3 Ways to Streamline

Last week our company had an “All Sales Team” meeting, to roll out some of the new and improved stuff we can offer our clients.

We were in awe afterwards when we heard about one of my co-workers who has a client that is spending over $60,000 a year which is pretty top tier for us.  But what was really impressive was that this business has seen a half million in new business as a result and that will grow 2, 3, 4 or more times by the end of 2014.

The background story is that it took over a year and a lot of brainstorming and hard work to develop all the parts of the $60,000 plan.  Was it worth it?  Yes.

But on the other hand, it’s also not required to have dozens of elements working in harmony to get this kind of result.

Streamlining, or cutting out the unnecessary can also work, and work quite well.

Here’s three ways to streamline your life that I’ve been doing recently.

1. Declutter.  At home we are in the process of moving to a smaller home.  We will have less storage space and also less living space.  As I have been cleaning out stuff from our attic, I have found plenty of things that I was going to take care of one day and that day never came.  I am keeping about 25% of the stuff I have.  The rest is either being given away or tossed.
2. Decide.  That’s right.  Make some decisions.  This applies to so many areas of your life.  One that we try and live with is to decide every day what to do with the mail.  Most gets tossed before it touches the kitchen counter, and the mail that survives has to be acted upon right away.
3. Say No.  Sorry, I was trying to think of another D-word.  Each of us are asked to do things every week.  We are invited to this and that and we have kid responsibilities and work stuff and other things that sound like fun, but we only have so much time.  You and I need time to chill.  Relax.  Build some limits on your time and commitments.

There’s one other way I am streamlining that relates to how I started this article.

Last week, a new client of mine decided that they wanted to really make a big push in May. They are having their grand opening this week and I already put together a plan for  $3,000 involving my radio station (WOWO) that included a contest and social media.  April 30th at 7:30pm, I get an email that they’ve decided to really hit it big and they wanted to increase what they were spending by nearly 7 times.  It would involve including my sister stations and needed to happen now.

The options and possibilities were infinite, only limited by time and money.  As I enlisted my manager and we reached out to the other station managers I had all of my options ready to organize by 10 the next morning. (Often this would take a couple of days or a week to assemble.) Every knew that this was important and once I had my options, I needed to streamline it.

I ruled out some ideas and in the end presented my client with an option that exceeded her budget but met her other desires.  After refining it one more time, it was agreed upon and everyone is happy.

If I had not streamlined it, and instead given her too many options, she would have been paralyzed with indecision.  Instead of helping her, I would have only frustrated and confused her.

Over the next few weeks, take a look at your life and habits and I bet you’ll discover an area or two that you can streamline too, using these 3 ideas.