Copyright 2015 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
This blog post was transferred from another service.
Work & Life Balance
In times of high stress, you can use business & personal life routines to be productive while you deal with stress.
Humor can help ease stress for a little while. The story below isn't hilarious. Writing what I think is funny helps me cope while I make almost all decisions for terminally ill parents.
I hope this message helps you also as part of a business lesson.
Without routines, I'd feel even more off balance.
Predictability can be reassuring. Though basically, I know what will happen, I don't know when or how. I'm somewhat prepared & I'm trying to maintain some level of normalcy.
Testing Methods & Passing
Here's another blog post to help you prioritize, develop, test & improve activities: aka - methods, processes, procedures, systems.
It's easier & more productive to test/change any kind of business method when other factors are controlled.
Except for multivariate testing, it's important to test one factor while keeping other factors as unchanged as practical. Any results that are different than before can be attributed mainly to the tested factor influence.
Benefits Of Organization
To preserve "anonymity" of Jacob Cobb, a former "friend", (aka Jay Cobb), let's refer to him as Jay. I admit this story is CORNy.
I'm sorry if this story offends you. It isn't blatant & probably would be rated as PG-13. I'm just using it as a humorous way to emphasize how some opportunities seem to be too good to pass up.
This story has been approved by somebody special who knows it doesn't indicate my personal desire.
Many details in this story are fictionalized to preserve "privacy".
Jay "earns" some money as a hand & arm model. In show business, when somebody needs to feature manly arms & hands, Jay is on their short list. (They don't want to show the rest of him.)
He got a call about doing a scene in a movie with Sandra Bullock. They wanted a pair of arms & hands to hold her for about a minute. He missed out on being an arm & hand model in "All About Steve" because he was unorganized. The scene he missed isn't what he thinks it was.
It shows the importance of understanding opportunities, which is hard for stressed out people.
Now he's always organized & less stressed.
He asked, "How much?" The director said, "$2,000". The director wanted an immediate answer.
As usual, he had to pay about $1,000 for his travel, lodging & meals while he was away from his business.
Since Jay's life & business are organized, he can afford to make quick decisions & be sure about getting good results.
He regularly, carefully considers his SWOT - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats. He uses his strengths optimally to profit from opportunities without being tripped up by threats or his weaknesses.
So Many Opportunities, So Little Time
Though people have many opportunities, one person can use only a few opportunities optimally. Jay uses his priorities to determine which opportunities to act on.
Jay wisely established processes in his store, so his staff of two can temporarily run his business successfully without him. His processes also made it easier for him to focus on testing & improving his business.
Jay & his staff get consistent results, so they know what to expect. It works both ways. Consistent, positive results are easy to produce by people who know what to expect.
Knowing what to expect makes it easier to deal with unexpected events.
From a marketing perspective, you can have more time & energy for planning & implementation. You can bring in more clients because you can serve more people faster & better.
You can decrease wasting & spending energy, time & money while you increase your total work & goal achievement.
Avoid Dysfunction With Functional Commitment
Business success depends on many things, including commitment. To consumers, dysfunction, conflicts & disorganization will seem to indicate a lack of commitment to serving them.
People, who are committed to causes/missions, are dedicated enough to produce the best possible results. Consistent, positive results are created by design, not by accident.
Operational Excellence is one of the 3 Disciplines Of Market Leaders identified by Michael Treacy & Fred Wiersema. As a business discipline, it's vital whether it's your primary, secondary or tertiary discipline.
Operational Excellence is how to reduce total costs for you & clients. When you have excellent operations, business will be less of a chore.
NOTE: Jay's primary discipline is Customer Intimacy, which can also be expressed as Customer Centricity.
How can anybody trust a disorganized business? Chaos is normal unless people effectively prevent it. Chaos is distracting, because people pay less attention to other issues.
Chaos grows when people ignore stable matters. Stable situations can be simple (fewer activities to organize); though there are complexities.
Stability makes things easier (lower stress) because often less energy is required to maintain stability compared to eliminating chaos.
Work - Life Balance
Jay can enjoy show business because his business is solid even while he's away.
Business owners are often exhausted because they don't have smooth systems to produce consistent, positive results.
Organized business owners can relax more because they can clear their minds. After a few days or longer vacations, they go back to work & they focus effectively because their minds are reset.
At times, minds should be reset/rebooted like computers to clear out "software conflicts".
Since his staff is well-trained, Jay can justify focusing on other matters instead of splitting his attention between business & other life matters. Because he's a dedicated model, he was focused on his next job - especially on a specific "co-worker".
Process Of Establishing Processes
Some processes can be formed by habit with little or no conscious thoughts. Optimizing processes usually requires conscious thinking. After methods are optimized, they require less conscious focus.
Thinking about processes can start with evaluating results when something goes well or badly, then determining reasons. Some reasons can be accepted at face value, but less obvious reasons should be tested.
When each step of a process is established - modularized - a process can be consistently smooth. After establishing consistency, testing can be focused on improving results by adjusting one aspect of a step at a time.
You have options to form &/or improve processes.
You can start with the desired result & reverse engineer by determining the last step that finishes that result.
You can work from the beginning & go forward considering what logically follows (connects with, completes or at least adds to progress), so you can develop the next step.
If you know you have only a few resources to do a task, you could start in the middle of a planned process to determine which other resources you need to work beyond the middle &/or reverse engineer toward the beginning.
Thinking Requires Energy
Establishing processes can save you time & energy in the future. When you use optimal processes you can save a lot more resources than you expend in action creation & refinement.
Conscious thinking consumes more energy than subconscious processing of routines.
Even if you need to consciously think about some of your actions during processes, some steps still should be subconscious routines.
Dealing with stress is easier when you reserve your energy for problems instead of things that should be habitual tasks.
Using your conscious mind for almost everything is like a talented inventor becoming exhausted by mundane cleaning.
Somebody else should do mundane things so inventors can be productive by specializing.
As for Jay, his scene with Sandra Bullock was edited out, but at least he had a worthwhile experience. It was well worth the $1,000 of travel, lodging & meals. It was also well worth the #2,000 he paid to be in that scene.
Without organization, who knows whom or what he would hold. Without an organized profitable business, he couldn't afford to pay a total of $3,000 for a minute long great experience.
Without chaotic distractions, Jay could quickly evaluate opportunities so he chooses only the best for his situation.
He would've gladly paid even more to be in a scene with Sandra Bullock in "All About Steve". He doesn't know that scene isn't what was available.
The morale of the story is: You should be as organized as possible so you don't miss opportunities.
Copyright 2015 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here-
https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.voy.com/31049/
No comments:
Post a Comment