Plan your course: Navigating uncertainty
At Elevation Business Consulting, we are focused on helping small business owners end the daily operational scramble. The journey involves building a map to guide you to success on your terms. The process starts with finding your trail so you can plan your course and then keep yourself moving forward on your trail.
Follow the journey of a small business owner eager to end the daily chaos and spend more time doing what he does best to expand his impact on his local community. By studying Travis from Hunchback Graphics’ experience, you will be better positioned to start your journey to end the daily scramble.
Previously, Travis found his trail by identifying his current state, determining where he wanted to go and then evaluating his daily activities . With his roadmap built, he was faced with new questions about how to proceed as demands on his business change.
Plan your course: Navigating uncertainty
Hunchback Graphics is busy. They are actively delivering many projects, all with different scopes and timelines. This aligns with Travis’ desire to build the firm to serve as a one-stop shop for the branding and design needs of his clients. With growth comes uncertainty and Travis was facing questions on how best to proceed.
With the roadmap he built with Elevation Business Consulting, he was able to assess the best course moving forward.
The struggle
Prospects were interested in partnering with the Hunchback Graphic team and Travis was fielding multiple calls a week. The requests for support were different than what he typically received. Prospects had preferences for platforms and applications beyond what his team was commonly working on. As he spoke with potential clients, he became concerned the tools his team were most efficient and comfortable on were quickly becoming obsolete. He questioned whether he needed to invest in the new tools, change the services he partnered with, or simply stick with what he knew and turn away the work.
Taking Action
Travis researched reasons the applications and platforms were gaining interest or if it was simply luck that they all came at once. His network confirmed that it was simply a timing thing and there was no significant change in features or status of any of the tools. With that, he revisited his roadmap to determine what an expansion of tools would mean for his forward progress. Hunchback Graphics desires to be a well-rounded design shop that offers a wide breadth of branding and design services. Adding strength across multiple platforms would be an assist as they grow.
He confirmed with his co-owner the level of interest and capacity they each had to increase efficiency with the additional tools and agreed to move forward with the projects. Technology is constantly changing, and Travis committed to staying current on trends and features of different tools. Maintaining that knowledge will better equip him to navigate the uncertainty that comes with requests for support in new areas.
Success
Hunchback Graphics has been able to deliver on the new projects and received additional work as a result. As more prospects inquire about support on specific applications, Travis is better equipped to assess how the tool would fit into the firm’s toolbox and determine how much to invest in expanding the team’s knowledge. Facing the uncertainty of changes to demand for specific tools reinforced to Travis that his roadmap is a great guide for decision making.
Plan your course: Prioritize your daily activities
At Elevation Business Consulting, we are focused on helping small business owners stop scrambling through their daily operations. The journey involves building a map to guide you towards success on your terms. The process starts with finding your trail so you can plan your course and then keep yourself moving forward on your trail.
Follow the journey of a small business owner eager to end the daily chaos and spend more time doing what he does best to expand his impact on his local community. By studying Travis from Hunchback Graphics’ experience, you will be better positioned to start your journey to end the daily scramble.
Previously, Travis found his trail by identifying his current state, determining where he wanted to go and then evaluating his daily activities . Now he needs to prioritize how he spends his time.
Plan your course: Prioritize your daily activities
When creativity strikes, Travis responds. He loves designing and supporting organizations throughout his community. His work with Elevation Business Consulting was helping him understand what was causing his chaotic days and he has been taking steps to alleviate the craziness of each week. When he documented everything he was doing, it was clear what activities would be the best use of his skills and most critical to the organization, but he needed to be able to prioritize what was right for him to focus his attention on.
The struggle
Travis was going from task to task each day, trying to get as much completed as possible. It was haphazard and he felt like he was frequently dropping the ball or missing out on new opportunities. His side projects would add more activities to his plate. He was not prioritizing his time on activities with the greatest impact. His was being stretched thin, particularly when project deadlines suddenly became imminent and urgent. Travis needed to determine the best use of his time and energy for Hunchback Graphics and carve out time to complete those activities effectively.
Taking Action
The first step was to evaluate what activities were most critical to the success of the organization. Travis identified client deliverables as a crucial activity that needed more of his focus time. With many deadlines for projects, all with unique scopes of work, he needed a way to keep timelines on track and know how much time he needed to complete projects. He worked with a colleague to set up a project tracking document that organized each client’s deliverables, expected time to complete, and due dates. With an easy list to maintain and reference, Travis was able to carve out specific blocks on his calendar to work on each clients’ project without scrambling to hit a deadline.
Success
Travis starts each week checking in with his co-owner and referencing the project tracking sheet. With all the specifics in one place, he can prioritize the projects that need the most attention in any given week and determine how his co-owner can best support him. In addition, he can better manage contractors that support him on his projects to ensure all the client deadlines are met. The frantic pace to meet deadlines is reduced and Travis has freed up the brain space to be creative and design, which will lead to even more opportunities to impact his community.
Find Your Trail: Evaluate your daily activities
At Elevation Business Consulting, we are focused on helping small business owners stop scrambling through their daily operations. The journey involves building a map to guide you towards success on your terms. The process starts with finding your trail so you can plan your course and then keep yourself moving forward on your trail.
You are invited to follow the journey of a small business owner eager to end the daily chaos and spend more time doing what he does best to expand his impact on his local community. By studying Travis from Hunchback Graphics’ experience, you will be better positioned to start your journey to end the daily scramble. Previously, Travis assessed his current state and then determined where he wanted to go. Now he needs to spend time evaluating his daily activities.
Find Your Trail: Evaluating your daily activities
As we have learned, Travis has ideas. He chases opportunities to use his creativity and gets energized by what he can create. It often results in frequent scrambling to complete the activities required for the business’ success. He knew something needed to change when he engaged Elevation Business Consulting, but he was not sure what the change would entail.
The Struggle
Ultimately Travis wants to design all day. He loves his work and enjoys jumping from project to project, idea to idea. When inspiration strikes, he chases it. It keeps him energized throughout the day until he realizes there is a ball that is going to be dropped in a different area of the business. When he rushes to complete the other tasks, the quality is not up to his standards and the process takes longer than expected or is rushed. As the only employed owner in the business, he feels alone in making decisions and driving projects from proposal to completion, which causes him to question the quality of work he is creating. As a result, he is moving at a frantic pace that is neither healthy nor sustainable and does not move the business forward to the extent Travis would like.
Taking action
A key component of his engagement with Elevation Business Consulting was reducing the chaos of each day and focusing on the priorities for the business. The first step in reducing that chaos was to document everything Travis did over the course of a week including how much time was spent on each activity. Once he completed his week, Travis was shocked to see how much time he was spending on proposals that did not generate significant income. He spent a weekly call with Elevation Business Consulting evaluating why the proposals took so long and realized that he was procrastinating starting proposals and agonizing over every word and how the services were offered because he did not have a colleague to bounce ideas off or have review the content. Feeling the pressure to create strong proposals without a reviewer created stress which resulted in an excessive amount of time being spent on the process. Once at the root cause of the issue, Travis reached out to his co-owner to ask for support. The two agreed to meet weekly to work through proposals and other bottlenecked areas of the business.
Success on your terms
Meeting weekly with his co-owner, Travis found inspiration to generate proposals without anguish or procrastination. He was better able to create documents knowing he had the support of his co-owner and a second set of eyes before any proposal was sent out. While he still spent his day going from project to project and idea to idea, he no longer procrastinated or felt stressed about meeting proposal due dates.
There were other areas of Travis’ daily activities that he was able to streamline and outsource, but none had as significant an impact as recognizing how much of his time was being overtaken by proposal writing. His mind was blown with how simply evaluating how he spent his time could create so much opportunity to do more better.
Stay tuned for the next step as Travis moves forward to Plan Your Course: Prioritize your daily activities.
Find Your Trail: Clarifying where you want to go
At Elevation Business Consulting, we are focused on helping small business owners stop scrambling through each day. The journey involves building a map to guide you towards success on your terms. The process starts with finding your trail so you can plan your course and then keep yourself moving forward on your trail.
You are invited to follow the journey of a small business owner eager to end the daily chaos and spend more time doing what he does best to expand his impact on his local community. By studying Travis from Hunchback Graphics’ experience, you will be better positioned to start your journey to end the daily scramble. Previously, Travis took the first step as he articulated his current state. Now he moves into clarifying where he wants to go.
Find Your Trail: Clarifying where you want to go
Travis has dreams and ideas and is constantly identifying new opportunities to use his creativity. Sometimes the projects require his graphic design skills and other times he gets to leverage other artistic talents. Travis is busy but is not sure if he is going in the right direction to achieve his personal needs, goals, and desires. Early in the engagement with Elevation Business Consulting, he spent time clarifying where he wants to go to allow him to create a more focused roadmap for Hunchback Graphics.
The Struggle
In addition to supporting clients with all their graphic design and branding needs, Travis is also involved in many community projects, from murals around town, to creating a weekly podcast and generating printed apparel for local shops to sell. There are many different avenues he is using his creative skills that he enjoys but it limits the time he has available to grow Hunchback Graphics’ impact. Travis felt stretched thin and felt that how he was running Hunchback Graphics may not provide the right opportunity to achieve his personal needs, goals, and desires. He enjoyed all the creative outlets but questioned if they were supporting him or preventing him from getting where he wanted to go.
Taking action
There are three elements of identifying where you are going. Your needs, goals, and desires. Travis needed to spend time exploring and clearly articulating his personal needs, goals, and desires. Once he had clarified where he wanted to go, he could tie the creative opportunities and the strategic direction of his business to moving himself closer to his destination.
As Travis worked closely with Elevation Business Consulting, he walked through the three areas and brainstormed what was keeping him motivated to build his business. He was able to zero in on what he wanted to achieve in each area.
Needs from owning the business
Travis wants to sustain his lifestyle but is not willing to work crazy hours to pull it off. He needs to maintain harmony between his work life and his fun personal activities. Recognizing that the fun, creative components will oftentimes bleed into Hunchback Graphics’ time and resources, he needs to ensure the creative components will create value to his and the business’ brand and reputation.
Goals in owning the business
As Travis evaluated his goals in owning and running the business, he knew that a big goal was to have a collaborative environment to use his creativity. His energy is always highest and most productive when he gets to feed off others enthusiasm and ideas. Knowing that he thrives when he is interacting with others, he has the personal goal of making enough progress on building Hunchback Graphics to sustain his business partner fulltime. Once he is benefiting from the collaborative energy of a working together, he wants to move towards creating a team of diverse, creative talents to support client work but also expand his opportunities to design.
Desires from owning the business
Travis’ dream is to make a visible impact on the community. He can tie the many activities and outlets he pursues as opportunities to give back to the county and enhance the reputation of the businesses and causes within the region. He aspires to have the capacity to do more philanthropically and provide services and support to organizations that are meaningful for him. Travis knows that Hunchback Graphics is the vessel that will allow him to achieve his desire to elevate the county and community and everything that makes his hometown great.
Success on your terms
Once Travis had spent the time articulating where he wanted to go, he was able to assess the many activities he was currently engaged with, and new opportunities based on how they aligned with his needs, goals, and desires. He started planning to transition out of activities that did not align and identifying areas in which he needed engage more or better promote. Having clarity on where he was going guided his decision making not only for creative activities, but also on how he supports clients for Hunchback Graphics.
Stay tuned for the next step in Finding Your Trail: Evaluate your daily activities.
Find Your Trail: Your Current State
At Elevation Business Consulting, we are focused on helping small business owners stop scrambling through each day. The journey involves building a map to guide you toward success on your terms. The process progresses from finding your trail to planning your course with continued guidance to keep you on your trail.
You are invited to follow the journey of a small business owner eager to end the daily chaos and spend more time doing what he does best and expand his impact on his local community.
Each month we will explore the steps of building your map through the eyes of Travis from Hunchback Graphics. By studying his experience you will be better positioned to start your journey to end the daily scramble. When we first meet Travis, he needs to find his trail. The first step he takes is articulating his current state.
Find Your Trail: Your Current State
When Elevation Business Consulting was engaged, Travis needed to stop scrambling. A creative, fast-paced and highly motivated entrepreneur, he loves helping clients with their graphic design needs. He gets an idea a minute and wants to design all day. Unfortunately, owning a successful business requires focusing on the operational components as well. Travis asked Elevation Business Consulting to help him build a roadmap to achieve success on his terms and conquer his frantic pace.
The Struggle
While there are two partners in the business, only one is working full-time for the business. All sales and administration are on Travis’ plate in addition to most of the design work. There is plenty of work and the business is making money. Both owners have a vision for growing the business and expanding its impact across the county. The challenge is that sustaining growth requires attending to operational components consistently and neither owner has the time or passion for that portion of the business.
Each day is busy with many priorities to attend to. Travis often loses focus when he starts to attend to the operational aspects of the business. Generating invoices, following up on accounts receivable, crafting proposals, coordinating marketing activities, and leveraging social media get pushed to the back burner until things get desperate, resulting in a chaotic fire drill to address those tasks that had been ignored. The daily activities of running the business result in the entire business feeling haphazard and not well- positioned to achieve its goals.
Taking action
The first step in ending the daily scrambling and building a roadmap to success is to identify the business’ trail. A critical piece of knowing which trail to take is to identify your current state. Together with Elevation Business Consulting, Travis assessed the different activities of the business and evaluated which tasks on his plate prevented him from selling and designing. He identified the fire drills that consistently came up and which activities he intentionally moved to the back burner. The guided conversations with Elevation Business Consulting created the space for understanding the primary reasons for the issues: low interest, lacking skills, and minimal perceived value to the business.
Once there was a clear list of activities that were going to be a challenge for the business owner to stay focused on, discussions revolved around barriers to changing how the daily operations of the business are managed. Identifying steps to overcome roadblocks and make progress towards relieving the chaotic feeling would ensure the roadmap to success was more comprehensive.
Success on your terms
In a small business, changes cannot always occur immediately. Resources are not easily accessible to delegate or shift tasks. However, the sense of relief felt by Travis was immeasurable. Simply understanding the cause of the scrambling and the challenges that would be faced to make changes provided a glimpse into what was possible for Travis, his business partner and Hunchback Graphics.
Stay tuned for the next step in Finding Your Trail: Clarifying Where you Want to Go