Grow From Here

Recession – Where is the Opportunity?

There are many blogs and articles online these days about a recession providing both danger and opportunity.   This has almost become a bit of a cliche.  For business owners in the midst of it, the danger is clear.  But the question many people are asking is where is the opportunity. 

Is the opportunity in the future when many competitors may have gone out of business and my company will still be around?  Is it in the fact that I have to focus on my company’s core values RIGHT NOW if I want it to survive this period?  Is it the fact that I need to get my staff to pull together & need to focus on customer satisfaction to continue to grow during these times?

All of these are possible opportunities, but somehow none of them are terribly exciting.  They’re making the best of bad times, but they don’t get many of the business owners I talk with excited. 

Exciting Opportunities

Three things have come up that do get business and franchise owners excited:

1. The chance to see very cleary where the leaks are in a business – and plug them
2. The opportunity to get new business with bigger customers
3. The opportunity to build exciting new partnerships and strategic alliances

Where are the Leaks?

Recently I got a nail in the tire of my car.  When I went to the mechanic, he pulled out the nail and plugged the hole, then covered the tire in soap to see whether air was still leaking or the patch had been succesful (apparently soap shows up the air coming out of the hole if the leak is not completely plugged).

In the same way, right now, businesses need to be operating at maximum efficiency, and any leaks can easily be seen – the recession is acting as soap on the tire (inelegant image!).  When money was flowing easily, it was not always obvious which expenditures were resulting in increased cash, which jobs were profitable, which customers were happy – there was so much to do and business was growing.

Now, as the outside world may be slowing down (depending on your sector of the economy), it is worthwhile to take the time to look for leaks.

• Are your systems efficient?
• Where is time getting lost?  How could productivity be improved?
• Is your pipeline moving smoothly?
• What are barriers to customer satisfaction/referrals?

Multiple Leaks

One of our clients recently asked us to review their processes.  They had field staff who were writing reports while on site.  Then those reports came in to the office and were typed into an invoicing system.  The invoices were printed off and filed by due date so they could be checked for payment.  If follow up work needed to be done, that was typed into another system and printed off for re-scheduling when the follow up date came around.  Then once payment was received, the information was typed into the actual accounting system (as opposed to the invoicing system).  Each order was typed in at least 3 times, and manually retrieved to verify payment and follow-up scheduling.  Each step in the process had a ‘leak’ in terms of time, efficiency, cost and frustration for the staff who knew that this was a ‘crazy way to be doing things’.   Integrating all those systems (so that the information was typed in once and flowed through to the other systems and automatic reminders were set up so nothing got missed) had a cost, but the payback period was extremely short (less than 6 months) because of the enormous cost savings in staff time – never mind the boost to morale!

10 Minute Exercise:

Sit down for a moment and think about your company.  Where do you do things in a ‘crazy’ way?  What do your staff complain about?  Where are the areas that errors crop in?  (this is a great indicator of a ‘leak’ waiting to happen).  Where does stuff slip repeatedly?  Where are you spending money that doesn’t seem to be paying off in revenue.  Pick one area and start ‘looking for leaks’.  Then let us all know what you found.

Katryn Business Growth, Franchise