It’s Spring, and that means it’s time for Spring Cleaning here in the US.
But Spring Cleaning isn’t just for your home.
It’s time to do some Spring Cleaning for your business.
By that I mean it’s time to reduce the clutter that accumulates in our businesses. Not trash per se, but those products, services, techniques, and beliefs we’ve allowed to accumulate that take up time and energy but may not be adding to the bottom line.
The criteria for doing Spring Cleaning for your business is this: what really works for my business?
Another way to put it is - are you milking your cash cow or being distracted by an old heifer that has no milk to give?
It’s hard to tell sometimes? Separate your product lines, services, and marketing avenues into these categories…
1. What do I like doing that makes money consistently?
2. What do I think I like doing and think may make good money with some extra effort?
3. What do I dread doing that could make money if I delegated it?
4. What do I dread doing that I simply need to replace with a better system?
Once you’ve identified these respective groups, here’s what you do at “Spring Cleaning”?
Keep the “1’s” and do more of them. They’re what’s working!
Test the “2’s” if you have time after taking care of business with your “1’s”.
Delegate the “3’s” if you have someone to delegate them to, otherwise put them in category “4″.
Trash the “4’s”.
And if you feel bad trashing the 4’s because they were really great ideas, don’t worry, you can always resurrect them later if something changes to make them workable for you. And of course, by the time you’ve mourned your 4’s a bit, some new idea will likely come to take their place.
The key is to stop neglecting the ‘1’s”. That’s what categories 2 - 4 tempt you to do.
Later I’ll talk about how to build on your “1’s”
See Becky McCray’s video on this topic: Prune Your Products & Services.
Joe Crawford on May 14th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I like the post it reminds me of 80/20 principal, not going to go into that we are all aware of it. Another thing I thought I’d ad was making a list of the top most important things to do that day only list six. Start at the top and always complete those each day. In the afternoon start your list for the next day. Going back to chucks’ post, ask your self, can someone else do this better? Any way Awsome info. Joe Crawford
Becky McCray on May 14th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Chuck, thanks so much for linking to my video. You’ve included so much valuable info! Thank you!
Perfect Wealth Formula on May 15th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Sound advice. This is something I started doing a few months ago. I was being pulled in so many different directions with all my different websites and businesses I was building that all of them suffered because of it.
I’ve been concentrating on my top two money makers the past few months and the results have been great.
Good advice especially for newbies who jump from one money making opportunity to the next. Find one or two that you like and that are profitable and stick with it…don’t go looking for the next great thing!
Daniel
Low Cost Home Based Business on April 29th, 2008 at 3:37 am
So Many Ideas So little time.