Записи с меткой «delivery»

How to Schedule Workflow for Profit

When you’re running a contracting business, time is essential. The company’s profit depends on the completion of a project, so how a contractor schedules workflow is of primary importance. A single delay in the delivery of certain materials, for example, can set a project back for days and incur high penalties. For smaller companies especially, where the margin of profit is a lot smaller, delay in a project can result in severe loss. Here are some tips on how to organize workflow to maximize profit and sales in your contracting business.

Beating the Deadline. Contractors must continuously monitor the progress of their projects to make sure that everything is going smoothly and the different phases of the project are being completed on time. Try to finish the project before the set deadline. This way, you’ll be entitled to a bonus or a performance payment. Make sure you have charts and time frames for every cycle of the project.

Record everything. Training all the people working under you to keep records of all transactions, sales, materials, change of orders, meeting, etc. is important if you want to keep an organized workflow. Documenting every little thing that happens during the project will help you trace a problem easily when something goes wrong. It will also help you keep track of expenses and stay within budget.

Supervise your subcontractors. This is the crucial part. Sometimes a contractor can get into a whole lot of trouble because their subcontractors’ failure to do their job properly. Make sure you study the contracts you enter with your subcontractors, especially the insurance policies. Also keep track on their expenses and make sure they stick to your budget.

Go wireless. The contracting business can be really tough, tiring and energy-consuming. All the running about from one place to the other, managing orders and deliveries, dealing with sometimes difficult subcontractors, managing a lot of employees under payroll and trying to stay within budget and timeframe can drive anyone up the wall. That’s why a lot of contractors today have decided to go wireless with their business.
There are a lot of software available in the market today that will allow you to keep all your data, charts, spreadsheets, etc. online. An advantage of this is that it allows you to get rid of taxing “paper trails.” It is more efficient too because you can access anything with just your laptop and internet – no matter where you are. It also saves up on time and energy. If you need to approve a change of order request, for example, you can just have your employee or co-worker scan or email you the request form, which you can print out and sign, rescan and send to all involved parties needing to be notified. It decreases the tiring leg work you have to do.

In scheduling workflow for profit, organization is really the key to make everything run smoothly. Work with responsible people, be hands-on and organized and you’ll always be doing a job well-done.

How to Launch Your Business Success Anew

Copyright (c) 2009 Linda Feinholz

In a meeting last week with one of my Platinum clients, Brian, reviewing the goals he had achieved since we began work in January, he shared an «Ah Ha!» he’s had.

«Linda, when you kept steering me to simplify my Vision, I didn’t want to hear it. I wasn’t ready to. But, wow! Once I heard you, once I followed your process and created that simple vision — it’s all taken off like a rocket!»

Now, prior to this, Brian had been having difficulty getting his team on board. He couldn’t get all their activities pulling in the same direction towards the same goals. When we took a look at the reasons for the weak results, the confusion behind it became apparent. Everyone on his team had a different understanding of what the objectives were.

For the lack of a clear vision, all their time, intelligence and energy was having minimal results. Instead, the was lots of wasted time every day, by well-intentioned professionals…

A real shame to have all those resources wasted. But that didn’t have to be the way they operated for the long-term.

What do I mean by ‘simplify’ your vision?

The reason this is so helpful is that simplicity and clarity at the beginning, from the top, becomes the starting point for every activity in your business. ‘Simplify’ your vision.. and you can make it easier to identify your ideal target market. Simplify your ideal target market… and you can focus all your marketing efforts so that you’re easier for them to find. Simplify your marketing… rather than trying to be all things to all people… and you make yourself easier to understand and an easier solution to buy.

Moreover, while it becomes easy to see the impact that your Vision’s simplicity has on your external presence in your chosen market, it’s as important inside your company.

Why?

Because you can simplify your operations. Simplify the solution you’re trying to offer and you can simplify your delivery of that solution. Your time and that of your entire team, gets used doing the right things at the right time, without needing to spend time straightening out confusion, conflicts, and plain old inefficient time wasting by everyone.

That in turn means you can simplify your systems, the processes you use to get work done, which leads to simpler results, that are simpler to measure and track, and simpler train new people to produce. And so on.

That doesn’t mean thinking flies out the door. On the contrary, it means each person can ask «Is this in line with our Vision?» for themselves, to help keep the entire company’s efforts pulling in the same direction towards the same goals.

Each person becomes a Visionary and Brilliant Problem Solver for your business.

Whether you are heading a major organization, or a division, or your own small business, the result is the same.

As you set a clear vision, it becomes apparent what is out-of alignment, wasted time and effort, busy work for busy sake rather than the best path to deliver solutions to your customers.

Of course, setting a new Vision, or a cleaned up Vision, or your first one ever, often makes people fearful. The most common reason I hear from my program participants is that «I’ll have to stop doing a lot of what we’re doing here.»

Indeed, that is the exact choice that Brian faced, that I face, and that you will face.

But I ask you, in this economy, do you want to be putting all that time, energy and intelligence into doing things that are expensive busy work, or put them into focused, high payoff activities that are simpler, targeted, lower cost, more highly profitable?

You have the opportunity, right now, to step back. Step out of the business of habit and ongoing activity and take ten to fifteen minutes and look for the simplest vision you can hold, that humms and excites you.

Or, you can keep yourself very busy, and delay achieving the goals you say you want.

My vote? SIMPLIFY your Vision.