“Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is Hard to keep things simple” Richard Branson
Preparation v Poor Performance
How true this is……Sometimes, we make our businesses so complex that after a few years the complexity becomes the clutter that slows us down in our focus and productivity.
I’ll be the first to admit that “keeping it simple” is really hard as you grow, but here are my 10 hacks for simplifying your business.
- Try the Lean management process or 5 S to take things back to basics.
The 5S pillars, Sort (Seiri), Set in Order (Seiton), Shine (Seiso), Standardize (Seiketsu), and Sustain (Shitsuke), provide a methodology for organizing, cleaning, developing, and sustaining a productive work environment. In the daily work of a business, routines that maintain organise and have orderliness are essential to a smooth and efficient flow of activities. This lean method encourages workers to improve their working conditions and helps them to learn to reduce waste, unplanned downtime, and in-process inventory.
- Analysis the current workflows.
There is no point in setting up an automated workflow unless you know the benefits you expect to receive, and how your workflows can be improved. Unexamined workflows get out of date and stale quickly. Checking your workflow task level, on a regular basis, enables business users to tweak processes for optimal efficiency and workplace productivity. Workflow analysis often reveals redundant tasks, bottlenecks, and opportunities for more automation.
- Identify the Critical success factors of your business.
Critical success factors state the important elements required for a company to compete in its target markets. In effect, it articulates what the company must do, and do well, to achieve the goals outlined in its strategic plan.
- Priorities work, to FOCUS on things that have the following Critical success factors in your business.
- Are vital to the organization’s success.
- Benefit the business or department as a whole.
- Be equal to a high-level goal.
- Link directly to your business strategy.
- Use simple language.
In our fast-paced business world, knowing how to use plain English is a vital skill. People want and need to be able to understand and act on information quickly rather than wade through unnecessary words, unfamiliar jargon acronyms, and sentences more tricky than a game of Jenga. It is not because they lack intelligence. They lack the time.
- Take a big picture look.
I think it’s easier to get an understanding of what the big picture is by looking at what it is not. It’s not the small day-to-day details. It’s not any individual product or service. It’s not any single strategy. An example of this is: You’re excited about your latest project for your business. You have a big goal and you know this project will help you meet it. But instead of working on it, every day you get caught up in all the things you “have to do.” Answering emails. Pinning a certain number of pins. Curating that beautiful Instagram feed. If this is happening to you, then you need to step back and look at the big picture.
- Develop new and better steps.
- Manage the process.
It’s very important to make an inventory of all the existing processes in your business. Reduce Non-Value-Added Steps. Improve the Measurement System. Use resources effectively. …
- Keep material moving. …
- Keep the process simple. …
- Hedge against variability. …
- Don’t fall in love with technology. …
- Manage the supply chain. …
- Improve quality
- Find good, automated tools.
Choosing the right automated tools will not only save you masses of time but help you get your desired results for your business. A few examples that you could use if you aren’t already.
- Respond immediately to an email contact request
- Playing phone tag can lose you a customer…Using automation software, you can note in the system that you left a message for a contact. Doing so triggers an automatic email to him: “I just left you a voicemail. Sorry I missed you! If I don’t hear from you, I’ll follow up tomorrow.”
Follow up with new networking connections. Networking efforts can pay off in the form of a big stack of business cards. But merely collecting business cards isn’t the goal. of course. Start communicating with your new contracts immediately – before you both forget about the conversation you had. Transfer contract information from the business card to your CRM tool, tagging each person as a conference or event contact. Then use automation software to schedule an email to be sent, wheather you want to follow up an hour later or the next day.
- Eat the elephant one bite at a time. Break down into small chunks.
If there’s one thing I have learned since starting my business, it’s that moving forward means taking one step at a time and not trying to achieve the journey in one day.
You don’t have to achieve all of your business goals in one day! By accomplishing one difficult task or making one decision each day, your daily progress will turn into huge accomplishments.
- Systemise your digital/paperwork documentation
Create a replicate filing system for both paper and computer records. Name all your documents with a page footer name – doing so will ensure you can find what you’re looking for without taking wasted time scouring through extensive files. Looking for something as I am sure most of us have at some stage certainly can be a time-waster.
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough ‘ Albert Einstein
Remember:
“The more focused your plan – the easier to implement” Helen Cowley
