Free Advice

What can you “Depopulate?”

In the midst of the Mad Cow Disease scare I heard an interesting line from a government administrator (speaking governmentese). It was something like, “We are going to depopulate about 450 calves in the herd.”

Why he couldn’t just say that they will kill the calves I don’t know. Perhaps they feel we are too sensitive to hear the words kill and calves in the same sentence.

But it spurred my thought process as to what can we all “Depopulate” in our businesses and/or our lives. Look around your house, your office, garage or car. There are lots of things we can depopulate. From the magazines that are four months old and will never get read to people, habits or things that appear to be more valuable (than they really are). Since this is a business journal, let’s concentrate on business issues.

Customers

Raise your hand if you have a customer who is a pain-in-the-butt. We’ve all been there. Sometimes it’s just doesn’t work out, sometimes it’s our fault and sometimes (usually) it’s the customers fault. They didn’t know what to expect, they wanted a miracle or they didn’t want to pay a fair price.

A common philosophy in financial services, insurance, consulting and other personal service industries is to drop your bottom 10-15% clients and replace them with bigger, better or friendlier ones. In this way you can grow, provide more value and not be weighed down by clients who don’t have the same vision you do.

 So whether you sell a personal service, make a widget, sell widgets or service widgets, work on getting rid of those customers who don’t give you value. Remember, it’s not just about collecting money in trade for your product or service, it’s about providing value and being appreciated for that value.

Habits

Yes, it’s finally time to get rid of that old habit you wore on Halloween seven years ago. No, I mean it’s time to break out of those routines and traditions that hold you and your staff down. You already know what most of them are. It’s the employee who gets 272 calls per day from their spouse. It’s always taking too long for lunch or coffee. It’s “strategizing” too much so you have to take work home every day.

For me, I find that when I have a full day in the office I’m productive for about four hours. Then, if I don’t create an appointment (it could be the bank, post office, etc.) I notice my personal productivity declining. I’m much better off having one or two meetings every day instead of three meetings three days a week with two solid days in the office. This creates a sense of urgency so I get done what has to be done instead of filling time.

On the flip side, when I have meetings scheduled, I know I don’t do as well when they are back-to-back and I have to rush to make them or escort one client out as another is waiting for me. My productivity increases dramatically if I have down time in between meetings. Cell phones come in handy (as does observing my number one rule of meetings ¾ always take along some reading material).

Fly by the seat of your pants

I know that most of my clients are analytical. They want to make sure they are doing the right thing, asking the right questions and getting the right answers. Those who make impulsive decisions are the ones who call me 1, 2 or 5 years later to fix the problems or renegotiate the deal.

My point is, before making decisions on subjects you are not totally familiar with, do your research, get some advice and document your findings. Use this information to either justify or depopulate your idea. A habit to break is coming to a decision and then ignoring any research that doesn’t agree with that decision.

The flip side is analysis-paralysis. This affects business buyers a lot. They want to make absolutely sure they’ve considered everything. The bottom line is you can’t know everything. There will always be unanswered questions. Get to the 80% level and run with it. The last 20% is probably minutia anyway.

Marketing

What would an article on small business and making change be without something on marketing? Start by depopulating the idea that you don’t know anything about marketing. As a business owner you know a lot about why your customers buy from you, what their hot buttons are and what drives them away.

After the research, marketing is more action than anything else. Use that information. Search your files and brain cells for things that worked and do them again. Many years ago I heard a star sales performer say something like, “It worked so well I stopped doing it.” We’re all guilty of that. We have a system for getting customers, it works well, we get bored with it and move on to other things. 

To summarize, whether it’s on the subjects above or something else, it’s always good housekeeping to not only purge old files but to depopulate bad habits. The key is to put in a system so everyone knows what to do and not to do. Once you have methods, a system for them and documentation business becomes less stressful, more fun and more profitable.