What does your business have to do with a peach?

This is for those in business or those with a J-O-B and a side business.

I was on a road trip through the Okanagan in British Columbia’s beautiful interior and stopped to pick up some boxes of peaches and cherries. I had grand plans to make jams, cobblers, and pies but before I knew it, they were sitting getting nearly past ripe and attracting more fruit flies than I thought was possible.

How many times might you have an idea but you let it sit on the shelf until it attracts fruit flies?

How many times do you go to a networking event with the intention to get leads or business cards, but instead let them sit and take up space on your desk?

Or you might structure your business so that you have a box of peaches – great ideas and intentions for what you want to create. So many wonderful things you want to contribute or turn into beautiful jams. What happens when you don’t have systems, processes, strategies in place to turn those peaches that will create deliciousness for someone else?

You need proven systems, strategies, and support so that you can be more productive, save more time and create better results than you can merely going with the flow.

You need a goal and concrete plan in place so that you know what you’re working toward. Then you know how many peaches you need in order to make that jam. Is it a couple of boxes? Or do you only need one? What if you need three boxes but you only bought two–then what do you do? Those great intentions, your dreams, won’t happen unless you know what you need to make them happen. Get those goals in place for your business.

You need the right tools for the job. You need strategies and systems. Try making jam without a recipe. It might turn out but you could also get botulism and die. (Well that got morbid.) Don’t let your business spoil because you aren’t using the right systems and strategies!

You need a special sauce to sprinkle into your business so that it all gels together. That’s your love, support, nurturing and attention to your products, services, and clients.

You need to package your products and services well. And you need to make sure they’re super clean so that, again, they don’t spoil down the road.

Without these structures in place–tools, support, strategies and plans–you can end up with a lot of smashed peaches but not a great outcome even after you’ve spent all of that time, money, energy and your heart and soul working to make your jam.

And if you do happen to have fruit flies around, you need to know how to deal with them. You need to have something to get them out of your peaches and out of your business so that you can make some jam.