Credit: Thinkstock If something is worth doing, it is worth doing better.

We have all heard the old saying: If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well.

Sales and marketing guru Seth Godin in his blog mentioned if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing better. While he didn’t coin the original phrase (or even the adaptation), it’s a good reminder that we should always be trying to improve.

This means trying to improves our businesses, our products, our marketing, our pitches, our training, our horses…pretty much anything we do. And don’t forget things like ourselves, our relationships, our physical health, our mental health…you get the idea.

Getting better takes time and effort. You have to think about and analyze where you are and understand where you want to go before you can try to get better in any realm.

Let’s say you want to get better at running your boarding operation like a business. First you need to know where you are in your business. Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you good at attracting the right boarders? Are you successful (and what is your definition of success)?
• Do you know how to analyze your potential clients (the ones you would like to attract) and modify your pitch so you are getting the right clients? Or are you just waiting until someone picks up the phone or sends you an email?
• Do you know how to make a pitch person-to-person, on the phone, via email, or through a third-party?
• Do you have the tools to improve your pitch, such as good marketing materials, interesting business cards, websites, product information, videos, etc?
• Do you have testimonials from satisfied clients, current and past?
• Do you go to any type of training to see how other people do things, then adapt what works best for you?
• Do you meet and share insights with others in your profession or industry?
• Do you meet with good customers to find out what they like and don’t like about your operation?
• Do you survey people in the industry who aren’t customers for the same reason?

Getting better isn’t easy; it can take a lot of time and effort. But the result might be more customers and a better bottom line.