One of my main goals this year is to use my time more efficiently every day. We all know how quickly a 12 hour day can disappear when you're wearing 6 hats and bouncing back and forth between interruptions and putting fires out.
I know there is tons of info online about time management etc - I'm more interested in having a conversation with people in the industry as I'm sure we all experience some of the same challenges. From dealing with quotes, new orders, inventory, running equipment, quality control, sales, customer service etc - there are a lot to bases to cover especially when you're a smaller company and don't have team members for each position.
How do you keep your day organized and chaos-free? Do you have any tricks/systems/apps/etc that you couldn't live without when it comes to running your business? What is working for you right now and what would you like to improve on?
Things that work for us so far:
-Morning review (Ideally the production schedule should already be mapped out from the day before)
-Weekly review (Plan the week and come up with a realistic idea of what we're looking at)
-Smartsheet software (We use this for our job board, production schedule, misc spreadsheets)
-Creating & documenting systems for everything we do (This is, and will continue to be, a work in progress - but is one of the most important steps)
-Outsource when possible (Vector Doctor, designers for more complicated projects, 4over, local installers etc)
Areas where we can improve:
-Turning down projects that aren't a good fit (this is hard, but getting easier)
-Prioritizing requests - Quotes/New Orders (most of the time it's the customer that yells the loudest and is the biggest pain in the a$$ that gets served fastest - that part needs to change)
-Dedicating at least 1-2 hours a day where I'm "unavailable" to work on business development and new business
I'm sure there are more but I thought I'd get the ball rolling with a few ideas. We've definitely come a long way of the last couple years but still have a long way to go before the company is truly a well oiled-machine.
Hopefully we can get a conversation going and share some valuable information for all.
Thanks in advance for any contributions to the discussion.
Cheers,
Pat
I agree with the creating and documenting systems. Unfortunately some employees will try job protection where they want to be the only ones that know how do the job, instead of realizing that if they can document the job so anyone can do it then they are so much more valuable and supervisor or owner material. I have been in the process of retiring the last few years with employees purchasing shares on a monthly basis so that in 4 more years they will own it completely. With my wife and me already spending many months a year in Mexico the business could not have continued if it had not been for the documenting of systems.
One item I am using on the maintenance side is a Vehicle log for the Cell phone that works equally well for building maintenance, as well as vehicle maintenance, maybe even for personal maintenance (Vaccination scheduling, doctor visits scheduling). For building maintenance things that need logging like Fire Extinguisher checks and power outage backup lights that need checking monthly, even oil changes on the snowblower, Furnace filters 3 months etc but within building maintenance instead of creating yet another item. After trying a few free trials I found I liked
https://simplyauto.app/#pricing and initially purchased the Gold lifetime after starting with free trial. Then at Christmas I noticed they seemed to be offering the Platinum as a lifetime Membership for around 30.00 so upgraded 1 copy to it. You are able to use Gold as a multi user program if you purchase 1 Gold for each phone. A detraction to that is sharing seems to share all the data, I would prefer each user to only have their responsibility with me being able to see and view reports on all.
To give you an idea I have a business location entered, 2 houses, 2 vehicles, plus 1 motorcycle, a utility trailer, and most recently myself. That is not to mention the Generator, 2 lawnmowers, 1 snowblower that are included in the houses.
Tip, if entering building data and it wants mileage instead of just date, I enter a ficticious mileage of year-month-day so its always incrementing upwards as if you try to enter a new mileage that is less than older mileage for date then it refuses to do it.
Ken Graham CommunityPrinters.com PlayaLindaHotelTapachula.com
