Summary: All of the things that we're talking about, go to the idea of building your business proactively. From the standpoint of a business owner, how am I going to do this in a way that will actually work? From the standpoint of an employee, how can I get that stuff done? It requires coordination. But more than anything else, I think it requires this proactivity that we're talking about.<br> <br> <br> <br> David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of building your business proactively. Jay, great to see you.<br> <br> Jay: Thank you so much. So glad to be here as always, David. And I love this word, proactive. I know a lot of small business owners and I wouldn't say they're proactive. I would use the word haphazard.<br> <br> David: Ooh.<br> <br> Jay: Things just kind of happen. They're lucky because they get referrals or things like that. But there's not really any structure or proactivity to how they grow their business.<br> <br> David: Yeah. And I would love to say, "well, I started out being proactive." But I really didn't. And that's why I particularly enjoy this topic. So often when I'm doing presentations for live groups, this comes up. Because so many people feel like they're constantly having to react and deal with the day-to-day, I've got clients calling. I've got employees knocking on my door. And when you are reacting all day, it really leaves you in a difficult situation when you are actually trying to build a business proactively. So that's why I think it's a great topic to discuss.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. When you're in your reactive mind you're, just not in a good place. You're going to be responding quickly, not giving time to actually think about what you're doing. If you're doing sales, it's going to put your sales at risk. If you're working with your coworkers, it might turn out to be something you're apologizing for later.<br> <br> Reacting is just not the way to go. I've always been taught you can act or you can react. And you want to focus on acting, because that's purposeful, and that's more the person that you want to be.<br> <br> David: Yeah, I think it was Steven Covey in one of the Seven Habits materials that he put out where he was talking about the difference between responding and reacting. Subtle nuance there as well. But I think when we talk about proactive, it's a completely different discussion.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. So here I am. I've got this business, like you said, phone calls coming in. I got employees knocking on the door. I'm trying to have meetings. How do I go about this? What are some of the first steps to get to where I'm acting instead of reacting?<br> <br> David: Well, I think one of the first things is allocating time, creating time setting aside time. I'm not going to say finding time because no one ever finds time to do things. But creating the time, allocating the time to really think about what you want to have happen in your business. What type of clients you want to attract. What size customers you're looking for. How many you're looking for. What industries? All those types of things.<br> <br> Because, when we are being reactive, none of that comes into play. It's basically whoever stumbles through the door, whoever can fog a mirror. And if you want to build a business like we're describing, you can no longer just settle for that.<br> <br> Jay: Yeah. Are you a fan of time blocking? Like looking at your calendar the next day and blocking out like this hour is going to be for sales calls. This hour is going to be for training or whatever.<br> <br> David: I think it can be very helpful, but I wouldn't say that it's always completely effective. I think it's a great idea when you can pull it off, recognizing that life interferes sometimes.<br> <br> And so, yeah,
