When you get questions from clients or customers, do you often default to the answers you’ve used before? I know I have, because it’s easy.

A client comes to me and wants a store. They have a few things like books, plus a bit of content that is only available to purchasers.

My first thought currently is WooCommerce and my own plugin called Easy Restricted Content for WooCommerce. One reason for that automatic response is that I sell a product — the plugin — that would accomplish a client’s goals so it’s top of mind. A second consideration is that WooCommerce powers 1 in 3 online stores so it’s top of mind.

The matching parts are obviously the top-of-mind solution. My default answer.

But is it best???

Yeah, that’s the question, isn’t it? Just because I’ve done something one way for a while doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to do it. What about using WP eCommerce as Chris outlines in this post? It would also accomplish the goals of the client, and I actually put more time into WPEC so I’m more familiar with how it works than WooCommerce.

For a long time I’ve used Evernote as my notebook for any little thing. I had momentum with that system until I had a few experiences trying to remember something I hadn’t saved in there. Like the name of a movie my wife and I were talking about. At the time of our chat about the movie, my phone wasn’t immediately handy because it was on the counter so I didn’t write down the movie title.

Then come Friday when we usually sit and watch a movie, neither of us could remember the title of the one we’d discussed, and we both felt a bit frustrated.

As far as I’m concerned, when faced with a problem you either fix it or learn to live with it. That means I could either just figure I’d forget stuff I didn’t want to forget or I could come up with a solution.

I’m sure you guessed that I found a solution to my issue. I grabbed a pocket notebook. Sure, I could just plan to have my phone around, but then I’d be so tempted to get out of alignment with my work and my life.

[Tweet “Just because you’ve done something one way for a while doesn’t mean that’s the best way to do it.”]

The best choice was not to go with the option that already had momentum because when I sat back and really thought about what I wanted in life, I didn’t want to be in and out of my phone all the time. I wanted to be present with my family.

What has momentum

Are you charging hourly because it’s easy and prospective clients seem to understand it? You know clients don’t actually want your hourly rate right?

You’re using Harvest, or Freshbooks or Asana or Basecamp or…just because that’s what you’ve always done. Have you ever tried out the competition to see if they may work better with your business?

Don’t get stuck in your default just because you’ve gained some momentum. Take time each year to evaluate your business practices and change the things that can be improved. We should all be looking to get a bit better all the time. Keep piling on a few percentage points of improvement for years and you’re going to be awesome.

photo credit: starstreak007 cc