Streeten Blog

How running a business is the same as competing in a race.

I was out this week and lucky enough to meet the Gold Medal winning Olympic Swimmer Adrian Moorehouse. He mentioned something that has completely inspired me in business.

As a competitive swimmer in my 'early years' I know the huge amount of discipline that is required to reach a certain standard, and continue on to a high level of achievement. It was only this week that I realised what was happening at the time.

Business is like Olympic training because you need to follow a systematic pattern of processes that result in the final goal. If I want to win a Gold Medal at the Olympics (and unfortunately I never had the burning desire to do so) then I would need to lay out careful plans of ALL the steps to go through that will take me to the final destination.

So...that's what Adrian did.

He worked on every individual area that would come together to be used in the final competitive race. That included things like stamina, diet, mental strength and self confidence.

There is no surprise then that when he applies the same principles to running his business, by focusing attention on every area (sales, marketing, accounts, production etc.) the results are just as impressive.

Think of the goal

By setting the goal of what to achieve, it's then just about sticking to the regime of doing what needs to be done and to a very high standard.

So I now feel inspired to think of my business in the same way. Not to try and win the race right away, but build up towards the ultimate achievement.

"there's nothing else to do except think when you have to swim all those lengths"

It was just under a year ago that something suddenly occurred to me.

To offer the best service to my business customers I should be able to help not only with design, but also the way they ran their business.

Believing I was an expert in business I never thought of getting help from someone else…oh how wrong I was!

Since taking on a Business Coach, our turnover has tripled, systems have been made more efficient, and the general way things are now done has been improved beyond recognition.

The results truly are extraordinary, and although I try my hardest to be cynical about it I continue to be amazed.

So what does this ultimately mean?

Well, its not just about having a successfully business, it runs a bit deeper than that.

If I can get the business into the habits of best practice and keep to them, then the services and products that result will be of a much higher standard.

That means happy clients.

With our business in a cycle of continuous improvement, we can now reassure our customers that the way we do things is based on tried and tested principles.

As the number of website design companies starts to overtake double glazing salesmen…defining your unique service has never been more important.

Good at design AND business is a great combination.

If you want to find out more about the excellent business coach we use, please get in touch.

One of the biggest challenges we face with website jobs in particular is getting them finished on the agreed time. Realising this was a problem that should be resolved we looked for ways of improving things.

Our solution was to establish a simple, but consistent timeline process for all projects. It doesnt seem like a huge thing to do, but it made a big difference to the general management of work. We had tried in the past using various project management software, but the complexity seemed to take up too much time for something that didnt have to be so advanced.

Keeping to the usual 'less is more' philosophy, we went back to using an excel spreadsheet. It was a good exercise to try and create something that could be applied to any job we take on.

Timeline Solution

The left column had a list of all the stages in the project. The weeks then continue to the right with a column for each week. Filling in a cell with a name/colour shows when each stage needs to be completed by, and who is responsible.

And that was it...Nothing too clever, and nothing especially new, but the difference it has made already is remarkable.

This is now one of the first things we do for every project, however complicated. It means we know where we are, and so do our clients.

Sometimes it's just the small changes that can make a big difference.