How To Embrace Achieving More With Resources You Have
Summary:
There’s that point in your business where you hit a crossroads. How do you grow and scale if you feel maxed out? How do we embrace achieving more with the resources we already have?
You may see your bank account at the “just enough” point. Your needs are met, but you want your business to reach the next level. Wanting this opens up vast possibilities for your business.
In this article, I will be telling you about capacity and the three aspects of capacity to achieve more with your resources.
What is Capacity?
To get to that next level and move past the plateau you are on, you have to do more seemingly. Doing more doesn’t have to mean pushing yourself and your business to a breaking point. If you are stuck in a moment where you think you have to do more with less, let me share that capacity is all about doing more with what you have. Capacity is your bandwidth.
If you told your team they needed to be doing more, you’d probably get some concerned or maybe even frustrated responses. They likely feel like they are already doing all they can, and asking them to do more seems daunting.
Here is the vital thing to consider at this time. Are you and your team busy, or are you productive? Is your time dominated by low-value items that don’t move the needle, or are you focused on revenue and growth-generating activities?
When we evaluate teams, we find that they only operate at 60% capacity; their days are filled with low-value busy work that doesn’t impact the business. This busyness is a holdover from the old paradigm of business. We learned it in school and our first corporate jobs, and while it is a tough lesson to unlearn - it is crucial to unlearn it if you want to get your business operating like a well-oiled machine.
To move past this, you have to see capacity as an opportunity. You’ll never achieve 100% capacity, but you should shoot for at least 80%. Your business is capable of more than you can imagine; it's sometimes hard to visualize how to make scalability a reality when your day feels full.
Three Aspects of Capacity For Achieving More With The Resources You Have
1. The 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule means that 80% of your income is generated by 20% of your actions. If the other 20% of your attention generates the most impact on your business, what is the other 80% doing?
That 80% is crucial and needs what I like to call a hard study. The 80% I am referring to is of your actions. In other words, this is 80% of your resources and 80% of your potential capacity, which is off doing things that aren’t getting you anywhere. You must reel it all in and focus your efforts in the right places.
This rule will help you tighten up your business and clear the clutter you may see and feel.
2. Reduce the Hurdles to Getting Work Done
The name of the game for this one is simplify. It is essential, yet many small business owners sit in the murky clouds of hurdles all around them.
Hurdles look different for every entrepreneur and every business, but most hurdles aren’t as daunting as they seem at first glance.
I like mentally checking hurdles off and making as many disappear as possible. Clarity comes from simplification. Take your biggest hurdles and write them down. Go through your list and start checking your hurdles off one by one.
3. Build in Positive Tension
As entrepreneurs, we think everything falls on us because who knows your business better than you, right? You can do tasks AND delegate, but this does not mean you have to micromanage your team. What you want to add is positive tension.
Let me explain the concept. In the E-myth Revisited by Micheal Gerber, he shares a story of a consultant hired to help a company with a new growth opportunity that was, in reality, going belly up.
A seafood company on the west coast wanted to expand its capacity by transporting fresh and alive seafood from the west coast to the east coast via air transport. The company invested over $1,000,000 in the venture. On the maiden voyage, the plane took off, and the plane landed, and when they did, the fish had gone belly up. They tried again. The fish died again.
Frustrated and worried about their $1 Million investment, the company hired a consultant who took a flight with another shipment of fresh seafood. As he watched fish after fish die, he knew exactly what the fish needed. Getting off the plane, he calls his client. “Put a shark in each tank.”
Appalled by the thought, the client asked, “Are you crazy? The shark will eat the fish.” The consultant replied, “I didn’t say an adult shark - put in a baby shark. The fish will only recognize it as a predator, and it will be enough tension to keep the fish alive.” They tried the idea - and it worked.
There are many ways to create positive tension in the business. One of the easiest and best ways to do this is by setting a metric or KPI based on the department or product line and having it publicly displayed. If more than one team can contribute to this, it builds a bit of competition and positive tension. The sheer simplicity of posting the metric and your goal for the metric is that the subconscious goes to work, and change is created.
Conclusion
Take advantage of capacity. By doing so, you can immediately boost profits and cash flow to invest in your business, pay your staff, expand your team, reward yourself, and do great work.
The three aspects of the capacity to remember are:
The 80/20 Rule
Reducing Hurdles
Building Positive Tension
You don’t need more resources to hit that next level in your business. It is all about how you are utilizing the resources you do have. It is time to use capacity to your advantage if you find yourself at the crossroads between growing and scaling. Let's chat if you are still unsure how to expand your capacity bandwidth to make scalability possible.
