In one of my new favorite books, The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferris the author makes the points that doing the wrong things efficiently does not make those things important, nor does spending a lot of time on a project make that project important. I have been reading and re-reading this book for the past two weeks and I think I am ready to put into practice some of his suggestions for re-organizing. But I wonder how my board would feel if I could get twice as much accomplished in half the time. Would they want me to accomplish four times as much in current amount of time I spending on the job now or would they be satisfied with greater results no matter how much time was required? MBEs need to take a look at these questions for themselves. Are you efficient or are you effective? Are you spending your valuable time doing low value work or simply wasting time. One example of wasting time that I find common with MBEs is chasing the same old potential clients with the same old approach. It is admirable to persist in the face of rejection, but it is foolhardy to expect this result to change unless something else changes; like your approach, or the person you are speaking with about the opportunity. If nothing has changed, stop wasting your time on worthless potential customers. Move onto other more qualified customers who understand and appreciate what you have to offer. Also how much time are you spending with "high maintenance" customers? If those high maintenance customers are also low value added customers, you should consider calling them up and recommending another company to meet their demands. If you are spending an inordinate amount of time collecting money owed to you for services provided, you need to consider not doing business with these customers in the future. MBEs, like other successful businesses have to be more demanding of their customers and more respectful of their most valuable resource, their time, and not let anyone treat it with less than the proper respect. This advice has no value unless the MBE is also capable of producing a high quality competitive product. In other words, if you want to be treated like a high performing company, you have to perform like one.
July 12, 2010
