If you’re someone with a driven mind or another mover and shaker in the home service industry, this post is for you.
Kenny Chapman here, and I want to share with you three critical steps in planning for your business that took me years to realize.
I’m not one to look back and think about “what could have been.” I only look forward while learning from the past.
That being said, I wish I could go back and give younger Kenny Chapman these ideas to help him out.
But I can’t, and that’s OK! I’m happy with where I’m at now, but I can help you by sharing these 3 keys to winning at the home service business by dating it!
Let’s get started, my friends!
Dating Business Success
I’m super excited to talk to you and challenge your mind a little bit today.
I’ve got a question about dating business success. Imagine you wanted to take “business success” out on a date.
Now, don’t run out on me yet; I promise this analogy will make sense for a lot of you later on.
So we’re going out on a date.
First, we expect. Then, we plan. Then, we act.
I want you to just think about dating and business success: expecting, planning, and acting.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Here’s what I want you to think.
See, I’m a student of the subconscious mind.
I’m a student of human behavior.
I’m a student of why we do things.
My friends, I’m a student of triggers and a massive student of beliefs.
I want you to just kind of think back to a time that you first met somebody, and maybe it’s the partner you’re with (I won’t get into what you’ve got going on now, so don’t even ask me to go there), but here’s the thing.
I’ll just use myself in the lovely Christy as an example for you to model from there.
Think about it in your own life and how this shows up because there’s a business takeaway that I do not want you to miss here.
Yes, I mean my articles and podcasts to be fun and engaging, but never forget my goal of trying to help people in leadership and especially the home service professionals out there.
You Both Need To Be Ready
If I think back to when I met the lovely Christy and when I very first asked her out on a date, she said no.
The first time I asked her out, she said, “Yeah, no, not going to happen.”
And I was crushed.
Now I want you to stop right there and think about if you have ever asked your business to do something and it kind of said, “Yeah, no, we’re not going to do that?”
Guess what? Sometimes your business is not ready for certain things.
Sometimes it’s not positioned to be able to make effective use of the tools, the strategies, the resources, or the investment that you want to make in it.
When we think about the dating kind of analogy I’m using here today, think about that.
So the lovely Christy said, “Nope, not going to happen, pal.”
And then she, of course, came quickly back and said, “You know, I would love nothing more than to say yes, but I just recently ended a three-year relationship, and I’m on my own. And I’m really discovering who I am as a person and as a strong woman.”
She just wasn’t in place for that right now.
It all worked out in the end, and I want you to realize that same thing for you and your business. Just because it doesn’t work right now doesn’t mean it won’t.
No doesn’t always mean no in business.
In business, no mean not yet.
If I asked the business on a date and said, “Do we want to go do this?”
And of course, I’m speaking hypothetically, but sometimes the business isn’t ready, and we would have gone nowhere if I would’ve forced it.
Now I’m imagining myself as a clinger, a creeper calling my business, asking it out every day.
That doesn’t work on dates, and it doesn’t work for business. Give it up and wait for the right moment.
With my wife, it was about three months later, and I’m doing my own thing when all of a sudden I get a call from her, and she’s like, “Hey, you know, is that cup of coffee still on the table?”
Heck yeah!
Wait For The Right Moment
The fact is she needed to go through some things and be in a different place in order to be effective in the relationship.
When you’ve tried something in the business, or maybe you want to do something, maybe the timing isn’t right.
Timing is everything. The wrong thing at the right time is the wrong thing. And the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing.
When we say timing is everything, we think it all lines up, but the right thing at the wrong time does not make sense.
And that’s true with your business as well.
So when you’re thinking about your scale and your growth, and you know what you want to do with this company, everything’s got to be in alignment, and you’ve got to have synergy throughout the organization.
Key #1: Expect
Now let’s continue with this metaphor as you think about your business and you think about a dating relationship or something like that.
So once I finally got the yes, right now, I go into thinking about what happens in my thinking.
First of all, I start shifting how I think and where’s my focus.
I was a “successful entrepreneur.”
I had a self-managing plumbing, heating, air conditioning business.
And I played golf about five to six days a week.
I was playing golf all the time, and I was doing my thing, and I was staying out the clubhouse late, and all these types of things.
All of a sudden, the lovely Christy and I go on our first day to our now-favorite Italian restaurant.
We go to the monument, and it’s a great date.
I hadn’t thought about golf the whole night. That was crazy to me at the time.
Think about your business.
Think about your life.
What about your leadership skills?
Think about your finances.
Where is your attention?
That’s why I’m talking about dating here because our attention is never heightened more than in the dating situation.
That’s why when we get into marriage counseling and helping in long-term relationships, they ask, “Do you have a date night? Do you have focus time for each other?”
That is very, very powerful, right?
So how are we courting our business?
Where am I thinking about solving challenges?
Where am I upping my leadership skills so I can connect better with my team or communicate better?
It all begins with this shift in how we think.
It’s an expectation.
I’ve got an expectation about what Christy and I might do on the weekend or whatever.
What Are Your Expectations?
It’s about how we have expectations.
What are your expectations around your company?
Do you expect that it’s going to suck?
Do you expect that you’re not going to attract good team members?
My friends, do you expect that you’re going to be mediocre and run of the mill and status quo?
Or do you expect greatness?
Do you expect growth?
Do you expect you can attract an incredible team that wants to grow and lives in abundance mindsets and wants to continue to elevate their own game, which automatically elevates the business?
What do you expect right now in the dating relationship?
Think about it, reflect on it, journal about it, or whatever you feel most comfortable with. When our expectation is clear, we start shifting how we act now.
All of a sudden, I’m getting the call from my buddies: “Hey man, let’s play Wednesday afternoon.”
And I told them I need to be done by 5. “Why? We always play until seven. And then we go have beers at the clubhouse.”
I put my priority on what the most important thing was to me.
The next thing you know, my golf game sucks, but my life is great.
Key #2: Plan
So first, we get some clarity around what we expect from our date (our business).
Now, we start planning.
Where are we going to go this weekend or go to dinner or go hiking or go spend some time in the mountains together?
When you think about business in this personal relationship or when you enter a dating situation, you start picturing your life more.
Maybe you start thinking about what could this be like?
My gosh, I didn’t just find “a one.” I might’ve found the one.
Now all of a sudden, my mind starts going to starting a family together or moving in together.
Are we going to maybe end up getting a home together?
What if there’s a family situation?
Are we going to travel together?
What about the business?
My friend, where’s your love affair with the company?
Where are you dating?
Where’s that core team energy?
What can we do together?
What are you envisioning?
Start planning your life together with your business and your team. Sound weird, I know, but it works!
I hope you’ve been blessed enough, lucky enough, or worked hard enough in relationships to be at the point where you start to dream about your life together.
It’s a great feeling!
Why can’t we do this with our team and our business? We should; believe me, it helps keep you focused 110%.
Key #3: Act
Be clear in what you expect. Plan your future together and share those dreams with your team, and then act.
Action leads to the right results.
And I just want you to embrace that.
What are you thinking about?
Wherever your mind is, it’s where your action will be.
I used to think about improving my golf game.
And I used to think about where I’m going to go to the next golf school and how I’m going to get better.
And I did that all in the face of talking smack and having an ego and taking money from my buddies.
I wanted to get better, I focused on it, and I took the actions to get better.
You know, I practiced and played a lot, and that led to the results.
I got to be a better player and win the game.
But then, I meet the lovely Christy.
All of a sudden, my thinking shifts.
We have expectation, a clear one we talk about. We start planning trips, dates, and a life together.
Then we start taking action, spending more time together, get to know each other a little more.
And ultimately, that leads to results.
Date Your Business; It’s Not Weird
What about your business?
What are you thinking about?
Are you thinking about it with less than your all?
What do you expect from it? Expect great things.
What are your long-term plans? Think about the now and the future.
Let yourself dream and make steps for today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and the next 10 years.
Then act. Follow through. Communicate at each and every step with your team.
I know this was a weird analogy, but I also know from my decades spent as a student of human behavior that we need to think about these leadership ideas in many different ways.
Maybe this will make sense for you. Maybe it won’t.
But so much of humanity is spent in the building of relationships with others; it’s one of the driving forces of humanity.
Why not learn from this and drive ourselves to being better leaders?
Clarify your expectations, plan and dream with your business, and then act and spend time together.
Now go take your business out on a fancy date and make it a better-than-fantastic day!