Is Your Business Like “The Drawer?”

Ladies, we all have one. That drawer in our bathroom, full of beauty products we just had to have and were sooo great in the store. And we buy them.

Whether it’s the dollar store or the department store, the point is we buy them, and we usually buy lots of them.

They’re going to get rid of wrinkles, take 10 years off our face, or we don’t have that color yet, right? I’m willing to bet you have at LEAST $100 in products hanging around.

And then . . . you throw them in “The Drawer.” The hinterland of beauty products. They collect dust and expire. They didn’t look as good at home as in the store. Had that color already. We either keep them in the drawer because we might need them someday, completely forget about them, or eventually toss them.

Is your business organized like this . . .

Let’s apply this metaphor to your business. Does it have only what you and your clients need and value, or is “The Drawer?” In truth, maybe a bit of both – but what you and your clients need and value is covered by the old, expired stuff. You’re not alone!

. . . when it would be so much more profitable like this?

Here are 2 tips to help organize “The Drawer” that is your business:

Find your focus, buy a timer. James Roche said in the Four Ways to Flourish Telesummit one of the key differentiators between people who are mildly successful and wildly successful is the ability to focus. Each of your new ideas is like one of those tubes of lipstick. You have lots of them, but they’re not all worth keeping. Many entrepreneurs flit from idea to idea, each not fully developed. You need to do two things. Take a good hard look at your ideas, then decide which ones will actually create results in your business.

But how to focus on one specific task? The brain cannot truly pay attention to more than one task at a time, and do it well. One of James’ tips? Get a small timer and place it on your desk. Set it for 20-30 minutes as you focus on one task. Work only on that task until the timer goes off. Just that one change in your routine will make a difference.

Create processes in your business. Does your business have an operations manual? Are you creating processes that keep your business running smoothly? Even if you don’t have these two things right now – you need to be thinking about them and preparing yourself to create them. Each of those processes that you keep doing yourself that can be outsourced to an assistant – is clutter in the drawer.

So how to de-clutter?  You can begin with the very next process that comes across your desk. As you work through the next process, write down each step as you do it. Then add that process to your operations manual, and then it goes to your assistant. Yes, your business needs an assistant.

These two small but powerful “beauty products” will have your business looking wrinkle free and 10 years younger!