Images_May_2020_Digital_Edition

B usiness is filled with circumstances beyond your control. Admittedly, none has been as widespread or as disruptive as that in which we currently find ourselves. You may well find yourself feeling helpless in the face of the lockdown, but although the impact on your company is undeniable, the pause in business brought on by this situation affords some rare opportunities. Changing habits When you are producing at capacity, the tendency is to maintain your focus firmly on keeping the needles moving. You can become fixated on current production, working ‘in’ your business instead of ‘on’ your business. You’ll tend to be habitual in your processes, doing things in a certain way because that’s the way you are accustomed to doing them, continuing once useful habits that may have no relation to where your business is or where you want it to be. This pause offers us all a chance to figuratively take stock, even if we are sealed away from our storerooms and production floors. This is the time to review your processes, consider where you lose time and effort, and discover weaknesses in your informational flow, flaws in your production processes, and places where your customer experience could be improved. For those of you who keep tabs on production data and ask for customer input, it may be as simple as reading reports. For others, a useful practice is to chart the process of a common job from customer contact through fulfilment. You should walk through an imagined order, asking yourself questions about each stage in the process: What problems have I seen recurring at this stage? Is this where a job slows down, stops or even reverses in the workflow? What can be done to eliminate this ‘friction’? At which stage(s) do my employees report difficulties most as a job progresses? What can I do in communication, equipment or execution that would change this part of the process for the better? Gauging profitability A second place to take stock has to do with the profitability and potential in your clientele. Every shop has customers or market segments for which they take on jobs that are unprofitable to the point where they cleave closer to being a hobby than work. They may feature interesting art or processes, but ultimately, unless you manage to increase your prices, they’ll make you very little money. Reviewing past jobs and gauging their KB BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT www.images-magazine.com 26 images MAY 2020 Time to take stock Erich Campbell offers some sage advice on how to make the most of any spare time during a business shutdown Zoom gatherings like these are now more commonplace, but you might not realise that there is a wealth of resources from all over the world behind those raised glasses. Reach out and join the conversation