Imagine a Samurai warrior who “kind of” understands how to use a sword. He is “somewhat familiar” with a bow and arrow. In hand to hand combat he’ll “figure it out” if allowed enough time for trial and error.

It sounds absurd when, for a Samurai, his level of proficiency determines his survival. He has no choice but to pursue mastery so, day in and day out, he trains — eventually attaining a level of intimacy with his tools that borders on unnatural (Samurai would name their swords and considered them to be part of the living world).

Anyone reading this blog post is probably classified as a “digital worker.” Operating systems and software packages are your sword and shield. Yet, in this context, similar statements are not considered absurd, but are commonplace and expected:

“I’m not great with Photoshop, but I can crop a photo if I have to.”
“I think I can do that, just give me a chance to Google it.”
“I can create a Powerpoint presentation but don’t understand all the advanced features.”

We limp along in our digital workplace hindered by our lack of familiarity with the very tools we use to create, perform, and get the job done. We tolerate mediocre capability in ourselves (and each other) seemingly because no one is holding each other to higher standards.

We are constantly struggling to get our tools to do what we want, we waste a lot of time figuring them out. This is due, most immediately, to inadequate training but it boils down to an almost universal acceptance of ignorance.

Software is not complex. In fact, a lot of thought is put into making it as user-friendly as possible. If you struggle with a certain software or performing certain tasks, it’s not because it is challenging, it’s because you haven’t invested the time to train, learn, and master your tools.

It is incredible that people spend at least 8 hours a day using software that is that is so intertwined with their livelihood yet they are okay with squeaking through the day with just enough skill and knowledge to do what they need to. They don’t concern themselves with anything more than what is necessary leaving countless, powerful features underutilized. They have constricted their performance by only learning what is necessary.

They awkwardly stumble through the day, ignorant to how they could be working faster and producing better results.

First, master your operating system.

Pick up a guide to your operating system and read it. Then pick up an advanced guide to your operating system and read that. In fact, don’t just read. Do the exercises and take notes. Then reread it six months later. When you are running up against a deadline, you don’t want to get hung up because you don’t know how to install a printer driver.

Then, master your software.

Make a list of the software that is most closely tied to your productivity. Is it the Office suite? Don’t be so arrogant to think you are proficient. You’ll be amazed what you don’t know about Microsoft Word (let alone Excel).

Read through the software’s documentation. If there is a list of keyboard shortcuts, print them out and post them somewhere in plain sight. If the software is common enough, seek out a tips and tricks guide. If it is a more obscure app, subscribe to the developer’s blog or find a user group and monitor the discussions.

Finally, master your workflow.

Define each task you complete and create a process or system for how it should be done. Put a lot of thought into it. This is where the rubber hits the road and, chances are, unless you’ve done this before, you probably aren’t doing things the best way possible.

Google for other’s tips and tricks for the best ways to handle different situations. There are very efficient ways to do even simple things like checking your inbox and voicemail that you are probably unaware of.

Work without thinking…

When you work, you want to free your mind to concentrate on the task at hand. If you constantly run into knowledge gaps that take you off that focus, you are killing your productivity, creativity, and efficiency.

You should be able to perform tasks without thinking about how to do it. It should become second nature and that only comes through study, practice, and dedication.

It’s not a difficult thing to do, you just need to hold yourself to higher standards, commit, and invest yourself in becoming a better digital worker… one who actually understands his or her tools.

Related posts:

1. Flow State and Computer Work: Get More Done, Faster, and Better.
2. Beginner’s Guide to Small Business Outsourcing – Part 1

Outsourcing can be intimidating to start and there are quite a few pitfalls along the way for beginners. Some people try hiring someone on Elance a few times, have a horrible experience, and, unfortunately, go back to doing everything themselves.

Drawing on my knowledge as the owner of an outsourcing company, I am starting a three part series of posts that will help you avoid many of the common mistakes, lay out a strategy that will give you the greatest chance of success, and help you get the most value out of outsourcing.

Part 1: Deciding what to outsource

Deciding what you will outsource is what determines the value you get out of outsourcing. All the leverage resides right here, before anything is even delegated. Many people forget this and don’t put enough thought into this all important planning phase and find that, though they are outsourcing quite a few projects, they aren’t getting any value out of it — they are just as busy and stressed as ever and their business is not moving forward any faster.

Investing a little thought and time into picking the right projects and tasks to outsource ensures that you get the most out of your outsourcing. This is the plan I generally propose:

Step 1: List off ALL tasks and projects within your business

Don’t just list off the projects you think are good candidates for outsourcing. Don’t just list off the ones you don’t feel like doing yourself. Just dump everything your business does into a list. Here are some prompts to help you get everything onto paper:

• Recurring tasks
• One off tasks
• Tasks required for new customers
• Marketing tasks
• Administrative tasks
• Bookkeeping tasks
• Advertising tasks
• Neglected tasks
• Procrastinated tasks
• Favorite tasks
• Tasks you hate doing
• Time-consuming tasks
• Fun tasks
• Tasks you’ve planned but haven’t executed
• Large tasks
• Small tasks
• Things you should do but don’t

Step 2: Can it be outsourced?

Go through your list and cross off those tasks that cannot be outsourced. Be careful that you are not crossing off tasks that could actually be outsourced – there are typically very few activities that need to be done by the business owner.

STEP 3: Determine your value criteria

What is valuable to you at this point? What matters most? Do you need more time? More money? Do you need to feel less stress? Do you need to move your business forward?

Pick your top two or three most important value criteria and rate each item on your list of projects on a scale of 1 to 10.

For instance:

Find new advertising opportunities
Time savings: 7
Make money: 9
Average: 8

Taking the average of those ratings should give you a good idea of which items you should begin outsourcing.

In Part 2 of this “Beginner’s Guide to Outsourcing” I will be discussing how to pick the best outsourcing provider and the preparation work necessary to making sure things go smoothly.

Related posts:

1. How to Stop Not Delegating
2. Focus & Get Projects Done Faster

It’s easy to find yourself working on several projects at a time but it is horribly inefficient.

Like dropping a photo of a triple bypass in progress over the Wendy’s drivethrough menu might motivate me to find a healthy alternative, I’ve found a succinct little illustration that helps keep me focused.

When I start to add another project to my task manager, this little image pops into my head and I add it to my “Someday/Maybe” folder rather than my “Current Projects” folder…

This is an illustration of two different ways to attack three projects.

In the first approach a project is worked on for three days until completion and then you move onto the next three day project, complete it, etc. This illustration is probably more helpful:

The other approach is to work on one project for a day, switch to another the next day, the next, back to the first, etc. This isn’t meant to be representative of typical behavior, only to show the impact of switching between projects.

Focused approach:

Average completion time =  6 days
Best completion time =  day 3
Worst completion time =  day 9

Unfocused approach:

Average completion time =  8 days
Best completion time =  day 7
Worst completion time =  day 9

This is the point: The more you try to take on, the longer it takes to get any one thing done.

1. Even though you worked on each project for three days – your average completion time is two days less by seeing one project through till completion and then moving on to the next.
2. Your best completion time is 3 days with the focused approach and 7 days with the unfocused approach.
3. Your worst completion time is no different.

If you have the discipline to see projects through without having to switch to something else to break the monotony, you’ll get projects done faster than you could by switching constantly between projects. You are spending the same amount of time, expending the same amount of energy, but you are getting things done faster than your “unfocused” competitors. Your clients will like it and you’ll know you are using your time in the most efficient way possible.

Of course, in the real world, you can’t work on only one project at at time because you’ll hit a dead end, be waiting on someone else, another project has something urgent come up. However, I do think it is still important to limit the number of projects in motion at any given time and to switch back to that original project as soon as forward movement on it is possible.

As a business owner, I feel it is my responsibility to constantly generate ideas that will move the company forward. If more than a few days pass without some new way to market or improve our company, I don’t feel quite right. I’m sure most small business owners feel the same way.

But, as your list of unexploited opportunities and un-executed idea grows, the gnawing feeling you should be doing more intensifies. “Look at the opportunities I am neglecting!” you think to yourself.

The temptation is to start working on as much as you possibly can so that none of your ideas feel left out and you feel oh-so-productive. “I made progress on 10 initiatives today!” you proudly say to yourself as you close the screen on your laptop at the end of the day. I call this the shotgun approach to getting things done. It’s deceptive because you are getting a lot done. The problem is nothing gets done as fast as it could.  (a.k.a. the illusion of productivity).

Related posts:

1. Think app helps you focus

One of my favorite statistics is that 85% of drivers think they are better than average drivers. (In case you are mindlessly skimming, that’s mathematically impossible.)

We are all prone to overestimate our abilities, especially in certain areas — our love making prowess, our relative intelligence, or how funny we are — just to name a few notorious examples.

This phenomenon is widespread and psychologists have coined the term “illusory superiority” for what we layman might call: “not realizing you suck at something.”

In most instances, our illusory superiority is benign (and may actually give us some needed confidence as we go about our day), but I’d like to point out one area you may not suspect you have a problem even though you probably do: delegation.

We all feel our instructions are clear, our deadlines reasonable, that we are a pleasure to work with, etc., etc. However, if we remain humble enough to admit our delegation skills could use work, and make a few simple changes, we can dramatically improve the results and leverage we get from delegating assignments.

Here are just a few tips we’ve picked up and found helpful during our work as virtual assistants (essentially professional delegatees):

1: Fit the assignments into the big picture.

Explain the relevance of what you are asking them to do. By giving the delegatee your intent and context, they will be able to use their own judgment and intelligence to make the final results more relevant and useful. Kept in the dark, they are only able to follow instructions when, with most assignments there are many opportunities along the way to enhance the end result, and answer questions, by knowing where their piece fits into the puzzle.

2: Explain the desired result, not the steps to getting there.

Famously, Napoleon Bonaparte would give his field commanders a specific result he was trying to accomplish (a mission statement) rather than outlining a series of rigid instructions to follow. They had the freedom to act as they saw fit as long as the mission was accomplished. This allowed them to use their own judgment and make decisions on the fly, as needed, during unpredictable combat situations.

Usually, taking the time to explain the steps of accomplishing something only insults the person on the receiving end. It’s a good idea to give warnings or mention important details that are easy to overlook, but the bulk of your instructions should be spent detailing what the end result should be.

By putting your focus on what you are getting back, you are more likely to be pleased with the results. You are more likely to communicate your unconscious expectations, more likely to come up with ideas about what you would find useful, etc.

3: Make procrastination difficult

We are all busy and procrastination is an almost universal part of the human condition. Make it easy for your delegatee to meet timelines by making it difficult for them to procrastinate or delay work on your project. By asking for frequent reports and updates, a delegatee is forced to move the project forward consistently. You’ll know that the assignment wasn’t completed last minute and feel more at ease as you are kept in the loop on its progress.

4: Always provide feedback

Every assignment is an opportunity to further improve someone’s ability to perform on your behalf. Not providing feedback – both positive and negative – is missing an opportunity to get more value out of that relationship in the future. Also, it is insulting to the person who did the work that you did not even care enough to check the work and make suggestions or give compliments. Any time spent analyzing and submitting feedback will pay dividends in the future as this person becomes more capable and confident acting on you behalf.

5: Never discourage questions

When asked a question you feel was answered in the initial instructions, it’s always tempting to fire back with a tart, “Like I already said…” However, all this does is make you seem petty and the other person scared to get clarification in the future. Whether or not the instructions seemed clear to you, they probably weren’t as clear to someone else, so it’s important to remain both patient and humble as someone pins down the details. Ultimately, the fact that they took time to ask a question at all is an indication that they are trying to do a good job; their intention certainly isn’t to waste your time.

Delegation is the easiest way to boost your productivity. By empowering someone to effectively act on your behalf, you effectively multiply your ability to execute projects. It is the ultimate productivity boost.

Related Blogs

Related posts:

1. How to Stop Not Delegating
2. Flow State and Computer Work: Get More Done, Faster, and Better.

I downloaded the free Pomodoro Technique ebook close to a year ago, skimmed it, and decided it wasn’t for me – I tend not to do well with structure when it comes to time management. About a month ago I noticed a few Pomodoro Technique iPhone apps  springing up, purchased one, and decided to give it a go.

My results using the Pomodoro Technique have been spectacular. I am in love. Here’s why:

• It forces you to pick a specific intention.
  One big problem with the free form, unstructured approach to time management that I naturally gravitate toward is that my time tends to get spent on the squeakiest wheel. Very little thought goes into where my time would be best spent. At most, I would stop several times a day and say to myself, “What should I be working on right now? What would I like to get done?” Part of the Pomodoro Technique is deciding what you will accomplish before starting the timer. This forces me to prioritize and pick where my time would be best spent rather than reacting. I am more focused (by knowing my intention, I know when I am off task).

• It forces you to reevaluate your intent every 30 minutes.
  I get into the zone pretty easily so time has a way of getting away from me. It’s not uncommon for me to “wake up” and find that I’ve spent fours hours on a project, that I shouldn’t have spent four hours on, and neglected to do something else. By stopping and reevaluating where the next Pomodoro should be spent, I am able to maintain awareness of when I should stop working on one project and begin something else.

• I get competitive with my past self.
  Competition brings out the best in me and I find myself constantly trying to beat my previous days record on Pomodoro’s (I use the Dayta iPhone app to track them). Never before has it been possible for me to measure my productivity so I’ve never been able to leverage my competitive nature to become more productive.

• I have a different perception of time.
  It’s hard to describe but time feels more measurable and discrete than it ever did before and I feel like I have more control over it. It’s as though, by giving units of time a name that is closely tied to productivity (a “Pomodoro”), I have shifted into thinking of my time as something that is spent more concretely, the way I would spend a dollar, rather than the more ambiguous concept of “spending time” I had before.

• I am much more aware of where my time is going.
  Another step I have taken to improve my time management is to define my roles as a small business owner (accountant, business development, manager, marketing, etc.). By tracking where my Pomodoro’s are spent, I am able to measure exactly how much time and attention I am giving to each role giving me a perspective on where my time is going and what roles are being neglected.

I am very pleased with the benefits I’ve gained from using the Pomodoro Technique and recommend it – if you, like me, have an aversion to structured time management, maybe take it as a sign you need something like this.

UPDATE: For Mac users only: I just discovered the super awesome, free Pomodoro Desktop.  It uses growl, allows you to label your Pomodoros, track your Pomodoros, and has more features than you’d think a Pomodoro app could have. HIGHLY recommended for anyone using the Pomodoro Method on a Mac.

Related posts:

1. How to Stop Not Delegating

Yes, extremely. We get just as many leads through our website’s live chat feature as we do from phone calls. It also seems that the visitors who chat with us are further into the buying process for whatever reason.

Live chat offers a number of advantages over the phone for us:

• It’s really nice being able to think through what you are going to say. “Delete” just isn’t possible over the phone and being able to read through a response before hitting “submit” is sometimes priceless.
• You can still multitask. Talking on the phone requires more attention. Prospects on our live chat can ask questions as needed and we are free to work on other things in the meantime.
• We can offer after hours support without being at the office. The particular live chat client we use, Alive Chat, can send chat notifications to our mobile phones. In fact, I’ve had a number of chats on my iPhone. One of the major reasons we went with Alive Chat over its many competitors is that it has a great Mac app.
• The chat history is saved and becomes part of the clients file. We are collecting information that stay with the client throughout the buying process and after. Notes taken during phone calls on paper tend not to make it that far.
• Auto compilation of frequently asked questions. Our chat history gives us data on what information we need to better integrate or highlight on our website.

I recommend putting a live chat on your website to all our clients – especially if your site has a medium to low volume of visitors. You’ll connect with prospects you otherwise wouldn’t.

Related posts:

1. Discover Exactly What Matters to Your Prospects
2. Testing out Squidoo

Have you ever worked hard all day but failed to accomplish anything significant? You worked like a dog, but you didn’t move your business forward an inch.

You probably said something to yourself like, “Today was not a good use of my time. I worked all day but didn’t get anything done that really matters. If I keep doing this, I’ll never make any progress.”

You had “the epiphany,” the one every small business owner has at some point: you have to do less to do more. You reach a point where what seems paradoxical, becomes the key to getting your business to the next level. You need to stop doing some things in your business so that you have more time to focus on important, business-building activities that only you can take care of.

Nevertheless, probably not much has changed since that important realization. You are probably still spending your time doing things you shouldn’t and neglecting to do the high-leverage work that actually moves your business forward as opposed to just maintaining and staying afloat.

You know what the problem is: you can only do so much. If growth and forward movement is going to happen, at least if it is going to happen soon, you can’t continue doing everything yourself. You need to start delegating.

For you to actually change you approach to managing your time and delegating, it will take a conscious, committed decision on your part that you’ve reached a new stage in your business. A stage where you’ve gotten busy enough that you trying to do everything yourself is actually holding your business back. A stage where delegation is key to future growth. You’ve got to internalize this to the point that you commit to start delegating and focus on freeing your time.

Perhaps the best way to internalize this is to imagine how much progress your business could make if you had 40%, 20%, or even just 10% more time to focus on business-building, strategy-oriented tasks.

Once you’ve committed to making the necessary changes, the following 3 step process may help you get there faster.

STEP 1: Find someone to delegate to

You need someone to delegate to. Of course, I hope that you will use our small business virtual assistance service. For small business owners like you, we offer the opportunity to have someone on hand to help you without the committment and cost of hiring someone to work onsite. The ability to purchase small quanities of time and use them flexibly over the course of the month makes it suprememly affordable and convenient. Finally, getting access to our entire small business team – all of their talents, skills, and resources – means that you are getting tremendous value for a flat monthly fee.

STEP 2: Clarify your “do”s and “do not”s

Make two lists: one list is what you should be doing – those high-leverage, profitable, business-building activities that make a big difference to your bottomline – the second list is those things you shouldn’t be doing – either because you procrastinate them, you aren’t good at them, or they simply aren’t the best use of your time. These two lists will give you clarity – you’ll know exactly what you should and shouldn’t be spending your time on.

Post those lists in clear view from your desk. You want those two lists memorized. You want to remember them constantly throughout the day. When you start on one of your “do not” tasks, a red flag should be raised in your mind and you should know to stop and delegate. When you look at your “do” list and realized you haven’t touched it, you should think back to what you spent your day doing and add those things to your “do not” list.

STEP 3: Make delegation simple, easy, and reflexive

Spend time considering how to make delegation likely to happen. You want to eliminate potential barriers to delegation such as resistance from yourself. You know yourself better than anyone. What communication tool are you most likely to turn to? This is one of the reasons we allow clients to send in tasks so many ways (IM chat, email, phone, dictated audio, web form, fax, etc.), we want delegating to us to fit into your natural working style. Whatever you decide on, you need to make it systematic, quick, and as simple as possible.

Once you’ve decided on how you are going to communicate the task, decide on what information needs to be passed along. We recommend you pass on four pieces of information: 1. What you want done, 2. When you need it back, 3. How long you think it should take, and 4. A description of what the final result should be ideally.

Taking these three steps makes you dramatically more likely to actually begin delegating tasks so you have more free time to spend on business building – or just relaxing.

Related posts:

1. Make Your Business More Profitable by Focusing on Constraints

Unless you want to be tied to your desk all day, you need a way for important calls to reach you on your mobile. The now outdated solution was to forward calls to your cell on the way out of the office. But then you run into the hairy situations of not being able to easily distinguish between personal and business calls, forgetting to set the forward, only having one voicemail greeting, etc.

It was only a matter of time before services were created to address this common situation. Two services stand out as major players in this field: Google Voice (get your beta invite here) and Grasshopper. Both help to elegantly handle the problem of juggling multiple phones numbers and needing to be two places at once.

Both allow you to add multiple existing phone lines to your account so that all phones ring when the number is called. Both allow you to access your voicemail online. Both give you voicemail transcripts. In many ways, they are quite comparable.

For business owners, Google Voice offers the distinct advantage of being free but little else over Grasshopper which caters exclusively to that market (plans start at $9.95/month). For instance, Grasshopper allows for transferring to other extensions in the account and an auto-attendant and company directory. Key features if you are trying to communicate professionalism and not have callers feel like they are calling some guys cell phone (they may be, but they don’t need to know that). Grasshopper also allows you to transfer an existing number (Google Voice doesn’t currently but is rumored to be working on this).

That Grasshopper is a superior solution for the typical business owner is almost a given when you look at the featureset and reasonable pricing. However, I use Google Voice and will probably continue to do so simply because I have already invested in a vPBX system that works well for our company. Were I to start over, I might give Grasshopper more serious consideration because it is considerably cheaper than our current solution and offers almost identical functionality but at this point I’d hate to fix what isn’t broken.

Given that, Google Voice does everything that I need. When people call our 800 # and dial my extension, it rings my cell and my desk phone simultaneously. If I don’t pick up the call, it transfers the callers to one of two voicemail greetings. If it is a personal contact, it sends them to a personal greeting. If it is a business call or any caller that is not a known contact, they get my business greeting. If I’m at my desk, I can choose to pick up the call on my cell or my desk phone. No need to remember to forward, no need to dial in to my work line to listen to voicemails.

This is all I need. Problem solved. But, for clients who haven’t yet tied themselves to a PBX solution, I’ll be recommending Grasshopper which truly is a small business owner’s dream solution.

Related posts:

1. This Week’s Top Three: Grow Your Business, Double Your Sales, and Improve Your Blog

Camel, the cigarette maker, has been doing some interesting things with their product line lately. They are really pushing the envelope and, dare I say, innovating. Those not addicted to tobacco may not even have noticed but over the last year or so they’ve been shaking things up. Other cigarette makers seem content with the tried and true products – “ultra light,” “light,” “full flavor,” and maybe a “menthol” for variety. For an industry that generally seems content with kicking back and letting the money roll in, Camel is really standing out.

For instance, Camel has created a cigarette that, by squeezing on the filter, switches from a regular cigarette to a menthol. You literally decide at any moment you’d rather be smoking a menthol, and, with an audible “Snap!,” you get instant minty coolness.

Camel has also released a tobacco product that isn’t even a cigarette! Camel is leveraging their brand recognition and branching out into entirely new territory. They are now selling snus, a smokeless tobacco product that is popular in Europe that does not require spitting. Now, tobacco brands don’t do this. Skoal, Copehagen, etc. have their smokeless tobacco and Marlboro, Winston, etc. make their cigarettes. Camel is marketing snus as something to use when you can’t smoke. “Enjoy tobacco anytime.”

No matter how much you dislike the tobacco industry, there are quite a few things to respect in what Camel is doing in terms of their product line (please pay attention to that statement, I am not endorsing the products or company or giving my approval, simply noting that to learn from what they are doing and admire in how they are doing it…. in light of that fact that many companies fail to).

Courage

For one thing, it takes courage to branch out and begin making new products when for almost 100 years you’ve only sold one thing (since 1913 to be exact!). Many, many companies don’t have that audacity. Hell, most companies don’t even have the audacity to seriously consider such a drastic move. It helps that Camel has so much money to toy with… but still… there is something to admire there.

Attentiveness

It takes a high level of attentiveness to listen to your market and then develop a product that seems outlandish. Few companies have their ear low enough to the ground to listen to their market, let alone act on what they are asking for with an idea that seems to be walking a thin line between innovative and silly. A cigarette that changes flavors? Seems silly but some “regular” smokers do smoke the occasional menthol just for variety, or only when drinking, etc. I’m sure this isn’t an idea a high level executive had while puffing away on his yacht, this is something Camel would only learn about by keeping their ears open and really considering the feedback they were getting.

Creativity

They are showing creativity in how they are solving the problems of their market. A smoker not being able to smoke for hours is like having a slowly intensifying itch that you are unable to scratch. Now there is a product that scratches that itch indoors, on planes, at work, etc. Not only is there no smoke, but there is no gross spitting as is required with other smokeless tobacco products such as dip and chew. This is a textbook example of creating a product the market wants: “You have this problem, we have the solution.”

Intelligence

It is smart of them to leverage the brand recognition of one offering to enter new territory. Especially with tobacco, there is brand loyalty. You won’t find too many smokers who change brands willy nilly. Further, this is a smart thing to do during a recession – to offer more products and options, to push into new niches, and give customers solutions to real problems.

While other companies are hunkering down, reducing budgets, trimming fat, and all that other “prepare for the worst” recession knee jerking, Camel is leading an industry. No matter how corrupt and despicable that industry is, we need to give credit where credit is due and emulate them if we can… let’s just hope your product doesn’t kill millions of people.

No related posts.

There are many ways to make plans to improve your business (improve = make more money). You can create goals, set priorities, flesh out your businesses strategy, etc.

While all of these approaches are useful, and will certainly help you identify more to-dos than you can handle, I’ve found that focusing on removing constraints creates a kind of complete clarity on “how to get from point A to point B” I can’t get any other way.

The Theory of Constraints and Your Business

For those unfamiliar, the theory of constraints was developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and made popular by his book “The Goal” in 1984. A constraint is “any element or factor that prevents a system from achieving a higher level of performance with respect to its goal.”

Obviously, the goal of your business is to make money. Viewing your business as a system of processes, what is holding you back? What internal or external resource, person, or process is preventing you from making more money?

In every business, there is something. It may be funding, qualified employees, effective advertising, unreliable software, etc. Focusing on constraints is about identifying the bottlenecks in your business that are slowing the output that brings money back into the business, then trying to find a way to fix the constraint with existing resources, and, if that fails, finding a way to remove the constraint altogether. Once the constraint is removed, the flow of money increases.

How Does it Work?

For instance, in your business the constraint may be the amount of traffic your company website receives. This is the constraint because it is what is keeping your carefully honed sales copy from converting more people into customers. Delivering on your promises isn’t the issue because you’ve developed a scalable business. It’s just a matter of driving more people to the website.

STEP 1: Once you’ve identified the constraint, figure out exactly how to get the most out of it in its current state. Without throwing additional resources at the constraint, is there anything you can do to increase output?

Using our example, you could try to further increase conversions with existing traffic. As mentioned, your copy is converting well and any improvement there will yield diminishing returns so it’s probably not the best use of our time so we proceed to step 2…

STEP 2: If you can’t do anything to eliminate it, or raise it to the point where it is no longer an issue, figure out what other resources in your business could be applied to the constraint. You may have to take resources off of another area of your business to do this but it is necessary. Increasing output here will help every process that occurs further down the line.

In most businesses time is one of the most limited commodities. Should you take people off other projects to focus on bringing in more traffic to the website? If not, or if this doesn’t solve the problem, move to step 3…

STEP 3: If you don’t have the resources to eliminate the constraint, you may have to add something into your business that takes care of it. This probably means spending money. What you need to decide is: Will lifting this constraint bring in more money than what I am spending to lift it? Most of the time, if you’ve truly hit upon the right constraint in your business, the answer is an easy, “yes.”

You may need to hire an internet marketing firm or a consultant that specializes in creating targeted traffic. Yes, it will cost money, but if the problem can’t be helped internally, this is the only answer.

STEP 4: Find the next constraint in your business and repeat steps 1-3 continually.

After there is plenty of traffic coming to your website, you may find that the next constraint is how many of your customers are making repeat purchases so you’ll start with Step 1 again… and so on…

As you can see, running through this process even just once or twice a month would quickly lead to a much more profitable business.

Now, constraints can be many things so don’t get stuck thinking of it any particular way:

• Paradigm constraints are beliefs that are holding you and your business back.
• Policy constraints are those rules that keep you from fully tapping available resources.
• Physical constraints are basically those things that determine your capacity to produce (employees, machinery, software, etc.).
• Money constraints are perhaps the most common (funding, cash flow, credit, etc.)

In fact, there are probably many other types of constraints – it’s anything that limits you from taking your business to higher levels. Heck, it might be how much stress you are feeling or how much sleep you get at night. The great thing about this process is that it doesn’t matter, you can address anything with it.

So why aren’t you making more money?

No related posts.