Improve My Business

Get Help for Less

In my last post I wrote about delegation of duties. When I was starting out, and first heard about this concept, I thought, “I am barely affording Ramen noodles – and you want me to HIRE somebody??!?”

Then, I found out the secret (which I’m going to share with you now):

THERE ARE TONS OF FREE RESOURCES OUT THERE!

1) I worked with the local respected university – I found an MBA class that took my business plan on as part of their class assignment – and voila! I had a full-blown, professionally reviewed marketing plan created for me (for the cost of a few rounds of Starbucks and some deservedly glowing reviews for the students).

A few rounds of coffee: $28.94

A professionally generated business plan delivered on time and to specs:  priceless

2) Several universities have internships that you can post to – either paid or unpaid internships. I tend to post paid internships if I can, since many non-profits post unpaid ones and those opps tend to be pretty good [so the better students, who don't need the money, tend to gravitate there]. Even when discussing paid internships, I’m not talking big bucks here – typically $8-$10/hour – but the quality of folks that have applied is great. I recently posted a summer position for a technical admin, at $9/hour – and got a graduate MBA student who is looking for an interim job for a few months; a college senior who knows HTML and can design websites, landing pages, and blogs for me; and engineering student who needs a technical job on his summer resume in addition to his lifeguarding job, and will be perfect to do research, compare options, and make recommendations for services and products I’m considering buying. Since the intern position is part-time, it’s a great ‘resume builder’ job that can also be flexible for the applicant (a big plus for them if they want to work part-time); and since I will get lots of good stuff done for $9/hour, it’s perfect for an entrepreneur also.

3) Your city or state’s local jobs program. Many of the positions that you may need filled can be done by folks presently in the unemployment line… and there are programs to get subsidies for these folks, so you split the cost of their employment with the city or state. It’s a great way to cut your payroll costs significantly, while helping the local economy. This varies from city to city and state to state, so you’ll need to check your local resources to see what’s available to you.

Technorati Tags: business plan, improvement, organizing

According to the January 2009 issue of Quality Progress, an article Entitled “Building From The Basics” discusses the use of popular tools used by Quality professionals.  The multiple authors provide examples of each tool (Histogram, control chart, pareto analysis, cause and effect (fishbone) diagram, check sheets, scatter plots, and stratification.   Another article lists the tools used most often (can’t find the reference - it’s driving me crazy - but I remember the result):  Pareto diagrams and Cause-and-Effect (also known as Ishikawa, or Fishbone) diagrams.

Many Quality professionals tend to favor one or two tools over time - the tried-and-true tools that have helped them out of a jam before.  I know I’m that way about the cause-and-effect diagram and the House of Quality (Quality Functional Deployment - QFD).  I’ve seen the lightbulbs come on in my clients’ eyes when we’ve had a breakthrough using these tools.

This got me to thinking - are we so settled in our patterns that we forget to use the other tools that we may have at our disposal?  Do we forget to look at these seven, or even others (including fault tree analysis, a subject of QP’s February issue?)

‘Fess up, folks - do you use the same tools over and over, or do you independently select a tool every single time from scratch?

Technorati Tags: cause and effect, Fault Tree Analysis, fishbone, pareto, quality progress, quality tools

Southwest Airlines today announced that it will be testing wi-fi connectivity in their aircraft - allowing you to connect while in the skies.

My question - is this really process improvement? Do we really need to be connected in the sky? It’s annoying enough when we touch down, and every other person has the following conversation on their cell phone:

“Hey, it’s me. Yep, we just landed. OK, I’ll call you from the terminal.”  WHY can’t they just wait until they get into the terminal and call then? Why give the other party a ‘heads up’ that they will get a phone call in 5 mins?

So, will having wi-fi now let these same people send the following e-mail:

“Hey, it’s me. Yep, I’m flying at 33,000 ft and sending out emails - pretty cool!” Really, how much more work will we get done? How much less spider solitaire will REALLY be played? 

Am I off base here? Let me know…

Technorati Tags: southwest, wi-fi

Preventing overwhelm

You’ve taken the plunge into the wide world of entrepreneurship – and although it’s exhilarating, liberating, and just a tad scary, you realize (with a gulp!) that you now have to do everything – big, blue sky thinking, research, development, delivery, billing, supplies, logistics, even cleaning the toilets. About this time, many entrepreneurs experience overwhelm. It seems as if the to-do list has a life of its own, and is growing faster than you can possibly whittle it down. How to prevent this?

Some basic rules keep me sane.

1) Keep the list electronically - so you can sort it easily. I code the list – things that need to be done this week (W); things that need to be done this month (M) – including recurring things like pay the bills, send out invoices, etc.; and strategic things (S) that may include identifying and booking teleclasses, seminars, and conferences, completing paperwork for certification (Historically Underutilized Businesses, Minority-Owned, etc.)

You can just as easily code it with A, B, C or another system you prefer.

2) Set priorities within every category – what needs to be done FIRST this week or every month - both short-term/tactical, like get high speed internet installed; and long-term/strategic, like refine target market promotional materials.

3) Delegate/outsource. I know, you don’t have any money, you can do it yourself faster, it takes so much time to train someone, blah blah blah. But since you are the creative genius, and you are currently bogged down in administrivia, you need to get that off your place (and your to-do list) — so suck it up and send it out. What are good candidates for this?

- Look at your ‘every month’ list

- Look at the things you hate doing (hint: if “get arm amputated without anesthesia” is higher on the list than the dreaded task, you should outsource it)

- Look at the things you’re not good at doing

How to delegate effectively? More on that in our next post…

Technorati Tags: Business, entreprenenuership, organizing

I came across this great article at MyCustomer.com on Key Attitudinal Indicators vs Key Performance Indicators, and why KAI’s may be better suited (as a leading indicator) to predict customer loyalty than KPI (a lagging indicator)… give it a read and see if you agree!  Please post your thoughts here… I’d love to hear ‘em.

Technorati Tags: customer service, KAI, KPI, organizing, predictor, process, process improvement, process monitoring, processes, quality metrics