Let’s set the stage.
It’s Monday (or any weekday morning or whenever the equivalent of “Monday” would be in your business).
Today’s the day you’re taking things seriously. You woke up in your CEO pants and you have more determination now than you’ve had since you made your business growth-centric New Year’s Resolutions.
You get to your desk, shake your mouse to wake your computer up, open up your inbox and a new tab in your browser and...just stare. In an instant all the thoughts you had about making today the most productive day you’ve ever experienced evaporate, like a dream you can almost remember after waking up. And, just like that your motivation takes a bit of hit and you fall back into your normal start of the work week routine. Or, worse is you have to deal with some fire that instantly bogards your plans for today.
I can help get your business back on track today and any other day that you happen to wake up wearing your CEO pants. I’m going to introduce you to a few Lean principles that you don’t need a “belt” or certification to put into practice that can help keep you on track when you’re business (or motivation) feels like it’s running off the rails.
Let’s start with a quick, non-business, definition of the Lean process. It’s basically just a set of ideas, principles and processes designed to help your business deliver the most value possible in a way that keeps your expenses (money, time, emotional capacity) as low as possible. It’s a way of thinking designed to help you more efficiently shape and organize how you’re getting to the goals you have for your business.
Below I’m going to outline four concepts you can put into action right now. This could be especially useful for those of you that have been distracted by their inboxes and are running a little low on business growth momentum at the moment.
1. Jump on the Continuous Improvement bandwagon.
Continuous improvement is definitely a concept that gets lots of lip service but ends up being one of those things that gets thought about but never really put into place. The heart of continuous improvement is:
1. Getting you to think about the opportunities you have in a project,
2. Then working on how you might be able take advantage of those opportunities,
3. Trying out those changes or actions,
4. And, reviewing how those changes or actions worked out for you.
Here’s where you can change that. Schedule a chunk of time every week essentially creating a meeting with yourself that you CAN NOT cancel or reschedule to work on your projects. Working on the planning, evaluating and tracking of your highest value projects weekly will allow you to focus on the work that matters most and force you to make decisions about how you’re carving up your work week. The goal is to avoid just showing up and blindly working on whatever needs immediate attention or what you think you “should” be working on. Adding a little more structure and an extra lens or two to the work you’re doing in your business will also help you figure out if the goals and outcomes you’re working towards are authentically the right ones for you and your business.
2. Decide how you want to compete in your market.
Clearly defining strategy is the concept that business owners sweep under the rug the most. I know because I see it every week. Business owners trying to grow think that strategy is just an academic exercise. They believe it’s important but don’t have the time to really think about because they are busy running their business. Well if you want to be successful, defining your strategy can’t be an afterthought. An easy, do it right now, way to get to the heart of your business strategy is to think of your business in terms of what. The biggest what you should be deciding on is what are you doing to consistently set yourself apart from your competitors and still delivering on the value your customers expect from you.
3. Make friends with Pareto.
You’re probably a little too close to your processes. Your marketing processes, your financial processes and operations processes can be a lot to try to keep organized as you’re in grow-mode. I mean that in the most loving way possible. Being close to your business is usually a great thing because it means you have your finger on the pulse of everything it takes to move your business forward. It also means you can get a little nearsighted about your processes and will sometimes be unable to tell what’s wrong with them. The Pareto Principle can help you figure out what work really matters and which parts of your processes matter most when you apply it to the work you’re doing and the data you’re collecting. Essentially, the principle states that 80% of your outcomes will derive from 20% of the work that you’re doing. At first glance this is a little deflating if you’re asking yourself about the other 80% of the work you’re already doing. Try not to worry about that and instead invest in optimizing that 20% of work that’s producing your results and do more of that kind of work!
4. Stop (or strive to stop) doing all the work yourself.
As you’re peeling through your business data and are starting to enjoy the good feelings that come from better efficiency care of the Pareto Principle you’ll start to notice that it’s getting easier to repeat the work you’re doing daily. Taking the time to stabilize and document the processes you use everyday will help you move away from doing everything all by yourself. If you’re serious about growing your business you’re going to have to hand off some of the things you have made yourself responsible for so that you have more time to focus on growing. I know it’s tough right now if you’re a solopreneur or part of a small team but you have to start writing things down. Not only will it be helpful when you’re trying to track whether or not your activity is producing the outcomes you want for the business but it’ll save you lots of time when you decide to grow your workforce. At the very least it will save you time having to relearn some task that you may only do quarterly - like building a cheat sheet for yourself essentially. I’m working on a process right now to help me edit video faster so that I don’t get stuck toying with all the neat features in Adobe Premiere.
This is a good place to end for this post and a great place for you to start working more efficiently in your business. Taking control of your time has more to do with growing your business than you initially thought. How can you give dedicated attention to customer development and marketing if you’re spending time doing work that only marginally benefits the business? And, for the love of Gary Vaynerchuk spending 100 hours a week working and #hustle’ing doesn’t mean anything if the work you’re doing isn’t directly delivering value or making it easier for you to deliver value to your end consumer.