Part I

Yesterday I was speaking at one of our 37 Fatal Business Mistakes workshops.  I was talking about the kinds of changes a business owner needs to make if he or she wants to quickly speed up their business’ growth.   One of the most powerful recommendations I make is that you to figure out where you are continually spending your time, and lump those activities into things that make a big difference, and things that don’t.

If you shift your time and focus from one group to the other, the results will be huge.  For instance,  one CEO (we’ll call her Dana) told me that she spent about 8 hours a week out of 55 on accounting and payables issues.  Of course there is no excuse for this, but since recognition is the first step on the road to recovery,  knowing where the time goes can be very good thing.  I asked what she would do with the 8 hours if she freed herself from “payables.” 

She said, “Oh, that’s easy.  I’d close more sales, and there are plenty of deals to close.”  Wow, what a revelation.   So I asked one more thing: what would those sales be worth?  “Conservatively,  “$70,000 – $80,000, a month,”  she said without batting an eye.

Not bad, around $900,000 additional annual revenue for an no-cost behavioral change.  Who wouldn’t want to do that…