Firstly, invoicing. No matter what you do in order to create income, unless you are in the enviable position of being paid at the point of sale every single time, there is ground to be gained here. I recently read the blog by gardener Laetitia Maklouf (Nothing Important) where she described the wonderful sense of fulfilment gained from clean windows merely by calling the window cleaner. I see invoicing in a similar way. It can be a laborious and murky job, forever in flux between sign off and payment. For a moment imagine a world where, whatever you sell (service, goods or wisdom) is signed off (by which I mean the customer accepts your work and that it is complete) within five minutes of you delivering your thing. Meaning that as soon as your very important person who sends out invoices hears of this, they can do their thing. Essentially in an ideal world you could be receiving payment from your client within 10 minutes. How nice would that feel? A lovely sense of rounded off business with a happy customer and money in your bank.
“I see invoicing in a similar way.”
So what small things can you do to move your payment terms towards 10 minutes or less?
Identify your blockage points, what points in your process are causing the delay? If it is human, and it usually is, then something can definitely be done. If your invoicing is being held up because you need to physically type up an invoice and send it out one Saturday morning, when you have time and inclination to do so, then that is actually a very simple and easy fix. It doesn’t have to be that way. The options involving good technology are endless and not necessarily expensive.
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Secondly, team. Does it feel like you are constantly trying to herd cats? Do you feel that you have asked your team to do something but somehow, as soon as you leave them, they do something else? Don’t get me wrong, they are great people and like a second family to you but is sometimes, if they could all just point roughly in the right direction and do what it is you think they should be doing, all at once, well, do miracles happen?
“Don’t get me wrong, they are great people and like a second family to you but is sometimes, if they could all just point roughly in the right direction and do what it is you think they should be doing, all at once, well, do miracles happen?”
Yes and the reason they don’t is that they are missing the why. People don’t engage with the what: ‘Hand me that bucket of water please’ they engage and get on board with the why ‘because my car is on fire’.
If you have exhausted you cat herding skills then ask yourself if your why is truly obvious. If it isn’t then make it really clear, and by clear I mean it should be able to be contained within a single sentence and passed on easily.
And finally, duplication. The wicked witch of efficient businesses but you would be amazed (present company included) as to how many times we duplicate things that already exist in another form. If you are wasting an hour a week on things which are actually the same thing done twice then work out why and then find someone who can tell you how to get rid of that pesky wasted hour (or more) without ruining your processes or spending a fortune on an enormous software package.
If sorting out any of the above would make you jump with joy then please feel free to get in touch and let us support you in gaining some quick wins in your business.
