Ride the coaster of business ups and downs

If you’ve ridden a roller coaster then you’ve experienced the similar feelings that come with business ups and downs. In fact, the road to business success is very similar to the structure of a roller coaster, often with more downs then ups. However without the ability to continuously improve upon both the speed and efficiency of how products or services are delivered, significant growth will always remain at arms length.

There are several considerations that most business owners take into account in order to improve how they deliver their wares, however I’ve found there are a few barriers that must first be overcome, both real and perceived. Three of the most common barriers include:

• Validating perceptions of which activities will actually have the greatest impact on how to deliver value to customers.
• Making time available to investigate and introduce improvements.
• Finding the resources necessary, including money and talent, to effect the desired improvements.

To overcome these barriers, many business owners invest thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars each year in order to identify and incorporate “best practices” into their business. Unfortunately for most, what they haven’t yet realized is that the most valuable and cost effective best practices can most often be found within the four walls of their business.

This may seem somewhat counter intuitive, but you can overcome these three common barriers to business success and save money on travel, time and investment in external resources if you adopt the right approach to harvesting, capturing, validating on your own internal best practices. In effect there is a way to manage business ups and downs to ensure more of the former than the later.

© Shawn Casemore 2014. All rights reserved.