In order to scale effectively, small businesses need to leverage efficiencies wherever they can. For us, it means maintaining a tight focus on our core capabilities and cutting out workflow inefficiencies driven by outside expectations. And, at a certain point, it means not trying to make everybody happy all the time.
Last week, nearly 200 new project inquiries came in, not including requests from existing clients. That’s 7 or 8 times our standard gait, and there’s no way we can handle all of these projects. And, yet, we put effort into each one, making sure each has everything they need to make a decision. In other words, we spend time on projects we’ll never engage rather than focusing exclusively on those we will.
The reason we do it is pretty simple: it’s expected. Just like answering phones (vs letting them go to voicemail,) or continually monitoring email accounts, or scheduling meetings. Common courtesy calls for all kinds of inefficient business practices. And, taking a step back, it’s pretty clear that most of these efforts don’t scale.
I’m going down the list of things I do in response to outside expectations, looking for efforts to cut. For me, it’ll be baby steps, but it’s good fun to check off items on a list called cruft. Starting conversations regarding projects that don’t fit is at the top of the list, right above trying to make everybody happy all the time.