By MARK RIFFEY for the Flathead Beacon
Frustrated with the rate of change or accomplishment of new work in your business? I had a conversation recently that might help.
Ann: Sometimes I think some of us are un-coachable.
Mark: Reminds me of “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” It’s huge for those who teach and/or coach – you have to meet the student where they are rather than where you want them to be. Anyhow, I don’t think it’s being un-coachable, it’s a form of being overwhelmed.
Ann: We hear and understand but we just can’t get traction and do it consistently and …
Mark: Habit momentum is important. Start one thing today, then when it becomes a daily habit that’s part of your life, add another.
Mark: IE: D,D,D
Randy: I *knew* you were gonna get that in there.
Ann: D..D..D..?
Randy: DDD stands for “Drip, drip, drip.” In this case he means that if you do a little bit each day, the small efforts add up. It’s something I have to *constantly* remind myself about.
Mark: Right, but it’s important that you make sure the *right* bit is what’s getting done each day.
Photo by Jeff Drongowski
Little changes, big results
Ann: But what does Drip mean?
Mark: It’s a euphemism for incremental change.
Ann: Told you I was un-coachable
Randy: By making incremental changes, those little changes that we might not be able to make as a whole eventually add up to big things.
Ann: DDD = small details
Randy: Exactly. And one of my favorite Rohn quotes applies here. “For things to change, you must change.”
Mark: With DDD, the concept is that it’s easier to change one thing in your business than to change 20 or 30. When we look at our business, we can often come up with 20-30 or even 100 things that we’d ideally like to change, so it’s often difficult to get ANY of these changes to happen because of the sight of them as a whole.
Ann: Yes, it’s tough to get traction.
Mark: Absolutely – and that’s the painful part. In most cases, even establishing two or three of the changes will make a substantial difference to our business. Some see two or three changes as a failure because they’re focused on a list of 20 or 30 as “success”. If they aren’t in the right mindset, these initial successes actually discourage them from continuing to chip away at number three, much less 21, 22, etc because the effort as a whole feels like a failure or a journey that’ll never end. It’s too easy to miss the incremental wins when you’re focused on the end (or what you think the end is).
What IS a Drip?
Dean: Do you guys think Ann’s phrase about “Getting traction” is a good description of the problem?
Mark: Traction – I agree it is, which is what drips are all about. Drips generate confidence and momentum as they become habits, forming a foundation for bigger change. Traction.
Dean: What if the drips aren’t enough to make a business work? I have a friend who’s been “running a business” for years, working three hours per week. After a decade, little progress.
Mark: Drips are about new habits and making change, not building the whole business. And…Drips aren’t about hours. They’re tasks.
Dean: For example?
Mark: Say a client needs a print newsletter, an email newsletter, blog posts and videos. If I drop all of that on them at once, they won’t get them done. There’s too much to take on at once and it’s overwhelming. Instead, we break each one out into a drip. In other words, each one is a new habit (product or outcome) you want to introduce into your business.
Dean: OK, let’s talk about starting the print newsletter.
Mark: I’d probably rough out a layout in maybe an hour. I’d spend the next hour writing content.
Dean: Starting from scratch, you’d just need one hour?
Mark: No, I’d spend an hour on the newsletter until the first issue is done. The idea is to chip away at that single habit or change for an hour a day (or a week, whatever I have to work with) until the first cut is done. At that point, I should have a process that’s ready to delegate or outsource.
The key to Drip, Drip, Drip is to stay focused on each change and keep working at it till it’s done.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on Twitter, or email him atmriffey@flatheadbeacon.com.