After working with over 1,000 business owners, I share the common traits of the people who achieved results that were significantly better than the rest
Five Traits of the Top Achieving Business Owners
In my 13 years of coaching, advising and consulting to over 300 businesses in 34 industries, I’ve noticed a striking similarity between the highest achieving business owners and the ones whose results were good, but not out-of-this-world good.
This fascinated me, so I analyzed the common traits of the top achieving business owners (from a pool of ~1200 past clients).
They are the ones that achieved consistent triple figure growth, won multiple awards, successfully scaled themselves out of the business, sold for multi 7 figure sums, etc.
An Interesting Revelation
Now, before I share them with you…
The most interesting part is that a good chunk of the high achievers DEVELOPED these traits over the time that I worked with them – meaning they didn’t inherently have or demonstrate these traits to begin with.
This revelation is interesting because it means that with the right application ANYONE can master these 5 traits…
Here they are:
1. They Stay Focused
Top achievers have 1-3 major items or projects that they focus on at any given point in time.
Each project is broken down into manageable steps, outlined and time framed across each week.
They consciously avoid distraction and any new items that pop up go straight onto a backlog list to be considered for actioning next quarter or later on.
Because of this, everybody who works with me uses an updated framework version of SCRUM, which I call The Momentum Model in order to stay focused, avoid distractions, and gain serious momentum in their business.
2. They Keep Learning
Just like elite athletes need to keep on training and top musicians need to constantly practice, if you don’t want to fall behind, you need to keep learning.
As the old saying goes, the more you learn, the more you earn.
But it’s not just “more” knowledge, it’s about the right kind. While the top achievers are constantly learning, they are learning about things that were directly related to whatever they were focused on.
There’s so much information to learn that a common trap people fall into is that they learn something new and they want to implement straight away… and end up distracted.
You have to find a balance and focus on what’s important and impactful right now.
3. They Implement More
The top achievers don’t wait to get things perfect. They get things out there and then test, tweak and refine.
They expect that whatever they do will likely fail the first time, probably even the second and third time but what is important is that implementation beats procrastination every single time.
4. They Do The Basics Well
As a business grows it becomes more demanding. There are more moving parts, and it’s easy to forget the basics and lose track of the smaller details.
Top achievers don’t forget the basics. They make sure the basics are a priority and always implemented extremely well.
5. They Don’t Waste Time
The top achievers don’t waste time and are extremely good at managing their time.
They universally use a diary or a calendar and allocate time for everything that they have to do.
They not only know what they need to do but they also know when and deliberately schedule time to do it, no excuses.
Action Steps:
Quick question for you…
Out of those 5 things we just looked at, which one would make the most impact in your business right now?
Once you’ve got that one, I’ve got a challenge for you…
Over the next few weeks, I want you to commit yourself to mastering whatever that item is you’ve just chosen.
Once you’ve done that, go back and master the next one you feel is most impactful, and then the next one and the next one until you’ve mastered all five.
Do this and I guarantee your results will increase threefold!
