It’s funny how so many small businesses are still re-creating the wheel!

I just spent a few days with a client working on their online strategy. But the interesting thing was as I went around to his various managers and executives, I made at least one super helpful suggestion to each of them. These suggestions are various things I have picked up or thought of over the years to help me and my teams to be more efficient, to optimize our time at work.

Here is a sample list of a few of these things that I’m still surprised every company doesn’t do:

1. Working lunches: Some of the best ideas I had during one of my past employments was because I had lunch with the Sales VP at least once per week. We became more than just co-workers, we built a great rapport, and “got on the same page” and were able to knock down barriers and get to true efficiency by simply talking and understanding each other’s viewpoints.
2. White Board Walls: I spent a few hundred dollars and bought four (4′ x 8′ ) white boards and attached them vertically to the conference room walls, to stimulate people to brainstorm and have plenty of room to draw out their ideas.
3. Typing Lessons: It’s surprising that so many people in this information age, especially CEOs, can only type 15-20 words per minute! What inefficiency, and at the hourly rate some of them make, the lessons pay for themselves after a day of typing more like 40 wpm. Plus it enhances the image of the company if visitors/clients hears all the fast keyboarding going on.
4. Keyboard Shortcuts: Similarly, it amazes me that CEO’s still spend time moving their mouse up to the Edit menu to select Copy, when it is much faster to CTRL-C. I put together 25 of my favorite keyboard shortcuts and hints in MS Word, MS Excel and MS PowerPoint and held a training session for 60 sales reps at a company one time. They loved it.
5. CEO Idea Inbox: I’m not a big fan of structured programs for submitting ideas where they select one winner for a prize. I think the submission should be somewhat of a prize itself. A good way to do this is for the CEO to set up a secondary email box for innovations/ideas from anyone concerning anything in the company. Just submitting an idea gets you noticed by the top dog, and if many ideas are generated, it gives a good impression about that person even if all his ideas are not implemented. Employees will like this.

If you’d like me to come into your organization to see what can be optimized in the areas of marketing, sales, or customer service, please let me know.

Thanks,
Anthony
Marketing Optimizor
303-862-8447