The Importance Of Consistency In Your Business

The Importance of Consistency In Your Business

The importance of consistency in your business, and the reason why I am so relentless about that word consistency because it was something that I battled with early in my business. 

When you are working for someone else it’s easy to stay consistent because they have gone through the challenges of mapping out what works for their business and they have hired you to work on the task geared to maintaining a steady stream of income.

You don’t have to think about what to do because you are given a job description that tells you what tasks you are to perform, and with some jobs they train you on their system so you can become more proficient in handling the daily tasks of the job.

Becoming Your Own Boss

When you step into the role of solopreneur you take on the challenges of being in business for yourself and it’s up to you to ensure that you have done your due diligence in setting a solid foundation to build your business upon and consistency is one of them.

The reason why consistency is important in your business is because it will speak volumes to those who will follow you and become your customers. How does this look in your business and how do you set yourself up to stay the course amidst the challenges of being in business.

Start With A Plan

The key to staying consistent is having a plan in place, without a plan you will become overwhelmed, frustrated and you will miss signs that can propel your business forward.  Anything that you set out to do should always begin with a plan.

1. What do you want to accomplish
2. How do you plan to make it happen
3. How will you know when you’ve reached your goals

I always talk about having SMART goals in your business, this gives you a guideline to stay the course until the desired goal is achieved.  As an entrepreneur, you cannot be consistent where a plan does not exist.

 I didn’t have a social media marketing strategy or campaign in place and this led me to becoming overwhelmed and frustrated until I eventually eighty sixed what I was working on, to only pick up another project that I had become momentarily excited about, but still no plan in place.

Having a plan let’s you know what’s the next step you need to take, and when you measure your actions based on:

1. Feedback
2. Engagement
3. Comments
4. Email Sign-up
5. Purchases

Then you can easily track what actions you performed that were a success. When you have no plan or no measurement you can not duplicate something where there is no plan.

Why Change It When It’s Working

Have you ever purchased something from your favorite brand such as a perfume, drink or food product, only for them to go and change the formula to a new and improved version when you loved the original product.

As an entrepreneur it’s a good practice to survey your audience/customers if something isn’t broke then don’t fix it, you don’t need to try and keep up with what your competitors are doing just to remain relevant, just stay consistent to what’s already working.

Challenges Of 2020

This year has definitely presented a boatload of challenges and this now more than ever consistency needs to be a priority when growing your business. You have more people at home now more people are on the internet. 

Some businesses have had to change the way they do business, they are having challenges learning how to transition their business online and that’s where you can come in and help them overcome those challenges.

This is where having a plan in place will be a huge benefit, with everyone home and children being homeschooled having a  plan is of the utmost importance to  ensure that your projects are not falling by the wayside.

Master One Platform

A valuable lesson that I learned is that I couldn’t handle being on 3 or more social media platforms and maintain my level of consistency, one of them was going to suffer.  When you know the platforms that your customers are on then you must learn to master that platform before moving on to another one.

I’ve learned through seeing my audience grow on certain platforms only to suffer when algorithms, truth is they are a pay to play platform and they are in business as well so another valuable lesson learned is to create my own platform in the form of a website. 

Having a website gives me the freedom to be as creative as I want to be, nothing is being censored or flagged as inappropriate. (not that I put out that type of content 🙂 and I don’t have to worry about  algorithms. 

Being overwhelmed contributed to me not being as consistent as I wanted to be, I was spreading myself thin and it showed up on many of my platforms as well as my blogging.

Your Skills & Expertise Is Needed

There is this business owner who had an app that I loved, however the app wasn’t updated and I sought them out online and found they created a website which I was so excited about.

They had about 12 audio podcasts that I listened to because I loved their content so much because it was of such high quality and you could tell that they lived and breathed their craft.

However they stopped adding content, they were no longer consistent in putting out content on a regular basis, so what’s the take away from this illustration.

The point that I am trying to make is that when you aren’t consistent with showing up, you do a dis-service to those who are following you could I go elsewhere for similar content of course I could and I did and it was just not the same.

I hear some entrepreneurs say that if you are not consistent your followers/customers will go to your competitors, my thoughts on that are this.

What you bring to the table may not be of the same quality or passion that another business owner does in their business, so your followers or customers are being subjected to getting a lower level of a product or service.

You never know why an entrepreneur is no longer showing up especially in this pandemic, or the issues they may be dealing with behind the scenes.

How To Maintain Consistency In Your Business.

1. Start with a plan
2. Put systems or process in place (schedule out content)
3. Stick to one platform and master it
4. Survey your audience and ask what content do they want from you
5. If you need to take a break for whatever reason, announce it

There is nothing wrong with needing a break, even if you’re led into another direction of business or your life has taken on a new journey let your followers or customer know, don’t just leave them hanging.

Thank them for the support on your journey up to this point and wish them well on theirs.