528: Stop Watching the Weather: Embracing Action Over Perfection in Business
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Are you too busy watching the weather to make real progress in your business? In this episode, Collin explores how overthinking and waiting for perfect conditions can paralyze business owners, preventing us from taking action. He discusses the dangers of getting stuck in analysis, the fear of imperfection, and how to strike the right balance between planning and executing. Learn the importance of focusing on core goals and remaining adaptable to change. Join him as he shares insights on taking proactive steps to grow your business, no matter the circumstances.
Main topics:
Paralysis by Analysis in Business
Overcoming Fear of Imperfection
Balancing Strategy and Action
Focusing on Core Goals
Adaptability Over External Control
Main takeaway: Sometimes, action taken right now is better than waiting for those perfect conditions that may honestly never come.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, weather, change, client, work, pet, pet sitter, dog walkers, sitters, business owners, proactive, put, understand, important, good, confessional, joe, perfect, google ads, control
SPEAKERS
Collin
Collin 00:00
Music. Welcome to pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we're brought to you by pet sitters associates and our Patreon supporters. Every month, they have found value in the show, and so they dedicate a little bit of extra money to help keep the show going. If you'd like to learn more about what it means to be a Patreon and learn of all the ways you can support the show. Go to pet sitter confessional.com/support, I was recently having coffee with one of my good friends, Joe, and now Joe happens to be a farmer, and so in order to have coffee with Joe, you have to get up really early. And I will say that I think farmers have met their matches when it comes to people who get up early, and that's that's Pat sitters. He was a little surprised when I agreed to the time of morning that we got together at, but during our conversation, we started to talk about the weather, because what else you going to talk to a farmer with about, but, but about the weather? And I mentioned to him about how I assumed that, well, he was probably checking the weather a lot because we hadn't gotten a lot of rain, and it's obviously very important. And he said this quote after I mentioned, I'm sure you watch the weather a lot. He said sometimes you're too busy watching the weather to get anything done. And I have really been thinking about this ever since I had coffee with with Joe the other week. And that for a farmer, the weather is exceptionally important. They run their lives by the weather. If they don't know the weather, they don't know what to do. But also, you can get so caught up in watching the weather or worrying about the weather, or just clicking refresh on the weather app, that you don't do any of the other work that you're supposed to do. And I thought about, how does this apply to us as as business owners. And I come with five ways that this phrase can be applied to us as business owners. And the first one, it's applicable because it reflects the paralysis by analysis. If you've heard of this before, it's the fact that we freeze or we stop moving because we're analyzing and we just want to analyze a little bit more, or just a little bit more. It's really, really easy to get caught up in constantly evaluating every risk or every challenge. Just think of all the major changes that are happening right now in the global and local economic forecast. The market conditions are completely changing, competitor moves or new competition in the area, the number of new sitters or new dog walkers where you live, or maybe changes in client behavior, we can get so caught up in analyzing each one of these to the nth degree, sending survey after survey after survey, or doing market research after market research, or contacting other businesses or more networking opportunities, that we never actually end up taking any action to make a difference. See at the end of the day, yes, it matters what the market conditions are. It matters what the competitors, what the other people are doing in our area, and yeah, it matters how our clients are behaving. But at some point we're going to have to do something about it. Just asking another question or filling out another form isn't going to change the dynamics of our business. In the end, we can focus too much on potential problems that it actually prevents us from making necessary progress. Yes, we know that the market conditions are changing. Interest rates are doing one thing, and housing is doing another, and jobs are happening in a different thing. And there are more people ever that are trying to do dog walking and pet sitting as a business, we have to go, Okay, that is true. Maybe that is actually happening. I don't need to measure it anymore to understand that it could have a potential impact on my business. So what am I going to do about it now that I know that there are more dog walkers than ever in my area, or maybe not, depending on where you live, how does that change my marketing? How does it change my value proposition to my clients? How does it change my pricing strategy? How does that change how I brand myself and the words that I use to attract the next client? That is what is actually important to know the actions that I can put into place. And unfortunately, this can often lead to the second aspect of this is the fear of imperfection. We often stop ourselves short from moving forward because we're worried that it's not going to be good enough. Or maybe we wait for the perfect conditions, the quote, unquote perfect conditions, or the ideal moment to launch the perfect service, the perfect new product that we're trying to put out there in sponsorship or in partnership with another business. Or maybe it's the perfect ad campaign that we're trying to put together for Google ads that we end up missing opportunities waiting for those perfect conditions or the perfect service or the perfect whatever that is. We wait and wait and wait and we miss our opportunity window because a lot of reasons we as business owners want to be seen as legitimate. We want to be seen as professional. We want to be seen in a good light by our potential clients. So we pull our punch. We don't want to put the ad campaign out there, because what if we misspelled a word, or what if we didn't use the perfect or best picture or video to go along with that? And Megan and I just went through this process as we were putting together some ad campaigns that we were wanting to test and try out on Google ads, and we're dipping our toe into this. We waited months and months because we were worried about an imperfect ad being put out there. But here's the thing about this, the only way whether we know something is perfect or imperfect is to work with it. Is to test it. Is to trial it, is to push it out into the world and see the feedback that we get out. Because honestly, nothing will be perfect. The ad will never be perfect, the video will never be perfect, the caption will never be perfect. The website will never be perfect, and that's good news, because it means that you're getting data, you're getting feedback, you're getting input back from the outside world that's going to tell you what to do next. Sometimes, action taken right now is better than waiting for those perfect conditions that may honestly never come, if we wait for just the right opportunity to launch our fall campaign, or our autumn campaign for our our adventure hikes. Well, what if the weather just suddenly gets really cold and we don't ever really feel like that Autumn portion happens, because that happens a lot for where we live. It's summer, summer, summer, summer, summer, and then it just gets cold, and we kind of miss that Autumn period. Well, then we've missed the opportunity to talk about our campaign for our adventure hikes, or maybe you're waiting for the perfect partnership to come along to work with just that one right other business, or that other right sponsorship opportunity to get the word out there that's just going to make all the stars align. Truthfully, the stars may never align, and so we end up waiting and we miss the opportunity to get out in front of the people that we could have gotten out in front of had we acted otherwise. We're so worried and busy and focused on the perfect that we end up missing it entirely. When Joe said that quote, sometimes you're too busy watching the weather to get anything done. The first thing that actually entered my mind was actually the thought or the actual action of over planning without any execution. This is where we understand that planning, yes, planning is is critical. I have to know what the weather is going to do for us too, right? As dog walkers and pesters, the weather is important. I have to plan for whatever's coming down the road, but overthinking or spending too much time on preparation actually stalls out growth as a business, because, as we just mentioned, market conditions are constantly changing. So if I plan too much for the current market condition, what am I going to do whenever I wake up tomorrow and it's different again, what I'm going to do differently when it changes in another year, it's important to strike a balance between strategy and taking action. This allows us to learn and adjust as we go. Understanding that change is inevitable. Change is the only constant that we can have comfort in as a business. So why worry about overplanning for something, for a condition that's not going to be here forever. We need to do our due diligence, do our deep dive of analysis, our market research, talk with the appropriate people, get input and ideas, do trials and tests, and then do it so that we can actually strike while the iron is hot, so to speak, throwing in another euphemism or whatever here, but we can actually take advantage of what we have in front of us right now. We're never promised tomorrow. That's something that we need to understand as a business. I'm never promised what's going to happen tomorrow. I need to plan for tomorrow. I need to be ready for tomorrow, but I also need to take advantage of what I have going on in front of me in a smart, intelligent and diligent way right now, something that's an easy decision to make is to get pet business insurance. You see as pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members and our friends at pet sitters associates are here to help for over 20 years, pet sitters Associates has provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance if you work in the pet care industry, which you do or maybe you want to take your passion for pets into a profession, take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you, and get a free quote today at Pet sit llc.com you can get a discount. When joining by clicking the membership button. Then select Pet Sitter confessional and then use the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off today. Check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at petsit llc.com as Joe and I talked more about him watching the weather instead of doing other things. He talked about how instead of actually going out and working in the field and doing the work that was important to actually be productive and make an income, he'd find themselves squirreling away on the weather apps and on Noah's website and looking into the deep details and looking at 10 day and 30 day four. Cast looking at one year reviews to see how long certain you know cold snaps were going to take to hit, or what you know, how the rain was going to work, and all these weather patterns that's important. It's good to know. But what it actually was, it was the fourth thing here. It was the distraction from our core goals, these external distractions that we get as business owners, like trends in the industry, or the latest news, or industry shifts, or all of these things. These actually pull our focus away from what really matters, what matters to you as a business well, things like quality customer service, showing up on time, safe dog walks, professional level of care, however you want to describe that, understand and define for yourself, what are your core values? Why are you doing what you are doing? And then we can go and look at and ask ourselves, okay of the activities that I spend my day doing, are these in alignment with my goals, or are they not? Are these taking me forward and making sure that I'm in alignment with my values, or are they not? Sidesteps are not included here, right? Sometimes we can go, Okay, well, I'll just take a side to the left because it's kind of tangentially related to this. No, no, be ruthless in deciding what is and is not a core goal or core value to your business, because in business and running your business, it's essential to stay focused on those core goals rather than becoming overly preoccupied with outside things. This allows us to stay true to our mission and make sure that the work that we are doing is actually as best as it can be. When we're distracted during a visit, we would, you know, say, Oh, this isn't appropriate. I'm not giving my full undivided attention to this dog. I'm going to miss the details and the care for this cat, or I'm not going to remember to turn off the lights like the client requested. Me, this is so much more true when we are actually thinking about planning our business, looking ahead, making decisions about how we are and how we are not going to operate. So we've walked through the paralysis of analysis, the fear of imperfection over planning without execution, and the distraction from our core mission and goals. The fifth way that this applies to us is the adaptability over control. Just like we can't control the weather, Joe, for however long he spends checking the weather and pulling refresh and staring at the sky, is not going to be able to make it rain or to stop raining, or to do whatever we as business owners, we cannot control every outside force, every external factor that is affecting us or our business. This is just true. There are things that are happening on a global scale, on a multinational scale, even locally, that we have no control over or ability to control sometimes we don't even know what's happening and things are impacting our business, we just see the result and are changing and adapting to it. So it's more important. It's more important. Instead of being very super, mega, ultra educated about predicting weather patterns, it's more important to be adaptable and proactive than to be understanding and trying to predict the future of what's going to happen. We have to focus on what we can do to move forward, rather than being immobilized. But what we can't control, Joe will never plant a crop if He's so scared about when the next rainfall is going to be he knows he has to get stuff in the ground and then hope and then pray and then be sure that rain is going to come. We, as business owners, we have to keep moving forward. Change is inevitable. We've talked about that things are going to our clients are looking for stuff from us. They need us to help them. We have to be proactive in doing our due diligence, and then get busy about the work and implementing that, and then seeing that feedback that takes place when we put it out there, and making continual changes. That is ultimately how we make our businesses work and how we are going to thrive, regardless of what happens at micro and macro scales across what our service areas, it's scary to be proactive, because it means that we're making a bet. We're betting that right now is a good time to make that shift in our services. Right now is a good time to implement a price increase, or maybe right now is the win. We need to change up our marketing strategy that is taking a chance, but the only way that we're going to know whether it pays off or not is to actually do the darn thing right. Do your research, work with a coach, work with your networking group, talk to other business owners, get good information, and then think deeply about that. Understand implications for doing or not doing something. Think through all the possible scenarios of what could take place, and then dive in. Do it with your eyes wide open, so that you know what is taking place and you're not being surprised by anything. But being proactive, that one thing, being proactive in your business will allow you to get ahead of things as well as get that early information. That's so critical for how we are supposed to grow and adapt as businesses and for ourselves, we'd love to know how you go about being proactive and how you prevent yourself from being stuck watching the weather instead of doing the work that your business needs. Send us an email at Pet Sitter confessional@gmail.com or we're everywhere on social media as well. So we'd love to get your feedback on this. We want to thank our sponsors today, pet sitters, associates and our Patreon supporters, for making the show possible. And we really want to thank you for listening. Thank you for taking your time today. We really appreciate you, and we'll be back again soon. You
