Patience is a Virtue Most of Us Don’t Have

Let’s face it. Life moves at the speed of light these days, and if you’re a business owner, it can feel like it’s moving even faster.

Patience may seem like a luxury you can’t afford, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Rarity of Patience in Modern Business

Why do we lack patience? Our digital world has us moving faster than ever, and instant gratification has become a way of life.

If you’re not getting rapid results, you’re failing. Or at least that’s what the never-ending stream of mass-appeal “grow your coaching business to six figures overnight” ads on my Facebook feed want me to believe.

The pressure to perform, generate leads, and bring home the bacon can overshadow the need for thoughtful, sustained growth. We’re often so focused on immediate needs – chasing the next client or the quickest revenue spike – that we neglect the consistent, systematic efforts that ensure long-term stability.

→ Sounds like something we’d tell an anxious job seeker, eh?

The Necessity of Patience for Business Owners

While counterintuitive, patience for business owners isn’t just a virtue – it’s our best strategy, especially when it comes to marketing, lead generation, and building consistent revenue.

Here’s why:

1. Cultivating Relationships: Whether it’s with clients, peers, or mentors, building meaningful relationships takes time. Patience allows these relationships to mature into networks that offer support, business, and opportunities, but it takes time to build a consistent referral base that drives reliable leads.

2. Marketing and Lead Generation: There is no magic wand to wave or potion to concoct that will take your business from zero to six figures overnight. Trust, brand loyalty, and visibility take time to build, as do marketing and lead generation strategies that take time to percolate. Rushing these processes can lead to a big waste of money, but more importantly, impatience can set unrealistic expectations that have you jumping from channel to channel without truly cultivating any one potential source.

3. Revenue Growth Expectations: When starting a business or in the early stages of growth, revenue can come in waves and be unpredictable. This is normal – and it’s normal for even the first year or two. What you don’t want to do is have one great month and say, “Great, I made it,” make big decisions based on that spike, and then you’re starving (literally and figuratively) for the next three. Don’t get me wrong, we want great months, but one doesn’t mean you know how to reproduce it, so take one great month and turn it into three back-to-back. Then take that three months and do it all over again, and now you have your formula for consistent revenue – see how important patience was to that sustainable growth?!

Patience in Practice: A Closer Look at Business Growth Areas

In addition to setting realistic expectations and goals for the revenue side of business, patience, and forethought can do a lot for other areas of your business. Speaking from experience, I naturally fall into the “I have an idea; let’s do it NOW” trap that can end up taxing teams or giving initiatives too little focus.

After working with a coach (a coach without a coach is like a doctor who won’t go to the doctor), I learned how to put ideas into execution at the right time.

I learned to be patient.

Here’s what that can do for you:

Strategic Planning: Long-term planning is only possible with patience. Set your vision, establish your goals, and create annual road maps that include launching new products or services, your time off, and other milestones you can lock in advance. This will keep you accountable for the activities you need to do to make that vision a reality while also keeping those “I have an idea” impulses in check!

Client Retention: Securing a new client is an achievement; keeping them is an art. Patience in your client engagements – and giving them the experience they want instead of the process you think they need – allows you to understand, meet, and exceed their expectations. Don’t rush into writing the résumé if they need a coaching session; don’t rush to close a sale if they need time. Fostering loyalty is more profitable in the long run than new client acquisition. It’s also more fun!

Building Your Skills: How to Be More Patient

1. Establish Minimums: When deploying new marketing strategies, lead generation channels, or even launching a new product or service, give it time. Pre-establish a timeline to gauge the effectiveness of any single initiative.

Hint: Three months is typically needed to see if marketing or lead generation strategies will provide an ROI. This period allows enough data accumulation to make informed decisions and see trends while avoiding the typical knee-jerk reaction to short-term fluctuations or a week of crickets.

2. Set Incremental Goals: Break down your larger business goals into smaller, manageable milestones.

Hint: Go back to the suggestion above about planning out your year. This will make big, hairy, audacious goals less daunting by breaking them down into smaller chunks, which also means more opportunities to celebrate wins (and celebrating reinforces patience and persistence).

3. Reflect and Adjust: Set regular monthly or quarterly intervals to review your business strategies, goals, and current outcomes.

Hint: Knowing your numbers helps you adjust your approach to maximize efforts, and a dose of patience will ensure the incremental goals and activities remain aligned with your long-term objectives and market realities.

In Summary

Cool it. No, just kidding – but maybe back off the need for instant gratification a touch?

There’s a time and place to be fast, and there’s a time and place to be slow, methodical, and thoughtful. This is just another example of a time to look in the mirror and give yourself a dose of the advice we give clients every day: consistent, methodical action paired with realistic expectations (translation: patience) will get you the reward.

Turtles win races, too, ya know.

Coach Well!

Your Friend and Coach,

Angie Callen