Finding the Leverage Point in Any Business Decision
When it comes to decision making, many business owners really struggle to make the right decisions for their business. There are so many factors that come into play that it can be easy to get overwhelmed with all the options. So today I wanted to share with you a simple exercise that I do with all our business coaching clients to help them find the leverage point in any business decision.
Take 10 minutes.
This exercise should only take about 10 minutes. Any less than that and you risk not looking at the decision from all angles. Any more than that and you risk overthinking and talking yourself out of some possibly really good ideas. The process goes as follows: Think about your problem or issue and then write down on a piece of paper all the possible solutions you have to that problem. There is no such thing as a bad idea here, so put down everything that comes to mind during that 10-minute time span. I like to do this exercise on a white board on a large piece of paper to keep my thoughts in order.
The first pass.
Once the 10 minutes is up, it’s time to review your list. And you want to do so through two different lenses. The first being low-hanging fruit. These are things that would be easy to complete or delegate to someone on your team. Let’s say that you are struggling with lead generation and you are looking for ways to increase the number of leads you get each month. After you put together your list, you have a few items that could be updated on your website to help capture leads more effectively. If they could be done by someone on your team or your website developer with little or no lift on your part, that would be low hanging fruit. If it’s something more complex that requires multiple steps, then it would not be considered low-hanging fruit. Go through your entire list with this lens in mind, marking the ones that would be considered easy to accomplish.
The second pass.
The second pass on your list has to do with home runs. These are the things that if done correctly would make a big impact on your business and your bottom line. Let’s say that you were giving a white paper for free to your website visitors and you determined that you could convert that into a lead capture opportunity. If you have a thousand downloads a month on that piece of content, if you could turn that into a lead capture that would be a huge win for your business and would be considered a home run. But that lead capture opportunity on your blog page that doesn’t get a lot of traffic wouldn’t make the home run list.
Finding the sweet spot.
It’s important to do this as two separate passes all the way through. Don’t look for one or both during the first few passes. But once you have them all labeled, you can then see the items that are considered both low hanging fruit and home runs. Those are the things that are easy to do and will have a big impact. That’s the sweet spot, the leverage point. And the things you should be focusing on in your business.