How To Find The Time You Need To Grow Your Business

Have you ever said to your spouse or a good friend, “Boy, I wish I could spend more time savoring the enjoyment and sense of accomplishment I should be getting from my business? I hardly have time to get all the stuff done that’s need every day – forget about being able to free up some time to grow and better managing my business?

Worse yet, my spouse just doesn’t understand how hard it is. It’s getting tougher and tougher to get it all done. And I’m falling behind in building my business because I’m just “too busy”!

OK – you’re busy! Busy doing what? Reacting to events? Getting buried in work because you never seem to be able to “keep up”? Do you think there might be something wrong with this picture?

Maybe you a CCBW? What’s that you say?

CHIEF COOK AND BOTTLE WASHER – in charge of everything with no job description, no allocation of time or energies – everything you do is “reactive” instead of proactive. Whatever operating/logistical systems are in place in your company are reflective of the systems you developed when you first started your contracting business. That was the time when you truly did everything – because there wasn’t anyone else around to do it! Right?

Do you see yourself in this picture? A number of my clients do. And a few of them have even gone so far as to have business cards printed with their “title” being CCBW. They’re constantly asked, what does CCBW mean? After they explain it, the person who asked it usually smiles – a BIG SMILE because that’s one of the facts of life of being in business.

That is, unless you decide you’d like to run your business instead of having your business run you! It’s your business – YOU MAKE THE CALL.

Is there a better way? YES!!!!!! It requires re-looking at what you’re doing now and, with much fore thought and logical thinking, converting the traditional processes into operating systems that not only work but work better, faster and with less effort than what you’re doing now.

If you decide to make the investment of your time to develop these operating systems, you will be truly surprised at just how much more time and resources you have at your disposal. And your line staff will love you for it.

Line management and staff often do what they do because it has “always been done that way”. By developing new operating systems and TRAINING your staff to effectively utilize these new systems, you’ll quickly find a job done more efficiently – and, of greater value to your company is the freed up time you will give your organization – time that can be used to generate additional revenue.

Oh, one more thing, management systems that enable you to manage the results vs. being a CCBW. Can you imagine your company being that smooth running (smile)?

GETTING STARTED

Start by stepping back and giving your company a “look see”. On a yellow lined pad, jot down on a yellow lined pad, a detailed note describing how you handle each of the following functions with your company:

Operations

• Overall ops management including at least the following:
  • Individual Project fulfillment
  • Supply chain
  • Yard ops
  • Field ops
  • Administration
  • HR/Staffing – management and line
    • Training & Human Resource Development

Business Development

• Marketing – referral marketing, direct marketing, emarketing, network marketing, telemarketing/yellow pages, affiliate marketing, direct mail marketing, collaterals, e
• Sales – everything you do from the moment a prospect is identified to the time a contract is signed and a deposit received while managing the process.
• PR, communications, search-engine optimization, salesforce automation, management

Finance

• P&L, Balance Sheet
• Cash Flow
• AR/AP Management
• Capitalization
• Financial Management

See I told you had nothing to do.

MOVING FORWARD – there are at least two ways you can begin to make some serious progress:

KAIZEN – Process Improvement in the Japanese Style – The Kaizen method of continuous incremental improvement is an originally Japanese management concept for incremental (gradual continuous) change/improvement. The Kaizen philosophy lies behind many Japanese management concepts such as Total Quality Control. Quality Control circles, small group activities, labor relations.

Each are all key elements of Kaizen as well as quality, effort, involvement of all employees, willingness to change, and communication. Japanese companies distinguish between innovation (radical) and Kaizen (continuous). K. means literally: change (kai) to become good (Zen).

The foundation of the Kaizen method consists of 5 founding elements:

1. teamwork, 2. personal discipline, 3. improved morale, 4. quality circles, 5. suggestions for improvement.

Consider the possibility of using the Kaizen technique. Here those involved with each of the above listed function are brought together in a isolated room together with a facilitator. The facilitator’s job is to bring all those who are familiar with these functions to suggest alternative methodologies that will yield better results – whether that is the same job done faster, or the job done using fewer staff members, or at a lower cost (labor, consumables, equipment, etc. The facilitator is also responsible for taking notes and reporting back to you with recommendations.

Take your list and schedule out Kaizen sessions for each one – appointing the facilitator as far in advance as is possible.

Instruct the facilitator to evaluate those functions for which his Kaizen group will be evaluating and to put together an agenda reflective of how these functions are done today. Help him/her by reviewing it prior to the actual Kaizen session. And make sure to have him bring the agenda with him to the Kaizen session.

Audit at least 25-30% of the Kaizen sessions taking your own notes. Some ideas that come from these sessions are great – others push the limit of usefulness to the limit (smile). Your goal, during your audit sessions, is to identify individuals who exhibit management skills or exceptional knowledge of the functions being addressed.

A report with recommendations needs to be created by the facilitator and submitted to you for review.

Like any report that is to be taken seriously, you need to acknowledge its receipt and set a date/time to get together once again with the facilitator to discuss his recommendations and your own – arriving at a decision as to what changes will be implemented.

Then IMPLEMENT – including assigning responsibility for implementation to one (or more) individuals who have shown themselves to have talent both as managers and as innovators.

DO IT YOURSELF

After you’ve put together your list of functions, break out each major category (ops, finance, bizdev) and put the result onto a MSWord document. Then do the following:

1. List each function underneath each category on a MSWord document
2. Beneath each function define a process that is currently being used to accomplish a specific task e.g. picking/packing & wrapping orders in a warehouse, telephoning existing inactive accounts to revive them, etc., etc., etc.
3. Develop your process list till you have most, if not all of the tasks identified that make the process work today.
4. Using MSExcel or equal, start to break out each function identifying the process that’s currently being used to do the job. Prioritize the list based on its importance to your overall operation. And take the most important and deal with that first, the next most important, second, etc., etc., etc.
5. Then, looking at the same function and your best judgment, develop your own more efficient process. Be as detailed as possible as it is likely you will be using these to help you implement the process.
   1. Don’t try and do this all at once. Spread out the work over a 30-45 day period – taking the most important and costly processes first – dealing with them – and then going down to the next highest priority. This is a step-by-step process – it doesn’t do any good to rush it unless the results warrant the time commitment.
   2. As you develop your new processes, set aside time during your workweek to begin IMPLEMENTING the process. Leverage your supervisors/managers
   3. Work your way through the list you’re developing – not to the detriment of your company’s operations but in proportion to the length of time it’ll take to get the changes implemented.

THE FINAL OPTION

That’s the DO-NOTHING AND IT’LL GO AWAY option. That also works if you recognize what results you’re going to get from it. Remember the definition of a “fool”, someone who continues to do the same thing over and over and over and expects different results.

SYNOPSIS

Recognize that change only comes from concerted effort, a process/plan and a willingness to implement the plan. Without what amounts to a “BACKBONE” and a willingness to “stay the course”, there is a great likelihood that you will NOT get the results you want – time to enjoy your business and an opportunity to build revenue and profits.