What’s in Your Business Junk Drawer?

Every business owner has a ‘Business Junk Drawer’. There is no use denying it! It’s full of all that stuff that you'll, “get to tomorrow”. All that stuff that you are secretly hoping will magically fix itself!

The most common ‘item’ that is found in a ‘Business Junk Drawer” is the task of updating a process. A ‘Business Junk Drawer’ is full of processes that supported your company early on in the company life cycle; however, can no longer support your current business. Your employees DREAD working on them, and no matter how many times these processes are put back in your “business junk drawer” they will not fix themselves.  

When a process gets put into that “business junk drawer” for too long, that's when problems can start to develop and snowball. That is when things start to get out of control.

Not a pretty picture, is it? Have you reached the ‘out of control’ point or are you quickly approaching it?

What if things could be different? What if I told you that there is a wealth of opportunity in that ‘Business Junk Drawer’? Because they do! Those overrun, overloaded, painful processes have the potential to generate additional revenue and huge cost savings.

Take for example, one simple 30 minute per week task. Working with a client we reduced a 30 minute per week task down to 10 minutes. Doesn’t sound like much on the surface, but this task was being completed weekly by 8 PMs. 

With this task, the annual numbers look like this:

8 PMs * 30 minutes * 52 weeks = 208 hours, which is 5.2 weeks per year.

Reducing the task to 10 minutes a week, lowers the monthly time to 1.7 weeks per year. 

That is a savings of 3.5 weeks in one year!

Not only does this save this company almost 30k in payroll dollars, but they can now take that time to bid more projects resulting in potentially acquiring one more client in 2017. One additional client for them is an additional $175-200k in revenue. 

Want your 3.5 weeks (or more) back?  

Take a closer look at your ‘Business Junk Drawer’ and see the potential!

Even if you only find 1 small task, updating and automating that task could potentially equal an extra month back next year. 

What if you found 10? That’s almost 9 months? 20? You’re looking at almost a year and a half? That’s amazing!!!! Think of what your business could do with an extra 9-18 months…

Are you ready to tackle your ‘Business Junk Drawer’?

Need help? Tackling ‘Business Junk Drawers’ is my specialty!


Where others see a working process, Sarah Becker, Founder and CEO of Clear Simple Business, sees opportunities to improve and streamline systems. Her strategies result in huge efficiency gains, reduced errors and happier, more productive employees.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Worst 5 Outcomes of Covering Up Bad Processes with Additional Employees

Image
Bad processes can easily be mistaken for employee shortages. As systems fail to work well, it’s pretty common for employees to complain that they are overworked or unable to focus on their “real” duties due to focusing on an inefficient workflows. A standard response to the employee dissatisfaction is to hire more people to shoulder the load. But, without delving into the problem to determine is your employees are truly overworked, you are only masking a problem that may become a bigger problem, in time. Consider these worst 5 outcomes for adding employees, instead of solving bad processes: You will waste money. Recently, it was uncovered that the Pentagon has over $125 billion in bureaucratic waste, involving many unnecessary positions and employees. How did they get to that point? Many inefficient processes probably demanded the hire of new employees to make things run more “smoothly.” However, what has resulted is a gross display of waste. As you hire additional employees to cove
Read more

Manage yourself first: A guide to reduce workplace stress

Image
  Manageable demands and workplace stress are often spoken about in the same breath. And it's no wonder - with the ever-increasing pace of life, it can be difficult to keep up. For many people, the demands of work are becoming increasingly unmanageable, leading to feelings of stress and anxiety. It's important to remember that we all have a different threshold for what we can handle. What might be a manageable workload for one person could be overwhelming for another. The key is to find a balance that works for you. If you're starting to feel overwhelmed, talk to your boss or HR department about ways to lighten your load. You may also want to consider making some changes in your personal life to reduce the amount of stress you're under. By taking proactive steps to manage your workload and reduce stress, you can help ensure a healthy work/life balance. In today's business world, it's all too easy to get caught up in the culture of "hustle." With the al
Read more

How to Improve Employee Efficiency

Image
  As a business owner, you want to get the most value out of your employees. After all, one of the biggest expenses a business can incur is labor. However, you won’t get the most out of your employees’ efforts by making them work harder.  Instead, you should help them achieve the best results for your business by helping them work smarter and with the greatest possible ease. This is what improving employee efficiency is all about. Efficiency is doing things the right way, with minimal waste of time and effort. It is a key ingredient of productivity. So how do you improve employee efficiency? Here are 10 ways to do this: 1. Set clear goals with your team.  Goals give direction to your team’s efforts. Your employees need to be clear about what’s important so they will know where to focus their attention, time, and energy.  2. Make sure that employees have tasks that match their skills. Employees tend to be efficient with the tasks they’re good at. Also, they are more motivated when they
Read more