Why should you know your obstacles? After all shouldn’t you just focus on the positive, and not the negative?

In his book the new psycho-cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz has an excellent illustration which answers these question. He writes how a car has many gages on the dashboard feeding you information. You can see your speed, rpm, oil pressure, temperature, and other gages. As you drive along you are spending most of your time watching the road. Focusing on the direction, and destination you are heading. Occasionally you glance at your dashboard to check your gages. Why do you do this? Simple you are making sure your car is in good working condition, or staying within the speed limit. If your temperature rises too high , your oil pressure falls too low your engine could be ruined.

Likewise if you barrel along towards your goal ignoring your obstacles. How are you going to know if you have traveled to far off course? You see by occasionally checking you can make slight adjustments to keep you on the track towards your goal.

I’m reminded of the time I cleaned windows at the wrong house. One morning I took off to do an outside window cleaning job. I did not check my calender to confirm the address. Just went off my memory. (This is something I would not recommend) So, I’m happily cleaning the outside widows of this house. Beautiful day, mid 70’s, partly cloudy with a slight breeze. My cell phone rings…its my wife, and she wanted to bring me lunch. A half an hour later my cell phone rings again. Yep, its my wife wanting to know where am I? After a conversation of I’m here…no your not. I finally realize that I’m not really here, but at the wrong here!

Because I did not check my information I lost several hours of my day. Not to mention my embarrassment. However I bet the folks were surprised to find crystal clean widows when they got home. I wonder if they called the police?

Today this is a funny story. Yet not verifying the address became an obstacle. An obstacle can be anything which wastes time, or cost you business. Obstacles prevent you from being more productive, or prevent customers from doing business with you. Finding your obstacles can be eye opening. Correcting your obstacles can lead to more business.

There are a couple ways to find your obstacles. First is to take a honest look at your business. Step back, and look at it from an overall view. This can be hard to master. After all we are so busy running the day to day. You know asking yourself some honest questions can produce results. Second is to ask your customers. They will have insight you could not see. Your customers will be looking at your window cleaning business from the outside in.

Are there other obstacles holding you back? Lack of follow up with your customers? Hard to get in contact with you? Limit your payment options? Take on work you are ill equipped to handle?