I asked a business owner last week what had been most important to them over the past week or so. “Growing the sales pipeline,” they said. Fair enough. So I asked what progress they’d made on it.
“I’ve just been too busy!”
And that’s where it gets interesting. Because what I said next stopped them in their tracks:
“What has been more important than the most important thing?”
When you say it out loud like that, it sounds completely absurd. And yet, almost every business owner I work with falls into this exact trap — and most of them can’t even see it happening.
So today, I’m giving you the entire formula for business success. All of it. Three steps.
Step 1 – Stop Messing Around With the Stuff That Doesn’t Matter
You know exactly what I’m talking about. The endless tweaking of your website. The hour-long debate about what to call a new service. The meetings about meetings. The planning of the planning. Emails, queries, and a bit of gossip with the team, suppliers, and customers.
Way too much of the average business owner’s time is eaten up by decisions and tasks that simply do not matter. They don’t move you or your business forward. They won’t help you hit your goals.
Every minute you spend on that stuff is a minute you’re not spending on the things that would actually grow your business.
Step 2 – Get Clear on What WILL Move the Needle
This is where most people fall down. They’ve never properly sat down and identified the one, two, maybe three things that — if done consistently — would genuinely change the trajectory of their business.
It might be landing bigger deals. It might be building evergreen marketing collateral that works while you sleep — like a solid referral system or a clear exhibition strategy. It might be increasing your prices. Or finally launching that new product you’ve been sitting on for six months.
When you’re truly clear on those things, everything else becomes background noise. It stops feeling urgent. Because you know what actually is.
Step 3 (The Most Important One) – Do the Things in Step 2
That’s it. That’s the whole secret.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 until successful.
Simple as that.
The problem? Step 3 is brutally hard to do consistently when you haven’t done the thinking in Step 1. When you’re in the business every single day, it’s almost impossible to get the clarity and perspective you need to properly identify your real needle-movers — let alone build a plan to actually execute them.
Why This Isn’t Generic Productivity Advice
Most productivity frameworks are built for knowledge workers with a to-do list. They tell you to do more — more deep work, more focus blocks, more systems, more habits.
This is the opposite. This framework is built for business owners — people who sit at the intersection of strategy, sales, marketing, operations, hiring and finance, often all in the same hour. The problem isn’t that you need to do more. The problem is that you’re doing too much of the wrong stuff because you’ve never been given the space to decide what the right stuff is.
The framework itself is almost embarrassingly simple. Getting honest about Step 1 vs Step 2 — that’s the hard part. And you can’t do it while you’re drowning in the day-to-day.
John’s View
Here’s the uncomfortable bit I’ve learned working with hundreds of owners: most people don’t actually want Step 2.
It’s scary to commit to a small number of things, because it means admitting that most of what you’re currently busy with might not matter. That the website redesign doesn’t matter. That the new logo doesn’t matter. That the three-hour team meeting about the team offsite doesn’t matter.
Step 2 forces you to choose. And choosing means losing — losing the comfort of being “too busy” as an excuse. That’s why most owners stay stuck in Step 1 their entire careers. Not because they don’t know the formula. Because the formula makes them uncomfortable.
The good news: you already have the answer. You know, right now, what your Step 2 is. You just haven’t given yourself permission to drop everything else.
So What’s the Answer?
This is exactly why I run a Quarterly Planning Day for business owners. It’s a full day, in person, working on your business — not in it. We get ruthlessly clear on Step 1 vs Step 2, cut out the noise, and you leave with a proper, workable plan for Step 3.
You can find out more about how it works on our Working With Us page.
One thing worth knowing — we don’t sell anything at the event. It’s a proper working day, for you and your business. Nothing more, nothing less.
Not Ready for a Full Planning Day?
Fair enough. A Planning Day is a real commitment and it’s not for everyone at every stage.
If you’d like something lighter, book a free 30-minute clarity call with John here. We’ll spend the whole time on your Step 2 — what’s actually going to move the needle for you this quarter — and if a Planning Day makes sense afterwards, we’ll tell you. If it doesn’t, we’ll tell you that too.
The Q2 event has sold out, but if you’re serious about growth and want help creating a clear, actionable plan, the next event is running in June. Get in touch here to be added to the waiting list, and I’ll send over all the details — including information on our special taster tickets.
John runs Quarterly Planning Days for business owners in West Yorkshire who are serious about cutting through the noise and focusing on what actually matters. Full-day, in-person, working ON your business.
