I know we’ve all been told that if we want to be successful, it starts with a good Plan, and I am not here to argue against that. Planning is crucial! But the problem is when planning starts to get in the way of action and a person’s runway to achieving their goals, gets way too long.

Most of us have a general idea about where we want to go with our business, and it’s definitely well worth sitting down with someone, and figuring out the Plan.  Getting started on any Plan rather than sitting and analyzing it, or waiting to have the perfect Plan, is the real key to success! Successful people are doers; they get into action quickly – sometimes even without giving much time to the planning process. You have to move because there is no perfect plan. What happens is — you tweak it as you go.

So, say e.g. you want to add another chair to your practice, your first step might be to decide how much more production your practice would be capable of, with this addition. If e.g. you are barely booked a week in advance, another chair might not pay for itself, at this point in the practice, but then that allows you to determine what you are going to need to do to get a fuller schedule. You decide what marketing to do, and then bam, right into action! When you start taking steps, you might find that the marketing is not giving you the level of patients you need, so fine, now that you know that, you look at other marketing options, till you find the one that opens the floodgates to your practice. Only taking action will give you the data you need to assess what is and isn’t working and what alternative action is necessary. The planning phase will never give you this information!

So, my message today is to prioritize action over planning – both are necessary but action is the key – as it will move you further to your goals, than any amount of planning will do!!