Don’t Work More: Do More

Every business runs into this: the need to increase capacity without increasing resources.

Eventually, any successful business will get so busy with clients that it will not have enough time or people to accept new projects.

What can we do? Simply turning the business away is not an option. We want to be continuously growing, after all.

We must find a way to increase capacity, and the first step is always to do that with the current resources. In other words: without hiring or simply adding hours.

Improve the how

How you do things determines how long they will take.

To do things well, and in the smallest amount of time, codify how you do things.

All the things: both internal operations and client facing jobs.

“Things” include actions, communications, and tasks. Cover all these areas in your process.

Codify

Make what you do and what you say part of a system, to the point that it becomes almost automatic, and you will find that you (a) have more time to serve more customers, and (b) put less energy into the day-to-day and more into the special circumstances, the things that make your clients come back to you and refer you.

Start somewhere easy: in the description of what you do. What do you answer now when somebody asks about your work? Write that down.

Now consider a written procedure to explain

• what you do

for whom you do it

how you do it all

who does what

Implement

Now look at how you serve each client, and use the same questions to codify your process for service delivery.

Once implemented, these written processes will allow you to be more productive with the same amount of resources.