When determination success for an individual or a business we tend to look at numbers, gross income, net income, profit, possessions, money in the bank and so on.
When you focus on the numbers and work to improve them your overall success tends to increase.
Focus on the most important number
The problem is that most people (and businesses) focus on all the numbers, what happens then is that you start improving all your figures slowly. If you instead focus on the most important number, the one that will affect all other numbers, you will see a much quicker difference.
For example if you chose to increase your money in the bank, you would start focusing on ways to increase your income, lower expenditures and so on.
You probably don't have to decrease the number of things you buy, you just get rid of useless expenses.
The result is that you make more money, have lower expenses and start making money on what you have in the bank. This will let you buy more things than you would have otherwise.
Choosing your number
Choosing your number is very difficult.
It could be income like in the example above, it could be expenses and it could be things like the number of sales calls you make each day, your medium sale size, your effective work time each day and so on.
Think about what each number represents
What you need to think about is how each number will change the rest of your business.
If you think about repeat customers in business that might make the biggest difference, if you think about new customers that might help the most and so on.
You need to consider the ramifications of improving one specific number compared to the others.
Start with your goals
What is it you really want, what goal is it you are after?
With this as a starting point you can much easier find your number.
In our business it is finding new customers, we have a great system for creating repeat customers so that happens almost automatically therefore the biggest difference comes from the number of new customers we can sell to, which in turn increases our overall income and profitability.
Chose a number
What is the most important thing is that you chose a number; you can always change later if you realize you chose the right one. But be sure to not change every week.
Find a number that will make a difference and start working on improving it until it is as good as you want it.
Focus on that number
Now that you know what you want, put all your efforts into improving that number.
Think of new ways, strategies, and plans to improve that number. Before long you will see a great difference in your bottom line results.
Conclusion
Focusing on one number is a great method to improve your overall effectiveness. Chose the number that will make the largest positive difference and put all your effort into improving it.