Speed

Have you ever truly looked over the value of speed as it relates to your companies growth, strategies, sales, delivery and expansion? I personally rate this as one of the highest valued items in our agency and in any company.

Speed. How fast you can take an idea into execution to make that idea a reality. Speed is your friend and time is your enemy. Speed of delivery. How fast can you deliver your product or service with the highest level of quality. Speed of sales. How fast can you find your audience, prospect, sell and close them to create hoards of new business.

Speed is something you should measure, if you don't already. People talk frequently about competition, what the other companies are doing etc. If you master speed, the truth is, there isn't any real competition out there. Most companies are slow. Most people are slow. Competition is a highly overrated concept. Focus on speed and the "competition" becomes something that you view from a distance scratching your head wondering how and why they don't get it.

Even looking at today's economy, if people and companies operated faster, new companies started fasted, decisions were made faster, speed became a central and crucial element of the marketplace, we wouldn't have a problem. The economy would recover swiftly and new fresh funds would be produced and circulated quickly.

Sometimes simple answers are the hardest to figure out but are ultimately the best solution.

Make a point this week and next to execute tasks faster. Speed up your cycles. Look at how you can take the time out of the equation on situations and your production will increase. Look at all the applications of speed and figure out how to put them into action.

- Speed of sales
- Speed of promotional ideas to get them into action
- Speed of quality delivery
- Speed of internal communications
- Speed of external communications
- Speed of news to the market
- Speed of promotional updates or changes such as websites etc
- Speed of hiring, training and executing actions
- Speed of meetings and phone calls

While this may sound a little overboard - it's not, I assure you. There are slownesses all throughout your personal actions day to day as well as throughout your company and I promise, it's costing you the game. Take speed seriously. Get disciplined about it and your "competition" will become a silly concept. Companies are slow, people are slow ..... take advantage of it.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Get Organized

Just a brief comment on the importance of being organized and having clear systems and administration for your company.

I personally feel that a huge amount of profit is lost in this area. A lot of companies are strong in sales or delivery or customer service but not many are truly strong in administration. In other words, your process, operations, systems etc. Really think it through and make a checklist of the areas that need to be addressed.

Here is a starting point:

- Flow charts for all key areas and functions like sales, delivery, finance posted on the wall so they are viewable for training and drilling

- Progress boards to monitor and track key actions so you can manage and push progress week to week

- Clearly defined positions and actions for each person in written format so your people can study them and become competent for their position

- A form of measurement for all key company indicators that can be tracked weekly to compare from week to week and to set targets for improvement

- Checklists or procedures for handling specific actions like collecting income, closing sales, delivering to new clients in order to have exact sequences that are followed every time without fail

These are just a few basic fundamental points to look into. The basic message here is that time and time again I see companies losing opportunities and income simply by lack of planning, lack of systems and lack of organization which results in chaos and confusion in the company making people look busy when in actual fact it's unproductive business.

Make all systems and functions clearly defined and ensure you have procedures that are organized and orderly in all areas and your production level will go through the roof. It's not time you lack, it's a lack of administration that organizes processes to create more time for you. Inefficiencies are expensive.

Our agency tends to get about a months work done in a week simply because we are organized and can execute and have systems for everything. Don't run around and say your busy and have no time... get organized, be ruthless about your systems and create time in order to focus on doing more to expand your company. Dissect your processes and jam in orderly operations and you'll see what I mean.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group