I once heard the quote – “The harder I worked the luckier I got!” and to me there has never been a more true statement.

Whilst we all know people who are lucky, often we do not see the enormous amount of background work that goes into it, and sometimes completely miss the fact that it isn’t necessarily luck – but putting in the effort – that changes fortune.

I’ve seen various approaches to business by colleagues, clients and friends and a common factor to those who are currently successful is those who have just put in some dammed hard work.

In my experience there is still plenty of existing and new business to be had at the moment. The reality is we all have to work a lot harder to retain or win it, and that’s got to come from everyone in the company being in shape to do it.

So why does this approach make you more successful?

Quite simply working hard keeps you fit and makes you sharp.

We all work better when we have about 10% more to do than we can possibly achieve. It can be more tiring at first than physical exercise but it’s worth pursuing.

Having a lot on makes you mentally fitter, just like pushing yourself at the gym makes your body more able to perform. The upshot of this is that your business will perform better as well.

That means that anything new thrown into the mix is quite simply just another impossible tangible and therefore just another thing to do. You are less inclined to think it can’t be done and more inclined to add it to the workload and just get it done.

It’s amazing when you are not busy how even the simplest challenges become impossible tasks.

So work hard and it’s only natural that this mental fitness filters through to everything you do in your business. Your mind starts to think all of the time. Ideas get better and come quicker. Your responses times to challenges in the business come faster and the answer is normally the right one.

The people I know who are doing very well at the moment are the ones who are keeping themselves mentally fit.

If you can filter this down to your entire business, then all the better.

So how do you work hard if business is a little slow at the moment?

This one’s easy. Put more effort into everything you do. Double the effort of every piece of client work you currently have in progress and make it 120% better.

This will reflect in the opinion your clients have of you and give you a much greater sense of achievement. Clients may find they have other work that they could give you because they really feel they’ll be getting exceptional value for money at the moment. They may feel more inclined to recommend.

Look around at your business. There is always something to do, clean up, improve or completely change. Do it and do it now.

Set challenges for your staff to do so and get them inspired to achieve it!

Think about new business. Don’t sit around waiting for work to come into the door, make it happen. Start marketing, visiting and looking up old contacts, visiting shows.

Lastly set yourself a few impossible goals and work hard to achieve them. What you will hopefully find is that impossible is only dependent on the current state of your mental fitness.

The less impossible things seem, the more possible anything is.

Wayne Hall – create with impact.