How Knee Surgery Helped My Business

Do you find yourself spending time trying to fix the same problem over and over? Would you like to be able to solve such things once and for all without getting overwhelmed by the process of sifting through an endless flow of information and magic wand promises? Then maybe my knee surgery can help.

A few months ago I had knee surgery and it taught me some business lessons that you might find useful too. So hang in there while I lay the foundation, okay?

The surgery was really a two-stage process:

1. Fix the problem

2. Heal from fixing the problem

The healing part had two stages of its own:

1. Mending - this happened largely on its own, with rest and pain meds :)

2. Strengthening - this happened with physical therapy, which was the source of my business-related "Ah ha."

It turns out that the key to the success of the whole fix-the-knee event was in the strengthening stage, because I had the first key ingredient of an excellent surgeon at the arthroscopic helm.

In order to fix what was broken, the Doc had to mess up some stuff that wasn't -- namely, muscle tissue. The point of the physical therapy was to strengthen the connective tissue that supports the proper functioning of the knee.

Having knee surgery without physical therapy is the same as spending resources fixing a business problem without taking the time to make sure that the support stuff connected to the problem is in good working order. You wind up making the same repair over and over again.

Maybe you don't need a new solution to your old problem. Maybe you just need a little business physical therapy or bizical therapy.

Suppose your business is suffering from an income injury. A regimen of bizical therapy to strengthen the connective tissue of a trusted and valued relationship with your customer base will be in order.

• Physical therapy is subtle. It begins with simple - not radical - motion, repeated at regular intervals, under the watchful eye of a professional. That professional will sometimes make tiny corrections in the way you are executing one of those simple motions because a little change can mean a big difference in results.

Your income bizical therapy might start with the small, simple motion of sending your email list a single tip on a topic from your area of expertise, at the regular interval of once a month, with the guidance and input of a marketing strategist (ahem) who could offer suggestions for tiny adjustments to ensure positive results.

• Physical therapy gradually introduces additional movements and repetition is increased.

After a few months your bizical therapy might include stepping up your email tip to every other week and adding a coupon with a special offer for referring a friend.

• Sometimes the physical therapy tactics include working on places that seem far removed from the area of injury.

In your bizical therapy, a marketing strategist (ahem, again) might suggest spending time getting clearer about your ideal client to support weakened sales.

• In physical therapy, progress is slow at first and may even seem like the effort is a waste of time; but patience and persistence with the small and deliberate movements produce a cumulative effect of restored health to the problem area.

Bizical therapy works the exact same way and, just like physical therapy, yields the best results when the patient is an active participant and continues the exercises, even when they aren't being watched.

So if you are having a business pain, I suggest you find a specialist, someone you trust who is walking their talk, and engage them in a course of bizical therapy.