Getting Off the Business Barrier

How to stop procrastinating and do the real work to achieve your goals

As a teen, I used to be a figure skater. I was even pretty good at it. However, when I look back, a key reason I didn’t move into international competition was the amount of time I spent hanging out on the barrier having a chat. No, it wasn’t I couldn’t skate and needed the barrier to hang onto. I was well and truly good enough not to need it. But getting great was, well, hard work and often came with bruised knees and ego.

It was much easier to hang and procrastinate.

My coach would often shriek across the rink “Kristin Austin — stop chatting and GET OFF that barrier” in exasperated tones. And that would do the trick…until the next time.

As you might expect, when I truly focussed, good things happened, improvements were made and competitions were won. I nailed jumps, spins and sequences. But then the bar would be raised, things would get hard again, and there I’d be back on the barrier, coaching screaming.

Maybe if I’d spent more time working and less time barrier-hugging, I might have made the Olympics. But that dream belongs in woulda, coulda, shoulda-land.

Fast forward to 2022 and I often use the barrier as a great analogy for motivating myself and others in business to avoid the procrastination of stuff that looks like work which isn’t proper work at all. After all, it’s just sooooo much easier (and perhaps a bit more fun) to hang out and chat with people on the barrier rather than doing the real work of building your business. It just get you any closer to achieving your business dreams of greatness.

What does the business barrier look like?

Your business barrier is likely to appear in different forms. It might be meet-ups, coffee, seminars/conferences/webinars/courses, social media, marketing activities, even the water cooler/cafe, etc. Essentially it can be anything that distracts you from getting the real work done and often those distractions involve other people.

The problem with the business barrier, just like having your skates on the ice which feels like skating, is that it feels like you’re doing the work, when you’re really not. Learning how or talking about doing something isn’t the same as doing it. You can waste whole hours, days, weeks or god-forbid months doing both without ever doing the real work.

And when you run a business, it’s likely to be a death-sentence.

How to avoid getting stuck on your business barrier

1. Start doing what you’ve learned asap — even before you finish learning. Learning is great for sure. But as soon as you can, or earlier if possible, get out there and apply what you’ve learned in your business. Hint: you’ll learn quicker that way too, because you have to iterate as you go, each time you hit a roadblock.
2. Ask yourself are you the right person to be doing the work you’re currently doing. I used to like teaching the little kids on the ice because it was fun. It wasn’t what I was meant to be doing nor was it getting me to my goals. So just because you want to have a go building your website or managing your social, doesn’t mean you should. Pay someone else to get it done. Even if it’s not completely perfect, you can iterate in your spare moments, rather than wasting hours/days/weeks of time learning something you’ll likely never use again (unless your business is building websites/managing social).
3. Understand what your real work is. If you’re starting/building a business and you’ve dreams of it growing from micro-business to small business to larger business, your primary goal is to find new customers/clients. By all means, you’ll need a website, some social, content, touchpoints, etc. However, if you’re in B2B, consulting or professional services, that’s filler in your day. Your primary goal will be to build and fill your sales pipeline. Without a quality, regularly replenished, new business pipeline, you’re likely to lurch from project to project, boom to bust whenever said project finishes. A solid pipeline is more likely to convert business regularly without you ‘needing’ it.
4. Chatting to people and/or handing out your business card (yes, people still do that) isn’t selling. We all know people who work the room, giving out and collecting business cards (then adding you to spammy lists), thinking that’s how business is done. No, please dear god, just no. Chatting to someone about your business, even to someone who might potentially be a prospect, doesn’t count as ‘selling’. You doing all the talking about your business isn’t the point. When you’re in sales mode, your most important (read: only) job is to get them talking about what their greatest issue is and to listen actively, to see if there’s an opportunity and the likelihood of fit. You DO NOT sell. Not unless you’re invited to and you know what the problem is that you can solve. Even then, find another time to discuss how you can solve their problem with your service/product (that’s the real sales call).
5. Going to business events isn’t ‘the work’ either — focus on what counts. Sure they can be interesting, you meet great people and further your knowledge. This is the very definition of chatting on the barrier in that probably won’t get you any closer to your goal. A while ago client of mine sent me an email asking if I was going to a women’s network event that promised to show attendees how to build a successful business. There were several super successful women who’d built businesses who would be speaking. I told my client super successful people didn’t go along to these when they were in business-building mode, rather they put their heads down, bums up and got the work done, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year — until they achieved the success they were after. Now they were successful they could afford the time to go chat and hang without it impacting their business.

Don’t misunderstand me, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any barrier-esque activities. A momentary stop on the business barrier is fine. It can be a necessary chance to catch your breath, do a brain dump, be social, get sorted, etc. But it’s not ‘the work’.

Let’s be crystal clear. Unless you’re actually doing the real work of building your business — you’re not getting any closer to your goals. Hanging at the barrier watching someone else do the jumps on the ice didn’t get me any closer to landing that jump myself.

So if you want to achieve business greatness, view business barrier activities as business ‘fun’ — not real work. If I was your coach, every time I saw you there, I might remind you to STOP CHATTING AND GET OFF THAT BARRIER.

Kristin Austin is the creator of the 1st in business revenue building game. And is writing an e-book version because it’s much, much easier to ship. Thanks for reading. If you need a coach to get you off the barrier, you can also hire me as a habit coach to help you build your sales revenue.

Like reading Medium and want to read lots more great articles? You can support my writing and thousands of amazing writers on Medium by subscribing. You’ll get access to every story whenever you’re wanting to read them — it’s just $5/mth — that’s probably less than a single morning coffee. You can subscribe here.