At work, you’re probably BUSY and like most business owners just love being ‘hands-on’. But if you are consumed by your workplace – stressed, frustrated, angry, overwhelmed or feeling poorly rewarded – you are probably doing it WRONG! You need better PRODUCTIVITY.
Your time is valuable, so learn how you can make the most of it – to get more done in less time – before it’s too late. Your family and your own health need you to manage your work/life balance better.
The best piece of productivity advice I received was “always know your Outcome” – whether it’s your whole life, your business or just a meeting – always know what you are aiming for.
When you started your business you probably had to do everything yourself. Now is the time to STOP doing low paying work and focus on the activities that earn you the most money.
Focus on doing “High Dollar Value” Activities – things that pay really well – like recruiting, training, systemising, coaching, buying better, problem solving and sales/marketing activities.
Reduce your efforts on things that you can get done for less by others – cleaning, moving stock, making coffee etc. Learn how to delegate more effectively.
Calculate your effective Hourly Rate – work out how many hours you work in a year and how much profit you would like your store to make. Let’s say 1250 useful hours for $125k – that’s $100/hour. Now focus on activities that earn more than $100 per hour! You don’t have to do it yourself – just get it done really well.
People are expensive. The cost of store wages is one of the highest expense items in a Small Business – make sure you are getting your money’s worth by engaging your team and being clear about what you want done and how to do it.
Learn to be a better leader – Be positive and optimistic, be clear on your expectations and House Rules. Get the best from your team using genuine appreciation, recognition and incentives. Study personality profiling and understand how other people behave. They are NOT like you, they are different.
Learn to be more flexible in your leadership style. Learn how to deal with conflict, handle difficult situations and find out how to influence and persuade others.
You can build a high-performance workplace by hiring the right people and adopting a positive and systematically organised culture.
Systems save time. They save mental effort and they boost productivity. Just look at how McDonalds trains their young staff to deliver a consistently good product and service.
They don’t make things up or leave it to chance. They follow documented processes. Stop playing the “Guess what’s in my head” game with your team.
In some of our workshops we play training games that demonstrate the power of a process and practice. You can watch the great Youtube video of the difference between the 1950 and 2013 Grand Prix tyre change – what an amazing improvement!
When I started out in business I tried to do everything myself and I tried to solve ALL the problems myself. I was busy and overwhelmed by the complexity and number of problems we had.
Then I met Dick Smith who told me to STOP solving everyone else’s problems. He said – Let them solve their own problems. Ask them better questions but avoid telling them what to do.
Continuous improvement helps you become better and better over time.
Try new things and get comfortable making mistakes. Recover, review and repeat. There are better, smarter ways to solve problems which can include:
You may have heard of the Pareto or ‘80/20’ rule – that says that all things are not equal – some things are far more important.
20% of your efforts get you 80% of your results, 20% of customers get you 80% of your sales
and 20% of your stock items gets you 80% of your turnover
Some of the most successful people have developed simple routines to save mental effort and boost productivity. They use the same routine daily – and even dress in similar clothesto save thinking effort & time.
Being messy and disorganised causes mental fatigue, loss of time and is dangerous.
Lift your Productivity by being in control of your surroundings and you’ll be more successful too.
When you start out you tend to please others and take any work that comes along. As your business grows you need to be more selective and cease doing some things. Stop doing low value tasks and avoid work that is too difficult, too painful or low in profit.
Learn how to be more assertive and decide to what you really want. Become a niche specialist and develop systems for your favourite types of work.
You have already invested a lot of money into great technology tools that can save you lots of time and make you lots more money.
Learn to make the most of your software – some of the most valuable things you can do include sending SMS reminders, analysing your stock performance and shift slow moving stock, adjust your pricing matrix regularly.