5 Steps to Maintaining Momentum

Businesses experience ups and downs just like people. The challenge is separately defining a business approach rather than a personal approach to success.

We can all experience success in different ways in our personal lives. Business success is usually defined by monetary gain or profit.

Yet many people conclude that once they got off to a great start, there is no where to go but down hill.

This couldn't be farther from the truth. It's just the opposite. In fact, in order to maintain momentum, one must first reach the top! The business needs to be driven like a well-maintained luxury automobile. A little grease here and there, a tune-up and a check-up are all in order to succeed and stay at the top. A business has to maintain momentum once it reaches the top. Because we all know what goes up, must come down!

We've all heard of writer's block.

We've all had lack of motivation at one point or another.

How does one reach the top and gain the momentum to do so in the first place in a business?

Let's define what it means to reach the top. For each individual or business, reaching the top is the place where goals and dreams blossom.

At the base of an idea, businesses must develop a plan.

By the time that plan reaches the top of the goal, the business has just started to blossom. From there, ideas will nourish each other and reach out to potential customers or clients and expansion begins to unfold.

Imagine becoming a valued customer on the Home Shopping Channel. Every day, faithfully, you watch for the daily deals. You place an order, and within a few days there is a new package at your door by a delivery company known as UPS.

You order so many packages, over time, you start to address the UPS driver by first-name. The driver knows you don't like the package delivered to your front door because there is no protection from weather elements. So the driver carefully brings your package to the back door every day where you thank him and appreciate his efforts.

Then pretty soon, you get bored with ordering stuff online and find shopping at a new department store a much better use of your time. UPS stops delivering packages.

A couple of months go by. You order an item online that you saw in your favorite store flyer, but it was no longer available in your size. A few days later, as you expect a package from a UPS driver, none shows. Not wanting to appear anxious, you wait until 5 p.m. Normally UPS would have delivered a package by now. Thinking this is strange, and waiting in dire anticipation for your new item, you look online and track your package. To your dismay, you find out that the package was in transit, but has been returned to the main UPS office which is an hour from your home. Frantic, you call UPS. A clerk answers the phone and tells you to your dismay that UPS could not find your home.

After coming to your house every single day for years, becoming friendly with the driver, even to the point of the driver catering to your every request; you are now at a loss for explanation as to how this happens.

This is often how businesses become stagnant. They take breaks when they should be working night and day or both sometimes to meet and exceed expectations.

No one said business was easy. Many people find businesses they love and do not think of it as a job. That's wonderful. Having a job you love so much that you don't even think of it as work! Yet, when businesses stop producing or put out less effort, their customer base goes elsewhere to find the action!

Always be in pursuit of the chase!

When I was a child, my grandfather always said, "keep your eye on the ball".

But, I never played baseball, softball, tennis, or any other form of ball.

What he instilled in me essentially was the number one factor for following goals and dreams.

We have to be in pursuit of the chase. Where is the ball now?

Chasing business dreams and goals is like pursuing a fast ball in an open stadium with fans watching as the ball lands in a nearby field. The fans go wild shouting "home run"!

Treat your business like you are at a ball game, watching the ball fly by and landing where the hitter intended it. Watch it fly over the fence in to the next yard occupied by new potential growth and opportunity!

Early to bed, early to rise.

Farmers have the market cornered on this theory. It allows for ample time to tend the sheep, cattle, goats, chickens, and for collecting eggs out of the hen house!

It's often depicted on television that the boss comes in after the employees. He lingers in around 9 a.m. or later, casually walks in to an office, closes the door, and reads the paper.

Businesses take hard work. Consider the business person who works from home. Do you honestly think their day starts after children are off to school half past the hour?

People who have become successful working in businesses from home start in the wee morning hours. They might have to take some time off between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. as part of their parental duties and take children to school, meet William's coach to discuss basketball practice, but it's right back to work from there. Most people who run successful businesses from home are already half-way in to their workday when they take their first break to run an errand.

If we observe a farmer, we'll notice how everything is done on schedule. If not, he'll have a lot of angry cows to explain why Betsy wasn't milked or the animals weren't fed grain.

Farmers wake up when the roosters crow for a reason. If they fall behind on a day of work, their profits and farm suffers as a whole. They not only need to worry about tending to the sheep, but also to the structure that their farm is based. Without structure, dedication and routine, farmers wouldn't last long in the animal realm. Neither would a business without the right design!

It's one thing to shout from the roof tops that you have a successful business model and want stakeholders to contribute to your goal of becoming number one in your industry.

However, doing is the only real way to gain anything.

We all take risks. Think about some of the dangers we face just by existing! Germs, disease, accidents, it's enough to make a person not want to step out at all.

But the important thing to remember is that with no action, there is no result.

In order to keep momentum going, your business must not fall asleep.

It must remain steadfast at current projects and projections.

Set reasonable goals.

When you truly enjoy what you are doing, it no longer feels like work.