Ellen Rohr
Contributing Writer
Bare Bones Biz
What are the best things to do at your company to produce maximum positive effect with the least possible effort on your part? From my own experience, and from paying attention to others, here’s my Top Five list…
#5. Clean up your financial statements. Your Balance Sheet and Income Statement should be an accurate reflection of your business, and reviewed weekly. You should be able to go through every line item on the reports and understand what is reflected in that number. The positive effects on your business from this are enormous. Imagine NCAA basketball without a scoreboard…then, adding the scoreboard. It’s that kind of impact. Once you know the score, then you have a game. Start with last year’s tax return and make sure those balances foot to your internal accounting system. Then, vow that this is the year to keep things tight and right.
#4. Put it in writing. Write down how you want things done, from how to answer the phone to how to take out the trash. You can start with a three ring binder, loose leaf pages and a pencil. Ask the person doing the job to write down what it is that they do. It is that simple. At some point, you can enter it into the computer, spell check it and update it. This saves so much time and energy! We are just too old to remember verbal instructions. So are our 21-year-old team mates. Write things down and we help each other out.
#3. Be sales focused. Get over any reservations you have about sales. The game IS sales. Good sales, sales that feel good. Sales that cause customers to want to call you again to sell them something else. Should you formalize the sales system at your company, the results could double or triple or quadruple your sales and profitability. That’s a big effect for relatively little effort. Explore great sales trainers and find one you like. Then adopt his or her system. Easy peasy.
#2. Let him or her go. How much time have you wasted fretting about whether or not to let an employee go, when you know in your heart and gut that it is the right thing to do? Oh, this is abuse of the worst kind…to you and to your employee. Let him or her go. Clear, written expectations and systems make it easier for both of you to know whether or not the relationship is working.
#1. Decide what you want. These are the essential effort-to-effect questions: What do you want? What do you want your company to be? To look like? To feel like? How much in sales? How much on the bottom line? How can you be of the most service? How can you best express your unique gifts? How can your company help you serve your highest purpose? Why are you doing this?
The more certain your intention, the less effort required to bring your vision into the material universe. You’ll be able to do less and accomplish more.
“I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” ~Henry David Thoreau
Ellen Rohr learned how to make – and keep track of – her OWN money! She fixed the failing family plumbing business. And she grew a franchise – Benjamin Franklin The Punctual Plumber – from zero to $40 million in franchisee sales, 47 locations, in under 2 years. She is a serial entrepreneur, now the president of Zoom Drain and Sewer, and author of the bestselling books The Weekend Biz Plan and Where Did The Money Go? She is aseasoned TV vet with 45+ local and national segments.