Subscribe to our RSS feed![[del.icio.us]](http://theboasgroup.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Facebook]](http://theboasgroup.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://theboasgroup.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[MySpace]](http://theboasgroup.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Twitter]](http://theboasgroup.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
7 Steps to Increased Productivity and Profitability NOW!
Monday, January 11th, 2010
Continuing on from the prior blog postings: you should now have your 2010 strategy, plans and goals laid out.
Now that we are two weeks into the new year it is time to find other strategies that will allow you to minimize costs, improve productivity, increase revenue results, and therefore maximize profitability.
What can you be doing now to ensure that you and your business maximizes profitability?
- Create standard processes, procedures, standards and practices in your business!
And it does not matter if you are a business of 1 or of several; focusing, documenting, and working to standardizing all of the work you do each week is a top critical factor for maximizing productivity and profitability. How?
If there are standard activities you do in your business each week, week after week, they are prefect candidates for review, adjustment, automation/standardization and repeatability. And if you have not been able to get these activities or tasks documented, assessed or automated, there is no better time than a new year - YEAH…. we have week 2 of 2010 to get started.
So let’s take 3 basic tasks and activities small businesses (and large) put some degree of effort into week after week:
- Updating and maintaining contacts, leads, prospects and clients
- Writing, creating, and sending weekly or monthly Newsletters
- Tracking, filing and reporting Expenses
Now the first question you want to ask yourself is; how manual or automated are you handling these weekly tasks? How much time, expense and effort does it take to perform these tasks to results?
Your objective as the entrepreneurial business owner is to 1) maximize the results you receive executing business activities and 2) minimize effort, cost, and time you are spending on them. In order to accomplish both of those goals you need to streamline processes, automate any effort, and find ways to make the activities run on their own or at minimum be repeatable with little effort.
The 7 steps you can take now to begin focusing on standardizing your tasks and activities is to:
- Make a list of every task and activity your business requires you to execute on, i.e. would start with the above 3 activities, and then add to it everything else, sales meetings, sending direct mail, hiring employees, cleaning the office, buying office supplies, making phone calls to make appointments, and on and on and on
- You can also look at it (and categorize the list) in functional areas: Sales, Marketing, HR, Legal, Financial, IT, Operations, Administration etc.
- CONGRATS - you have take a first BIG step to understanding a huge part of effective business management - ‘what it takes to manage a business”
- Identify 3 tasks or activities that take up the MOST TIME
- Prioritize those 3 tasks - Most Critical (to the business) to Least Critical - 1,2,3
- CONGRATS - you now have a very narrow and focused set of prioritized targets for you to begin working on
- Focusing on the number 1 task/activity first, do the following:
- Write out on a paper, as a list or a flow chart, all of the specific tasks you have to do in order to execute and complete that task, for example: Updating contacts, leads and prospects - first I:
- meet/talk/communicate with a new contact (could be suspect, prospect, lead, referral source, etc.)
- am given a business card (hard copy or electronic) where I make note on the back when and where I met them and any information regarding our discussion
- compile all contacts at the end of each day
- update my contact listing in database with the contacts information (database could be excel spreadsheet, CMS system, etc.)
- tag them suspect, prospect, lead, referral, etc………
- assign them to a team member (or myself) for follow-up
- determine next step in Marketing Process
- etc…..
- Write out on a paper, as a list or a flow chart, all of the specific tasks you have to do in order to execute and complete that task, for example: Updating contacts, leads and prospects - first I:
Make sense? You write out all of the little and big steps you do to handle a particular task or activity
5. Review the ‘process’ that you just defined and identify:
- Where can I automate any manual steps with tools, software, third party resources, etc.
- What steps are duplicate or just not needed, so I can delete them
- What steps can be added or deleted to make the process more efficient and effective
6. Update the process with any output from the above review (and continue to assess and update as you move forward)
7. Finalize, file (in a operations manual) and make available to anyone that supports the execution of that task and activity
8. Repeat steps for the next task or activity you prioritized above
If you were to kick off the new year making this Process Improvement work a priority for you and your business, you will not only see great results down the road, but the people that work for you, partner with you, refer you, service or provide products to you, and overall engage with you in any manner, will determine that they MUST do business with you - as you have you stuff together and run a very efficient and profitable business.
MORE IMPORTANTLY - you will hear more ringing of the cash register or bank account with the additional profit and revenue you are now focused on and have time to generate.
Give it a priority on your 2010 Goal Plan….. and see SUCCESS fast!
Good luck, Bernadette
