The Business You Want Starts With Your Daily Habits
1% better compounds daily
I recently re-read the powerful book Atomic Habits, in which author James Clear makes a profound point: We don’t rise to the level of our goals, but rather fall to the level of our systems. In business, systems equate to habits.
If you’ve read much of my drivel in past years, or heard me speak, you know that I rant and rave about systems. In particular, I often refer to daily practices as being the key engine behind business growth. Small, daily habits compound over time to build your business into what you want it to be. Getting into the habit of implementing small, daily systems yields large dividends over time, just like regularly adding to your investment account every month helps you secure a more stable retirement.
Some examples from my own past business ventures:
Sending a daily batch of postcards to new IRS tax lien filings for my tax firm.
Queuing up the daily limit of email invitations to continuing education webinars via an event management platform.
Making at least three introductory phone calls to large accounting firms or state CPA societies for my software startup.
Yes, these were all marketing habits for me, but this practice isn’t limited to just marketing. Here are some other ideas spanning a broader spectrum:
Creating a daily piece of content that is cross-posted to multiple social media platforms.
Writing at least one paragraph for your magnum opus.
Reviewing your revenue and expenses every morning from the previous day.
A short daily safety briefing with your employees to maintain awareness of on-site hazards.
A morning grounding ritual to help you be in the best state to help your clients.
Scheduling time in your calendar every day to fix one specific annoyance in your business.
James Clear calls such things the power of “1% better” — making micro-advancements that, again, compound daily. Tony Robbins calls this CANI, “continuous and never-ending improvement.”
The beauty of developing such a habit is that it becomes easier over time, and it feels lighter than trying to tackle something as a big project, such as one massive marketing push or a two day safety stand-down. In a larger business, recurring habits and systems also help create workplace culture, which is inherently led by you, the business owner.
You don’t need to develop more than one habit to start with. Simply choose one area of your business, a very small area, and start with that. It should soon be readily apparent which thing I chose: Writing these daily missives. As I return to content creation, writing these short Substack posts helps get my Business Brain™ going again, since it’s been fairly dormant the past few years.
Please leave a comment on this post indicating what daily habit you’d like to develop in order to transform your business into the business you desire.
Progress Prompts
What is the smallest marketing touchpoint you can commit to daily?
What personal or professional skill do you most wish to sharpen, and what is the smallest daily thing you can do to sharpen that skill?
What is one data point you could track each day to make better business decisions?
What is one task you could automate or template today to reduce friction tomorrow?
Which internal or external communications could benefit from consistency?
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