80 images APRIL 2022 www.images-magazine.com BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT about your team? Do you really need to answer someone’s dumb question on Facebook? Sure, I’m all for kicking back and relaxing. But, if you have deadlines and work to do, that is just silly. Stop complaining Yes, we all know there are problems out there in the world. How about sharing some positivity for a change? Teddy Roosevelt has a great quote on this: “Complaining about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining.” And guess what? That’s how the world sees you when you complain about whatever just triggered you. What if the next time you wanted to complain, you shared something in your life that was awesome. Beautiful. Incredible. Funny. Stop refusing to be held accountable Accountability. Do you have that? In both yourself and your company? When you say you are going to do something, does it happen? Like magic? Every time? Here’s a tip: people respond positively when things match the expectations that they have in their heads. It needs to be there on time. The product should work. It should be easy. Quality comes first. Yeah, all that stuff. Don’t get me wrong. It’s going to be okay if there was a mistake. A flaw. Something happened. That’s life. The real question is, what are you going to do about it? This year, step up. Own both the victory and the defeat. Make it right. Stop not listening What? Yes, you heard me. I want you to put your phone away when you are talking. Quit thinking about something else. Become an active listener and be engaged in the conversations that you are already having. People notice. Not listening to what is being said is a huge problem in this industry as that contributes to a good number of the mistakes and misread expectations that we have to deal with on a daily basis. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Stop making excuses There always seems to be a reason why something doesn’t happen the way it should. Pick your favourite. Sales are low. Quality is off. You are running late. Inventory is short. Receiving didn’t check in the goods. Whatever. What your customers hear all the time is excuses as to why something isn’t the way it should be. Stop making excuses. Start solving the problems instead. Every time you or one of your staff makes an excuse as to why something didn’t happen the way it should, that needs to go up on a whiteboard in your office. This excuse becomes a challenge to solve so it doesn’t happen again. Prioritise this. Own it. Excuses cost you daily. Stop not knowing your numbers I hate to break it to you, but this industry thrives on data. The shops that are data freaks are always ahead of the game in terms of profitability, sales and craftsmanship. They are leaving you in the dust, my friend. And when I say numbers I mean these: ■ Financial numbers – not just top line sales, but bottom line profit. You should know these like the back of your hand. ■ Production numbers – what is the average daily capacity and hourly velocity of all of your equipment? Not what the manufacturer says, but your real daily numbers. ■ What is the average amount of time that your teams experience downtime every day? ■ What is your average cost per impression? By the way, an impression is a unit of work. A 100 piece order with a front and back print is 200 impressions that have to be printed. ■ How many conversations, leads, presentations, estimates, etc does your sales team produce a day? What is the cycle time for those that are heading to production? Build your forecast. ■ Is your company doing better, getting worse, or staying the same? What are you going to be doing about it? Stop fearing failure Do you fear failure? Nelson Mandela had a great quote on failure: “I never lose. I either win, or learn.” Failure is a data point. It tells you something didn’t work. Try again, but this time do it differently. So, with your sales, or decoration techniques, or how you motivate your team… how many failures are you racking Marshall Atkinson is a production and efficiency expert for the decorated apparel industry, and the owner of Atkinson Consulting and co-founder of Shirt Lab, a sales and marketing education company, with Tom Rauen. He focuses on operational efficiency, continuous improvement, workflow strategy, business planning, employee motivation, management and sustainability. www.atkinsontshirt.com up a week? What are you trying? What if instead of counting victories, we counted failures instead? Could you make the number of failures your business has a key performance metric for its growth this year? Mark Coudray taught me a great acronym for FEAR: “False Evidence Appearing Real.” Most of the time our fear of failure has to do with the perception of others. What if you lean into it? Fail more so you can learn. Think about where you would be this time next year. Stop forgetting to have fun How fun is it to work in your company? For real. Do your staff really want to come to work? As in, they can’t wait to get there, because it is so fun to work there? I’m not saying that we have to bring in clowns or stand-up comedians as staff members. But I do want you to consider that your team spends the majority of their waking moments with you every day. So, you can create a positive, fun and energy-filled place to work… or it can be the opposite. It’s up to you. If I had a vote, I’d vote for more fun. Wouldn’t you? So make it happen. Follow this link to Marshall’s list of 40 other things you should stop doing immediately: imagesmag.uk/not-do-list
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