When you or your people are getting ready to start a new project or launch a new product or initiate a new change, what is the primary emotion that you (or they) experience? Exactly! Fear.

And what increases that sense of fear in most people? For most of us, it’s an unrealistic standard we expect we won’t meet (i.e. we’re pretty sure we—or they, or it—won’t be perfect). For example,

* Joe knows he ought to follow up with Janie within the first 24 hours after a networking meeting … but he doesn’t. Why? Because he’s not sure what to say or how she’ll respond (in other words, he’s afraid the follow-up call won’t be “perfect”).

* Or, ABC restaurant wants to change its menu dramatically to focus on a different demographic. They’ve talked about it for six months now, but still haven’t pulled the trigger. Why? Because they’re afraid they won’t get it “right,” right out of the gate.

* Or, Mohammed knows that the current CRM (customer relationship management) system is broken. It’s been terrible for years. Yet, he still won’t change the CRM out for a better solution. Why? Because he’s afraid it won’t be “perfect” on day one.

In other words, you and I are our own worst enemies whenever we set ourselves up with an unrealistic expectation (i.e. to be perfect—especially the first time out).

So, what’s the solution? How can we eliminate or reduce the fear we normally experience so we (or our people) are more likely to take action faster?

I. Change the Goal

The answer is to change your goal from perfection to learning—or, to put it another way, from trying to be a “Perfect Business” to being an “Iterative Business.”

Since no one on planet earth is perfect, setting perfection as the standard is self-defeating. Furthermore, since no one gets everything right on the first try, setting ourselves up for a standard that no one can achieve, is ridiculous.

At its core, fear is created when we have a negative expectation about a future event (Note: fear is, by definition, never based on what is, only what might be. If the thing we feared was actually true then we’d be in pain or we’d be angry or disappointed, etc. But, fear is not about reality—it’s about an expectation that something in the future won’t turn out the way we’d like it to turn out).

So, when we set ourselves up with an unrealistic standard (i.e. perfection), we’re actually increasing the likelihood of a negative outcome which is why we feel “justified” in our negative belief.

But what if you were to change that expectation from perfection and getting it right, right out of the gate to getting something “imperfect” out into the world so you can learn from your customers/clients/members/attenders/prospects/leads etc? What would that do to your expectations?

Exactly! They’d be lowered. In other words, if your goal was simply to get something out into the world so you could learn from it and then iterate in response to that feedback, then all of your efforts and those of your people would have a much lower bar to entry. Reduce the standard, reduce the fear.

So, what would it look like in your life and in your business, if you simply saw all of your business as an iterative process, not a perfect one? What if you no longer made the standard, “it has to be perfect,” to “it has to be good enough to test.” What would that do to your business?

II. Live the Iterative Way

This is one lesson programmers can teach business owners and entrepreneurs like you and me. No programmer, in his or her right mind, thinks that any software program will be perfect on day one. Their goal is simply to get a version out to people that they can test.

If you’re lucky enough, you get to test out a beta version. Based on your feedback and others, they iterate and make changes. What they originally thought might be useful, may not be. Things they thought people wouldn’t want, they may want. Directions they thought were obvious, may not be. Etc.

Based on these “learnings,” software programmers go back and fix the code (i.e.  they iterate). They get beta v. 2 out. Go through the same process and then get beta v. 3 out.

When the software gets released, it gets released as version 1 (which presupposes that there will be other versions—i.e. that this version isn’t perfect).

In other words, if you want to speed up the process of getting a product or service out or a project complete or marketing campaign off the drawing board, take a look at the world of programmers—and learn from them.

Remove the “pursuit of perfection,” from your vocabulary. Focus instead on the “pursuit of learning,” and you’ll radically increase the speed at which you and your people get things done.

Trying to get something perfect the first time out is intimidating. But trying to get something out that’s good enough to get feedback on—that’s not an intimidating.

Moreover, by getting something out sooner, you’ll get valuable feedback BEFORE you’ve invested too much time and money. There are few things more frustrating that trying to create the “perfect” product or event, only to discover that no one really wants that thing that you’ve just spent the last twelve months creating.

So, if you want you and your business to get more big things done faster, my encouragement would be to change  your standard and to adopt a more learning and iterative mindset to you business. You’ll be amazed at how much more gets done this year as soon as you do (plus, it’ll be a whole lot more fun!).

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you have some other ideas about how to speed up what gets done in your business, make sure you add them below in the comments section (or click here >> if you’re reading this by RSS or email)

“Everyone knows” that people buy from people they know, like and TRUST. And clearly, “everyone knows” that testimonials are one of the best ways to create trust and credibility for any product, service and/or company (i.e. when a third-party says you’re great that’s perceived to be more valuable than when you say it about yourself).

So, here’s my question, if “everyone knows” these truths to be self-evident, why don’t more businesses use them? And moreover, why aren’t they getting new ones every week and/or month?

In fact, I recently did an experiment. I googled, “Accountant Charleston,” just to see if my gut was right. I then went to the first five websites that Google returned and guess what? Exactly! There wasn’t even ONE testimonial on any one of those sites. I actually had to click through to the tenth site to find one site that even had one testimonial on it. Unbelievable!

But one, two or three testimonials aren’t enough. If a business has been in business for years and can only find three clients or customers who liked the product/service they purchased, what does that say about that business? Which is why I always tell my clients to think in terms of “thirty, not three” when it comes to testimonials (i.e. you want to get a lot of them, not just a few).

So, how can you get on the bandwagon of creating better testimonials that can help the people in your target market trust that you can actually deliver what you promise (which is why I call testimonials a “credibility authenticator”)? To find out, you’ll want to keep on reading.

1. Confront What Keeps You From Asking

If you “know” you should do something and you consistently don’t, the first thing to do is NOT to do the new thing. The first step is to figure out what’s keeping you from doing what you keep saying you want to do. The second is to uncover what the misbelief is behind it.

For example, some business owners and entrepreneurs don’t like asking for testimonials because they’re afraid they’ll be rejected by the other person (i.e. they’ll hear the dreaded, “No!” if they ask, or the person will start to avoid them or not want to spend time with them, etc.).

Other leaders don’t ask because, “I’ve got too much to do.” Or, “I don’t have any time.” Or, “It takes too much time.” But, that line of reasoning makes no sense. If people buy from those they know, like and trust, then not making the time to acquire great testimonials that can radically improve the trust factor, is a poor use of time. But it does highlight a priority problem.

Other business owners don’t pursue getting more testimonials because they don’t want to be, “one of those guys,” meaning, one of those sleazy marketer guys/gals.

So, how about you? What keeps you from taking the time to get more and more of your number one credibility authenticator?

Remember, belief drives behavior. So if you want to change your behavior, you have to uncover your misbelief and turn it into a correct belief (i.e. from ” I don’t have enough time” to “There are few things I can be doing right now that are more important that getting a great  testimonial from a happy client/customer”).

2. Write the Testimonial for Them

No, don’t make it up! But, one of the “secrets” to getting a great testimony is to take the work out of it by offering to write the first draft. The rookie mistake is to ask, “Would you be willing to write up a testimonial for me and my business?”

Because most people don’t want to be rude, they’ll often say, “Sure.” But they rarely come through. Why? While their intention is good, most people aren’t writers. Trying to focus their thoughts and put them on paper is difficult (i.e. it’s work).

Some will struggle to find the right words. Others will struggle to find the time to write. And still others will procrastinate because they don’t know what to say. So, eliminate all those excuses by offering to write the testimonial for them.

1. Ask them a couple of questions about their experience. What was it like before they used your product/service? What happened when they first started using your product/service? What are the results now? What would they say to a friend to recommend that they use your product/service?

2. Take their answers and condense them down to a one sentence to one paragraph testimonial. Note: Write from their perspective, not yours

3. Send that testimonial to the person via email. Let them know they can scrap it and start all over again, adjust/edit it or approve it as is.

The benefit of doing this is that you not only end up with a better testimonial, you also have an email trail as a verification system

So, who do you need to schedule a call with to get your next great testimonial?

3. Up the Trust Factor with More Details

When you go to a website and see the phrase, hanging all by itself, “Best thing since sliced bread,” do you buy it? Of course not. You assume the company wrote it themselves to “look like a testimonial,” which actually hurts their credibility.

So, how do you avoid doing that? You avoid doing that by increasing the trust level for for a testimonial.

1.    Blind testimonial – “I was blind, but now I see.”
2.    Name – “Bill Hamilton”
3.    Position – “CEO”
4.    Company name – “Hillside Techware” or city “Brockport, NY”
5.    Website – www.HillsideTechware.com”
6.    Picture – so we can see Bill is a real person
7.    Video – so we can see Bill actually speaking his testimonial

What this means is that if you want people to really believe what you’ve included as a testimonial on your website or other marketing material, you have to shoot for at least level 4. If you go beyond that to 5, 6 or 7, even better. But, at a minimum, you always want to shoot for at least level 4.

Why? Because when someone sees a name, a position, and a company, they intuitively think, “If I wanted to check this person out, I could. I could pick up a phone directory or Google them and call them and ask them, ‘Did you really say this?’”

So, looking at the testimonials you do have, what do you need to do to bring them up to at least a level four? And then, who can you get pictures or video of?

4. Use Them Everywhere

As you read above, I regularly tell my clients and customers, “Think thirty, not three,” when it comes to testimonials. You want a ton of testimonials, not just a handful. And you want to use them everywhere.

You want to use them in your brochures, Powerpoint presentations, sales presentations, direct mail pieces, talks, PR, ezines, newsletters, blogs, etc. (i.e. everywhere).

And when you work on your website, don’t just use them on the front page or on a testimonial page, use them on your sales pages, use them on each product pages, and use them on your services pages.

Never ever be content with just a few testimonials found in a few places. You want to have a ton of testimonials—especially recent ones—that can be found everywhere. Why? Because people do business with people they know, like and TRUST!

So, what marketing materials do you need to add some testimonials to this week?

If you want to do more business with more clients and customers, never underestimate the power of this credibility authenticator. It should never  be, “something I’d like to get around to.” It should always be “something on the forefront of my mind.”

Just think what kind of impact it would make if when a potential customer/client came to your website they saw 200+ testimonials. It would be a game changer!

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you have some other ideas about this post or about testimonials, make sure you add your comments in the comments section below (or click here >> if you’re reading this by RSS or email)

P.P.S. If you want to attract more clients to your business this year,  make sure you check out my course on “Attract More Clients Like Clockwork.” It really is the “best thing since sliced bread” :-)

As a business leader, you know that the success of your business is related to the quality of the people you bring on your team. If you have a team of high level A Players, the sky’s the limit. If you don’t, then you’ll always be limited by them in terms of what you can achieve.

So, how can you ensure that you’re going to bring the right people on your team?

Well, that’s the very question that Louis Penda asked and I answered in this week’s edition of BruceTV. Enjoy!

Note: If you’re reading this through a RSS feed or email program, you can access the video by clicking here >>

Also, if you’d like to read the post I reference in this video, you can do so here (The Four Keys To Hiring Great People)

Finally, if you have a question about how to grow your business that you’d like me to answer, make sure you submit it at the following link

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BruceTVQuestion

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you have some other ideas about how to ensure you get the right people on your team, make sure you add them below in the comments section.

Barry Wood wrote in the question for this week’s edition of Bruce TV, which was, “What are the qualities that make someone a successful leader?”

If you’ve ever pondered that question or wanted to know how you’re doing as a leader, you’ll definitely want to watch this week’s episode where I share five qualities that I believe are present in all great leaders.

My recommendation would be that you first listen to the five qualities. Second, rank yourself on a scale of 1-10 (high) on each of the five qualities. And then pick one area where you’d like to improve your leadership—and come up with two or three ideas you can execute over the course of the next few days and/or weeks to improve your leadership.

Note: If you’re reading this blog post by RSS feed or by email, click here >> to watch the video.

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you struggle with delegation, you may want to check out my course on Delegation Mastery.

P.P.S. If you have some comments on leadership or think I should have chosen different leadership qualities, make sure you add them in the comments section below (or click here >> if you’re reading this by RSS or email)

Assumptions. You have them. I have them. We all have them. Some are helpful (the sun will come out tomorrow :-). Some are irrelevant (I bet Joe will wear his Redskins jersey to work tomorrow). But some are deadly and clear impediments to the growth of your business.

For example, you have assumptions about your competitors which are holding you back (they’ll never try …). You have assumptions about your customers that are getting in the way of your growth (All they want is …). You even have assumptions about your prospects that are probably in the way (Everyone in this current market wants …). But, none of those are the assumptions I want to talk about today.

No, the assumptions I want to talk to you about today are those related to your industry—meaning those rules that “everyone” assumes are true (i.e. givens), because they’re the insidious ideas that are probably hindering your growth more than you can imagine.

Not buying it yet, let me give you a few examples.

Examples of Assumptions Challenged

For years, Hertz dominated the rental car business. Everyone competed against Hertz. And where did they compete? Exactly. At airports. Why? Because “everyone knows” that the place you rent a car is at an airport. Duh! But, Enterprise came up with a different idea. They challenged the assumption and started renting cars to people who lived locally who needed to rent a car. And the rest is history. Industry changed.

For years, Blockbuster owned the video rental business (interestingly, because they broke an “assumption” that you had to buy a whole box of videos from a studio to get a few copies of the hit videos you wanted at your video rental store—a given at the time). If you wanted to rent a video, where did you go? You went to a store. Duh! “Everybody knows that!”

But then Netflix came along with mail delivery (and then online delivery) for a fixed continuity amount per month. And then Redbox came along with a vending machine model which allowed them to put up 10,000 distribution centers at a fraction of the cost of a Blockbuster store—plus no one had to commit to $17/month when all they wanted was a couple movies per month at a little over a buck per movie. Industry changed.

For years, Barnum and Bailey dominated the circus world. If you wanted to see a circus, “everyone knew” what that meant. There would be a big top, with three rings of activity going on in it simultaneously. It would be a family affair, especially designed for children. You’d have a master of ceremonies. And you’d have tons of live animals, especially lions and elephants. Duh!

But then Cirque du Soleil came along and challenged the “everyone knows” assumptions. Instead of a circus for families, they created a circus for adults. Instead of live animals, they used humans dressed up to look like animals (major cost savings). And instead of three rings, they used only one to tell a story. Industry changed.

Right now, Square is doing this to the merchant account business. For years, “everyone” assumed that if you wanted to accept credit card payments you had to have a merchant account and a terminal. Duh! But then Jack Dorsey and his team created a little 1-inch square white dongle that you can plug into the headset jack of a smart phone or iPad or Android tablet and voila, you can accept credit cards wirelessly for a mere 2.75% charge per swipe. Industry changed.

How to Challenge Industry Assumptions

So, how do you uncover what these assumptions that are the bottlenecks for your industry? You ask your team and customers. You ask them, “So what assumptions do we make as an industry about _______________ (you fill in the blank)?

A couple of ideas to get you started.

•    How to provide our solution to our customers?
•    How much money people are willing to pay to solve this problem?
•    How to make money in this business?
•    What people want?
•    Costs (i.e how much it costs to do XYZ)?
•    Where or how people will access this service/product?
•    How this is sold?
•    How this is made? Etc.

Get your team brainstorming. Write down every idea/assumption. Put them up where everyone can see them. Then, noodle on them. Every innovation occurs when someone challenges an assumption.

Does fire only come from the sky or can we create it ourselves? Is the earth flat or round? Can you put sound on a piece of vinyl and hear it later? Can you make a phone do something more than call or receive calls on it? Can you use 3-D printing to create new organs for people using their own cells?

But, and this is the key, what happens to the company that figures out the bottleneck? What happens to the fortunes of those who challenge the “everyone in our industry knows” assumptions? Exactly! Their world changes. And not by 10 or 15%. Nor even by a multiplier of 10 or 15X. But by a multiplier that ends in the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars.

So, what assumptions are hindering your growth (and the growth of everyone else in your industry)? Figure that out, and your company’s potential growth is astronomical!

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you have some other ideas or illustrations of this principle, make sure you contribute them in the comments section below (or click here >> if you’re reading this by RSS or email).

Ever get frustrated that the people you’ve hired just don’t seem to be motivated to do their work at the level and pace you want them to? Or do you ever get perturbed that your staff just aren’t as productive as you’d like them to be?

Well, if either of those are true, then you’ll definitely want to watch this edition of BruceTV where I outline four actions you can take—actions that don’t require much money—just a little time and effort, but can completely change the game for your business.

So don’t waste any more time. Make sure you watch and then apply these four ideas to your business this week!

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you have some additional ideas on motivating staff, make sure you add them to the comments section below (or click here >> if you’re reading this by RSS or email)

Ever feel overwhelmed by all the information you’re supposed to know in order to grow your business? It’s mountainous! From strategy to social media, from leadership to systems creation, from marketing to HR, from accounting to video creation, from customer service to sales and from PR to staff development—it’s just a lot to take in.

So, what does your mind want when confronted with complexity? Exactly, it wants simplicity! Which is why during session three of my Attract More Clients Like Clockwork course, I decided to unveil a simple, four part business success equation that anyone (including you) can use anytime, anywhere, whenever you want to make anything more successful. So, here it is.

In other words, if you want to succeed, you need to combine Right Thinking + Right Strategy + Right Tactics + Hustle together … in that order. If you leave out one ingredient (or don’t build in the correct order), the whole equation begins to fall apart and the results you get will be but a shadow of what they could have been (i.e. if you want to get optimal results from your efforts, you need all four elements to be firing on all cylinders in the right order).

That said, let’s take a look at each of these four ingredients and why each is so critical/synergistic to the others.

RT = Right Thinking

One of the biggest mistakes I observe most business owners and entrepreneurs making is that they move too quickly to wanting to implement tactics and ideas without understanding the thinking that needs to be in place for them to be effective … first. For example, in the case of marketing, every business owner or entrepreneur markets their business. However, you and I both know, all marketing is not equal.

So, what differentiates great marketing from ordinary marketing? Exactly! The thinking behind the action. For example, most businesses have websites, but what differentiates a great website from an ordinary one (Note: it’s not how it looks—that would be a rookie mistake)? A great website connects deeply with the best buyer/ideal client/target market prospect and it generates a lead so that business can follow up with them.

Unfortunately, most business owners and entrepreneurs don’t think like that. They think their website should be a brochure that talks about them and what they do/offer. But because everyone is driven by self-interest, no one cares about your business and what you have to offer. All they care about is their own “stuff” and how they can find a solution to a problem/issue/need/want/desire in their life.

In other words, if someone doesn’t think rightly about whatever they’re engaged in (whether it’s a strategic issue or a tactical one), they will always sub-optimize it. People lead well and people lead poorly. The difference between great leadership and poor leadership isn’t just the strategy or tactic chosen, it’s also about how the person leading thinks about the strategy or tactic.

This is why it’s so critical that you become a student of each of the six areas of executive attention (strategy, leadership, management, marketing, money and you). The more you study and learn, the better your thinking will become. It’s also why you want to create a culture of evaluation because it’s in the debriefing where you often find out the kind of thinking that lead to a poor result—and that needs to be changed.

RS = Right Strategy

Once you’re thinking correctly, you have to make sure you’re using the right strategy. Again, the typical small business problem is that business owners and entrepreneurs want to move too quickly to the tactical stage. Why is that a problem? Because it doesn’t matter how fast you’re going, if you’re headed in the wrong direction.

If you live in Charleston SC and you want to get to Los Angeles, CA, it doesn’t matter how fast you’re going if you’re headed north. You’ll never arrive at LA. First, you have to get the destination and direction right (the what or the where), then you can pick the right tactics (the how).

For example, if you’re pursing the wrong target market, who cares what marketing tactics you’re using. Or if you’re trying to offer something that the people in your target market don’t want, who cares. Or if your business model is faulty, who cares what else you’re doing. Or if you haven’t figured out how to differentiate what you do from others in your market, why compete as a commodity?

In other words, why move to the tactical stage, if your strategy is flawed. You’ll be spinning your wheels and wasting money that you don’t need to. Instead, make sure you get your strategy right BEFORE choosing what tactics to use. The order really does matter.

RT= Right Tactics

Finally, we’re al the part of the equation everyone likes. What are we to do? The problem is, you can’t pick out the right tactics if you’re not thinking rightly or you don’t have the right strategy in place. For example, if you want to reach CEOs, using Twitter is probably not your best option. Most CEOs are way too busy to have time to tweet anything. Their lives are filled with meetings. In fact, if they can get one to two hours a day to get their own work done, that’s amazing (i.e. they have no time to tweet—or get on Facebook or look at the Linkedin profile their admin put together for them and their 37 connections).

In order to pick the right tactics, you have to get the other two parts correct first. For example, if you’re a dentist, trying to get someone to switch dentists is difficult. However, over 25 percent of new movers are people moving from out of state. Offering everyone in your market a “free cleaning” would be rather expensive. But, if you chose to do a direct mail campaign to new movers from out of state who fit your target market profile (let’s say over 40 making $100K+) and offered a “free cleaning” that might be more interesting to try.

Most businesses waste a lot of money making the wrong offers to the wrong people using the wrong media. But, once you get the first two parts of the equation right, it makes selecting the right tactics, infinitely easier (and a whole lot less expensive :-).

H = Hustle

This is the part of the equation most people leave out, but it’s the finisher that makes all the difference in the world. There are business owners and entrepreneurs who think rightly about what they’re doing. They may come up with the right strategy. They may even come up with the perfect tactical plan to execute that right strategy. But, if they don’t have hustle (i.e. if they don’t execute quickly), everything falls apart.

If you haven’t seen my video on the Hustle Factor, make sure you do so now (it’s critical if you want to succeed). However, if the first three parts of the equation aren’t in place, hustle won’t make any difference (i.e. you’ll be going north fast when you need to be going west).

But, if the first three parts are in place, then hustle is what makes the difference between businesses that succeed fast and those that don’t. I’ve watched this for years. I have clients who succeed fast and those that don’t. Both have the same coach who’s helped then learn to think rightly, develop the right strategy and then select the right tactics. But some execute the plan that day and others … well, you know the story.

So, which one are you? Are you a hustler (in the good sense of the word)? And have you created a culture of fast execution? If not, you know what you need to do.

Well, there you have it. A short, sweet, simple equation for business success (RT + RS + RT + H = Business Success). Avoid it to your detriment. Use it to your advancement. It’s up to you!

To your accelerated success!

P.S. Let me know what you think of this equation in the comments section below! And if you’re reading this by RSS or email, click here >> to add your comments.

How many times have you done something that you “know how to do” (maybe something you’ve even done frequently before) and then forgotten to do one minor thing and then bam—everything fell apart?

I did that yesterday.

I had just finished “recording” the second module of my new course on Attract More Clients Like Clockwork. I clicked the “End webinar” button. Then I clicked the stop recording button on my screen casting software (Screenflow). And that’s when it hit me. The day before, I had changed a setting on my recording software from record from microphone to record from computer because I was recording someone else’s webinar—which meant that I had just “recorded” my own 90 minute webinar with video only and … NO AUDIO! Ugh!

Okay, no problem. I’m a systems guy so I have a backup plan in place. No need to panic. Because I know that things can go wrong, I not only “normally” record my webinars using Screenflow on my laptop, I also use the video recording software from GoToWebinar as my backup in case anything wrong happens with my recording. So I went to check my recording at GoToWebinar and guess what? Exactly. For some reason when I went to start the webinar yesterday, I clicked on the “Start webinar” button and the “Share screen” button, even had a second computer hooked up so I could confirm that the people on the webinar could both see and hear me well, but, for some reason, forgot to click on the third button, “Record Webinar.” Ugh!

Which meant that I not only “lost” 90 minutes of my life, I had to re-record the entire webinar last evening.

Can you relate? Or, as we used to say in the church world, “Can I get a witness?” :-)

A mind is a terrible thing to depend upon. This wasn’t my first webinar. I’ve walked through the procedure tons of times. In my head, I knew all the steps. In fact, I “normally” do a sound check to make sure the recording software is picking up the mic. But, I was running a few minutes late and somehow forgot to do that one simple step. Ugh!

So, What’s The Solution?

The solution is so simple that it’s almost embarrassing to have to admit it, but it’s true. The solution is …. a checklist.

Now, before you click away and think, “That was boring!” or “That was simple!” let me remind you that the most important things in life are usually just that …. simple.

You would think that a surgeon wouldn’t need a checklist to remind him/her to “wash their hands,” but they do. And whenever a hospital chooses to use that checklist, guess what? Patient deaths do down.

Or you would think that they wouldn’t need a checklist to make sure that the number of sponges before a surgery and the number of sponges after a surgery were the same number … but they do.

Likewise, you would think that a pilot, after hundreds of flights, would know exactly what he/she needs to do as they’re getting ready for flight. But just like the rest of us, they’re human and open to making mistakes. So, rather than depend upon a mental checklist of things to do before takeoff, every pilot around the world goes through a written checklist.

It sounds so simple. But it’s not.

It Only Takes One Missed Step

The problem is that, in most things in life, it only takes one missed step before something goes wrong. You can get everything right, but if you miss one step, it all falls apart.

For example, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to visit a church, and the battery in the pastor’s mic has gone out. Out of the hundreds of steps that are involved in putting a service together, that church may have gotten 739 right, except the one step, “Put new batteries in pastor’s mic.” And because they missed that one step, first the mic started crackling, then it when in and out, the pastor got flustered, lost his train of thought, then he had to ask the sound person to bring a battery up front, at which point we all had to sit and wait patiently until the new battery was installed. It was just one step that “everyone knows” should be done … but wasn’t.

Or I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received an email from someone who’s promoting something (a webinar, a product, a joint venture, etc.) with a bad link in it. You would think, “everyone knows” you should send yourself a copy of a mass email before sending it out to the masses. And, moreover, you should click on each link to confirm they all work (after all, this is someone who’s income is dependent upon people clicking those links). But they don’t always (which is why you and I often get the “Sorry, wrong link” email a few hours later).

It doesn’t matter how many times someone has done something. Nor does it matter that they get it right most of the time. The issue is, we’re all human—which means that none of us is perfect—which is why checklists are so important for “routine” procedures. Why? Because a mind is a terrible thing to depend upon.

Make Them For Everything

For example, a few weeks ago, I wrote a post many of you liked entitled, “Four Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Every Morning.” I’m guessing if you did, you probably asked those questions for the next few days. And if you did that, you probably realized that those four questions really helped focus your day and you were more productive. However, it’s now been a few weeks and I’m guessing that most people who read that post a few weeks ago, aren’t asking those four questions every morning a few weeks later.

But what if you had a morning checklist? What if every morning you arrived at work, you had a checklist of things to do first BEFORE you checked your email or got dragged into a long conversation or meeting? Wouldn’t that be amazing?

I guarantee you that there are a ton of things you know you “should be doing” or “would like to do,” but you just don’t remember to do them—or don’t do them consistently. But what if you had a checklist to do them?

Likewise, with your staff and employees, what kinds of checklists do you need to either create for them or have them create?

If you want to have consistent experiences for customers and clients, checklists are a surefire way to improve the experience.

So looking at your business right now, what checklists do you need to create for yourself? And then, what checklists do you need to create for your people (or have them create)?

As for me, I can tell you that I now have one for starting and actually RECORDING a webinar. Wish I had done that BEFORE yesterday.

Like I said, a mind is a terrible thing to depend upon.

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you have any favorite checklists or stories about not using a checklist, please add them to the comments section below (or click here >> if you’re reading this by RSS or email)

P.P.S. If you want to see my newly created GoToWebinar Pre-Webinar Checklist, just click here >>

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