions. However, the few that do take the time to answer these questions and connect them find that life begins giving them what they want. Truth is, it’s not so much that life has given them what they want. It is by following the strategy they set