It’s a New Year and here’s the best piece of advice I can give you this month. Start a new habit and Listen. Stop an old habit and Listen.

Stop listening to Morning Ireland.

Stop listening to the economic experts, how often have they got their predictions right?

Stop listening to the complainers. There are plenty of them out there. Wouldn’t you prefer to be doing something, rather than complaining about it.

Stop listening to your salespeople’s excuses. Challenge their mindsets. Challenge their work practices. Challenge their habits.

Stop listening for the phone to ring. The customers you are waiting for are busy buying from your competitors so get out amongst them.

Stop listening to your those staff who simply won’t change, and either work with them to change, or work them out of your business. You can’t afford underperformers this year.

Stop listening to the constant interruptions you are getting during your day, and decide to be the Entrepreneur. Spend the time necessary to allow you to think, plan and achieve clarity. To focus.

Stop listening to anything that doesn’t bring you closer to your goals for 2011.

Start listening to your customers. They be the first to tell you where you should be going.

Start listening to your gut instinct more. After all I suspect that your gut got you in to business in the first place. Sometimes you just know that something is right. Now is the time to be the entrepreneur.

Start listening to your staff. The days of leading through command and control are gone. If you want to truly build a business, then build your team. Let them have a real say.

Start listening to your receptionist and customer service team. Would you like to be a customer phoning your business?

Start listening to your salesteam. Would you buy from them? If not why not, and what can you change?

Start listening to positive people ONLY!. Why not? You’ll certainly be a lot happier. I also guarantee you’ll be more positive also.

Start listening for the opportunities that are out there. Be conscious that the more you listen for opportunity, the more it will present itself.

Start listening to audiobooks in your car, instead of Morning Ireland. You spend a thousand hours travelling on average, wouldn’t you prefer to learn while you drive?

Start listening to your employees, and ask them what their goals are and how you can facilitate them to achieve these goals.

Start listening beyond the numbers in the business. Sounds crazy but the numbers although really important never tell the full story. It’s not the numbers that matter, it’s the assumptions behind the numbers that matter. Listen to the trends?

Start listening to those who ask why? Those that question your decisions. They are the greatest asset you can leverage. It doesn’t happen enough in organisations, and they are poorer for it.

Actions for January 2011.
Stop listening. Start listening.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.