These tips have been handed to me by different people in the field; successful project managers, entrepreneurs and business men. I have used these tips myself and they have yielded great results, on different occasions. Best of all, they are easy to implement and will boost your business with lightning speed.
1) Put yourself on the payroll … now!
So many beginning entrepreneurs make this mistake, myself included. They spent hours upon hours working in their business, only to receive … naught. If you start a business, be true to yourself: you do it so you can earn a living. It doesn’t have to make you a millionaire, but at least make sure that your work covers your expenses. Put yourself on the payroll immediately.
The good side-effect of doing so is that it will motivate you to work well. And by working well I do not necessarily mean working hard. I mean making the right choices to keep food on the table while doing the things you like. What else is being an entrepreneur about?
2) Schedule meetings at non-conform times
When you make an appointment with a busy soon-to-be client, do not let their secretary schedule the meeting for you. Instead, when the secretary offers a time (e.g. 10:30) explain to her you have a meeting which prevents you from getting there at that time. Then suggest to meet at 10:55, because you can make that. Of course, you will need to be very punctual when it comes to the actual appointment.
The trick is that whoever you’re having the meeting with, is much more likely to remember you when he hears his secretary tell him he has a meeting at such a weird time. This technique is used by some very successful project managers to get themselves on the agenda at the client.
3) Hold meetings in non-conform places
I usually have meetings with my partners in road-side restaurants. Like the rest of the world who is doing ‘business’. I have also had many meetings with clients and suppliers in road-side restaurants. Road-side restaurants are easy, well-known and … well, boring.
The problem with boring is that it means you won’t easily remember the meeting. So the best way to make sure your client or supplier remembers the meeting, is to hold it in a non-conform place. For example a small restaurant in a park or a tiny Italian coffee bar. Stuff like this is what gets you remembered.
4) Aim for effectiveness … not efficiency
This is actually a golden rule in life, but very hard to master. Imagine climbing a ladder. This can be done very efficiently by skipping a sport with each step. You’ll be at the top of the wall that the ladder is against in no time. Good job! Effectiveness however, is making sure the ladder is setup against the correct wall in the first place. Efficiency is nothing without effectiveness, so aim for effectiveness first and efficiency second.
An example I have of this is the way I manage my outsourced software teams in other countries. They get a nice document with requirements from us, we receive a cost estimation back. After we sign it, they start developing. Pretty simple, since the requirements are documented.
The efficient way of doing things is to discuss questions by email. After all, I just wait until a question comes in and I reply. This takes about 5 minutes per email, which is about as efficient as it gets. This works very well for small projects, as long as nothing goes wrong. If it does, you end up tracing email conversations for hours and hours.
The effective way of handling the situation is to setup a requirements management system, put all of the requirements in the system and allow discussion about requirements only on that system. This takes much more time to set up, but in the end, both the development team and myself can always very easily track back information for each requirement.
5) Hire others to do stuff you don’t like doing
This is a great example of a great money saver. That’s right, you’re saving money by hiring others… Think about this for a while. If you do something you don’t like, what is the chance you’ll do it well time after time?
For me, this is filling out anything tax-related. I simply hate it. Luckily, my accountant has a great service which allows me to drop off my folder with all the receipts of the previous period. When they’re done, I get a call that I can pick up the folder again. All I have to do is make sure the receipts are ordered correctly (they’ll do this for me, but it will cost me, so it is easier to do myself) and transfer the money to the tax agency.
With my first company we didn’t do it this way, instead, we tried to do it ourselves. This went well until we didn’t do it correctly one time. This almost cost us 1200,-. I can tell you, that is about 2 years of having my taxes done for me, and we’re not even taking into account the countless hours I’ve spent sweating over the tax forms!
Sat, Jul 11, 2009
Entrepreneurship, Self Improvement