Streamlining your business

Owners of small businesses are particularly concerned about productivity.  For a small company the difference between being highly efficient and moderately efficient can be the difference between profit and going out of business. Most efficient  practices are also applicable to personal productivity as well. However, with businesses, small productivity gains can be replicated over many people multiplying the  gains well beyond the benefits you’d get just for yourself.

A focus on productivity can let you cut your costs so you can make a profit even when your competitors are losing money. Here are eight key points to consider when establishing productive practices for your business.

1. Simplify your processes.  Many processes become
   complicated over time.  By simplifying these processes you can make
   your processes more repeatable.  Also simple processes are easier to
   automate, outsource, or pass on to less expensive employees.
2. Automate your processes.  Human time is expensive.  If
   something can be done by technology, you should seriously consider
   automating it.  Always do a cost benefit analysis in deciding what to
   automate.  Start with the things that give the best return on
   investment.  A $5,000 investment in technology to eliminate $50,000 in
   labor costs is a no brainer.  A $100,000 to eliminate $3,000 in labor,
   is probably worth passing.
3. Measure everything. If you are serious about being
   productive, you need to be a good manager and measure all the important
   parts of your business. It is surprisingly easy for the daily effort of
   running your business to obscure the big picture of where you are
   spending your time and money.  Having good measurements in place will
   let your employees better understand how they are doing and will give
   you a basis for doing reviews.
4. Standardize where you can.  You only want to have to solve
   problems once.  By standardizing,  you can reduce the number of things
   that can go wrong. This gives you more time to concentrate on your
   business. For example, if you have 10 computers in your office, it will
   save you time if they are all the same (or similar) models. 
5. Think about the total cost. Don’t just look at the
   original cost of purchases.  Think in terms of the cost over the entire
   useful life over time.  For example, I used a discount host for my
   business website and email.  The pricing was very inexpensive.  However
   the email went down at least once each week and required about an hour
   of my time working with them trying to get it back up.  I finally
   switched email to another more expensive host because the "cheaper"
   host was so expensive in terms of the amount of my time that it
   required.
6. Focus your time.  Many business owners combine their work
   and personal lives in unhealthy ways.  When you are working make sure
   you are able to give your total focus to working.  When you are
   relaxing, don’t be preoccupied with work.  It is easy to merge
   everything together so you don’t ever really get a chance to relax.
7. Invest in education. Time spent on education can give some
   of the highest rates of return.  If you spend 5 hours per week for 18
   weeks, increasing your skills in a way that will save you 10 hours per
   week for the rest of your life, it is a very good investment.  It is
   hard to measure some of the return on education because it can often
   times open up avenues that weren’t even possible for you before.
8. Solve problems once. When faced with a decision, try to
   see beyond the specific problem.  For example, don’t think in terms of
   "Mrs. Jones didn’t pay her bill." Think in terms of "Some customers
   might not pay their bill on time–how should we handle late payments?"
   If you can understand the general issue behind the problem, you may be
   able to come up with a way to handle the general problem that eliminate
   it all together or allow you to create a policy that will let other
   employees deal with similar issues in the future without requiring your
   attention.