I made a post on Facebook the other day which read…

“One of the secrets of life is making stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.”

And a number of people liked it, so I want to talk about that now.

Recently, I lost my assistant for a few months over the festive season due to personal and health reasons. And that means I have been handed several hours of administration tasks a week I wouldn’t normally have to do.

That’s painful because there are so many other areas of my business that I want to focus on.

But I cannot ignore things like responding to phone calls… paying bills… sending out invoices… etc. or the business wouldn’t run very efficiently.

Initially, I was frustrated. And to be honest, I still am.

But I also believe this could be one of the best “stepping stone” opportunities I’ll ever receive.

Why?

Because it’s so painful to do all of this stuff I don’t normally do I am systematising it. That’s right.

Every time I do something, I ask the question:

“Will I need to do this again?”

And if the answer is yes, I put it in a little folder I’ve added to my computer called “systems and procedures.”

Now what I’ve also started doing is passing these jobs across to my virtual assistant as I systematise them.

And as I am doing this, I am also realising there are things I have done in the past which I could have outsourced.

Now I was chatting with Google AdWords expert, Mike Rhodes yesterday (who is a former e-Myth consultant) and he was saying this act takes a lot of discipline.

And it’s so easy to say “I’ll just do it myself for now. It will be quicker than training someone up.”

But the reality is your results are very different short term than long term.

And just like if you stuff your mouth with chocolate now, you’ll feel great for a few minutes only to suffer the effectst later.

If you do the job yourself now, don’t systemise it, and just get on with business – you’ll get it done faster. But you’ll be suffering through that job for the rest of your business life. And that’s why most business owners (including me) aren’t as productive as they could be.

Systems are the key to greater productivity. But very few people do it because it takes more hard work.

It’s the same with marketing systems. Most people fumble along making cold calls and doing things “off the cuff” and ineffectively, rather than getting the knowledge they need and taking the time to implement something which will make the phone ring week in, week out for the rest of their business life.

So what will you do?

Take the short term pleasure, long term pain approach of cold calling and off-the-cuff marketing?

Or set up the customer generating systems which will generate consistent profits for your business over the coming years?

Author Bio: Scott Bywater is a direct response copywriter and the author of “Cash Flow Advertising” and “More Customers Made Easy”. Although Scott is accepting very few clients, he generously shares his experience on copywriting at his web site at http://www.scottbywater.com

Category: Business
Keywords: copywriting,advertising,marketing