What gets your attention faster a faucet with a slow leak or a busted pipe causing a flood? The flood, of course. Does that make the slow leak any less of a threat? No.

Im willing to gamble that right now, you have a slow leak in your business. And, odds are, you wont address it until you have a flood. What you need to understand is: slow leaks cost more over time. A cost most business professionals cant afford to absorb.

Where is this slow leak? Its rooted in the time you loose trying to locate a misplaced file. Drip. Its in the hours and days that are lost when your main computer is otherwise non-operational. Drip. Its the sales conversations where you try to explain what you do, over and over again, to a prospect with a glazed-over expression. Drip. The leak is the lost business opportunities because you fail to follow up with contacts you make at networking events and add them to your automated marketing/keep-in-contact funnel. Drip. Or, what about overdue invoice that is no longer on your radar? Drip.

In short, your business systems or lack thereof - are your slow leak. On average, slow leaks cost professionals like you, $5,000 to $27,000 a What can you do? Three things:
1) Step away from your business and take a long, hard look. And, be honest. If not, you arent fooling me, youre crippling yourself.
2) Write down every inconsistency, every inefficiency, and every slow leak.
3) Develop an action plan to plug or repair those slow leaks, starting with the biggest leaks first.

The good news is, there is an upside to having a slow leak you have time to fix it. But, whatever you do, dont wait to fix the leak and wind up with a flood.