One idea to Build your Business, one idea to Scale your life. Every Wednesday.

Welcome to Winformation Weekly. My 13 years’ experience of growing a business from £0-£100m, and the life that goes with it. All wrapped up, in one winning weekly email.

Simon Says

Winformation This Week…

Happy New Year! With any fresh start comes new intentions, new goals, and often a short burst of motivation. I say short because, let’s be honest, the statistics show that 88% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by January 15th. I believe this happens because we approach fresh starts with too much positivity. Stay with me on this.

A few years ago, instead of focusing only on the positive things I wanted to achieve, I began by asking a more realistic question: what, or who, is going to stop me from achieving what I want? That small shift in perspective led to what I now call the “4 Ps.” Since it is January, it feels like the perfect time to explore this idea in today’s Life section.

In today’s Business section, we are tackling bottlenecks. I often compare entrepreneurs and business owners to drivers in a race. Your goal is to outpace others, reach your customers, and achieve growth. To do this, you need to work on your driving skills, which include personal development areas like mindset, skills, knowledge, and resilience.

Your business is the vehicle you drive, and to succeed, it must also be in peak condition. This requires constant refinement, regular tweaks, and ongoing improvements to your operations. One of the most critical aspects of this is identifying and fixing bottlenecks. By addressing the areas that slow you down, you can set yourself and your business up for a winning year.

Business

The Ultimate Guide to Unclogging Your Business’s Bottleneck

Bottlenecks in your business can arise for many reasons. A lack of investment in software or expertise in a specific area are some of the most common culprits. Personally, I enjoy sitting down with a pen and paper to figure out how to improve one small part of the machine that keeps the business running. It is always best to tackle this before a busy period or ahead of scaling up. If there is a bottleneck when things are quiet, imagine the chaos when you are trying to handle ten times the transactions with a system that already needs improvement.

To tackle bottlenecks effectively, you need a two-step approach: first, identify them, and then work to remove them. Here are five tips to help you put this into action.

1. Map your business. Doing so can highlight what is and what is not working. More important still, it can pinpoint if any delays and inefficiencies are related to one or two factors - whether they be team members or systems, or your whole process.

2. Get forensic. Flowcharts are an effective tool to map your business. There’s plenty of free advice available online on how to use them. Ultimately, they provide a method to map your processes in a quick to understand and visual manner.

3. Ask why. This is another method to help you identify bottlenecks. Using what is known as the five whys method, which involves asking a series of questions on why a delay or problem happened. This deep dive into any issues can uncover the all-important root cause.

4. Design the improvement. Once you’ve identified the bottleneck it’s time to remove it. If you have a team, it’s so important to ask their opinion and make sure they feel part of the solution. This could be software, new hires, outsourcing the issue, bringing it back in house, better training etc. Whatever the solution, if the team feel involved, they are far more likely to accept the changes

5. Roll out. Now for the important bit. Rolling out the changes properly is so important. I would always start with the people in the team that seem to have the most influence or are the biggest complainers. Sell them the change before anyone else. They will feel important and when the changes come in, people will look to them for their opinion. If it's positive, then everyone will adopt it. If they push back, then you will find yourself in a position where half the people are being led by someone still using the old methods.

Life

Negative Question First? The 4 Ps That Could Be Secretly Sabotaging Your Goals

Writing down your goals and working towards them is a powerful way to move closer to the life you have always dreamed of. Equally important, though, is identifying the factors that could stand in the way of achieving those goals. With that in mind, here are the four Ps you need to recognise and avoid to ensure success.

1. People. Not all of them, obviously. But think hard about the people you spend time with, like family, friends, work colleagues. Does anyone drain you of energy, or only ever bring negativity to the table? If the answer is yes, you need to seriously consider how much time you spend in their company.

2. Places. Your environment has a bearing on your success. If part of your goal requires activity to shut yourself away in a quiet and calm place for an hour, then ensure you make the arrangements to provide that for yourself.

3. Patterns. It is worth being really honest with yourself about how you spend your time each day. Social media scrolling is the obvious factor here. You may have other habits. Remember, the micro decisions we make in doing things not aligned with our goals all add up over the course of a five-year vision.

4. Priorities. If you have your vision and goals set towards achieving it then you have intention. Anything that doesn’t serve that purpose cannot be a priority. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but these activities need to fit around your vision and goals, not vice versa.

Until next week! 

Let’s win, together!