By Bill Prettyman

Are you reaching the goals you desire in your job or for your print business?

The key to achieving the results you want is to focus on your purpose and your priorities. When we know what these are and can allocate more and more time to these priorities then we will achieve more print business results.

I recently listened to The One Thing by Gary Keller, co-founder of Keller Williams, the largest real estate sales company in the world. Here are some great ideas I learned on how we can accomplish more print business results on purpose:

Ask the Focusing Question for Your Print Business

The focusing question is: “What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else becomes easier and unnecessary.”

The goal is to create a domino run—when I focus on the first thing, all the other dominoes (goals, projects, actions) begin to fall.

When we decide which priority has the most leverage to accomplish the greatest results in our print business, we move closer to our purpose.

Go Small 

If we want extraordinary results we have to narrow our focus to what really matters and what will make the greatest difference in producing results. Therefore, go small and focus on the vital few rather than the trivial many. Line up your priorities every day and push on that lead domino until it falls over.

Plan Your Print Business Domino Run

Line up all the dominoes. Consider which domino will start the sequence of all the other dominoes falling. When we prioritize based on which action will start the domino sequence we visualize what it is we need to do to produce the results we desire. This will make it easier for us to continually refocus on the lead domino.

Keep after the lead domino until it falls

Allocate a Disproportionate Amount of Time to the Lead Domino

 If we want extraordinary results we must allocate a disproportionate amount of time to our most important priorities. The most difficult part of this action is knowing we will leave many things undone—things which might never get done.

Make your peace with the understanding you sacrifice work on the small things to focus on the one thing which will start the domino run in order to get the big results you desire in your print business.

Create Your Timeblock

The concept of timeblocking allows you to allocate time on your calendar to work on your most important priorities.

The key to success is to protect your timeblock at all costs. Most people are most creative and effective in the mornings. If you fall into that camp carve out one or two hours to start, and work your way up to four hours/day timeblocks in which you workon your most important priority.

This might feel impossible, but it isn’t.

Simply start with a small timeblock and slowly expand it.

Evaluate the effectiveness of your work. For example you if you working on too many details which do not matter? If that is the case then ask your supervisor if they can be delegated or eliminated. , if you can delegate them and if you can schedule them at a different time.

You may consider waking up earlier to work on your most important priority before the normal work day begins. Whatever the best method is for you, a timeblock is your best vehicle to knock down the lead domino.

Success happens when we focus on our most important priority to the exclusion of all others.

What ideas have you found work for you in accomplishing your most important priority?

The post Print Business Results with the Domino Theory appeared first on Bill Prettyman.

We are now at the second half of the year for 2015. Have you ever stopped to review where you are before the year is finished?

As basic as this sounds, most people do not review their progress. Those who achieve their goals are very focused and regularly review their progress.

The saying goes “You get what you expect when you inspect with regularity.”

If we want to meet our goals then we need to regularly review our progress. There is great value in stepping back and reviewing the first six months of the year. A review will not only help us feel good about our accomplishments but help us stay focused on what we need to do to achieve our goals.

Here are five actions you can take to exert leadership over yourself, your area of responsibility and/or your company.

I suggest you take out a sheet of paper and create several columns:

• 2015 goals;
• Where I am now;
• What went well;
• What could have been better; and
• Areas to refocus.

Then create your go forward plan on a separate sheet of paper.

Plan for Second Half of the Year

Evaluate Your Goals vs. Where You Are

The second half of the year is an opportunity to write down your goals and then next to those goals write down what you accomplished. Are you where you expected to be? Why or why not? This is simply an objective review of your progress for 2015.

What Went Well

Write down next to your accomplishments, what went well so far in 2015. If we know what went well we can pat ourselves on the back and feel good about the progress we made. When we know what went well we can leverage that as fuel for doing more of the same the rest of the year to make sure we accomplish our 2015 goals.

What Could Have Been Better

Next to the “what went well” column, add a “what could have been better” column. We probably have areas and goals where we came up short so far for the year and we want to review these by writing them down. We can learn from where we came up short and realize that we cannot change what happened in the past but we can learn from the past and move forward and make progress toward our goals for the rest of the year.

Refocus

Now that we have written down where we are vs. our 2015 goals, what went well and what could have been better, we are ready to decide where we need to refocus our efforts. Write down areas where you want to refocus your efforts that you know will carry you to the goals you have for 2015.

Create Your Go Forward Plan

Now that you know where you want to refocus your efforts, create your go forward plan. Write down the specific actions you must take with dates for accomplishing each step of the plan. In doing so, you will generate a vision and understanding of how you need to spend your days for the rest of the year.

Reviewing where you are is an extremely important step to stay on track toward our goals. It gives us the opportunity to see what took us off track, feel good about our progress, and refocus our efforts to create our go forward plan for the rest of the year.

What is your process for reviewing your progress in the second half of the year?

image credit: Shutterstock

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Without creativity in business, we would not have ink jet printing, digital presses, or web-to-print software. There would be no apps for phones and tablets, nor would we have bar codes.

There wouldn’t even be unique labels and packaging that make a product stand out from the crowd.

Creativity helps us advance our businesses and ourselves. But we sometimes get so caught up in the day-to-day we do not employ our creativity in our print business.

Here are several reasons to consider focusing more on creativity in business. When we do these things, we will bring more value to the print industry.

Build Better Customer Relationships

If we can continually solve our customers’ challenges and help them win their opportunities, then we will build better customer relationships.

This takes creativity.

We need to ask questions, listen, and apply our creativity in business to helping our customers be better at what they do for their customers.

Just think: Can you imagine what the reaction would be if you created a uniquely designed printed piece or a marketing campaign in support of your customer’s campaign? What if it involved creating a custom app?

Build a Better Culture

If we build a better culture our teams will flourish.

If we encourage our team members’ creativity in business, they will generate unique solutions for our customers.

As we encourage creativity and it becomes more a part of who we are as a print business and as people, then we will build a better culture.

People will want to work at our companies and for those supervisors who are creative.

Customers will want to work with salespeople and CSRs who find creative ways to help them.

Imagine what this creative energy could do for our print businesses.

Enjoy the Gift of Creativity in Business

We were each given creative abilities.

We can be creative regardless of the job we perform.

Don’t you find that when you are creative for your customers or your team members, you get a shot of juice that inspires you to do more?

Enjoy this gift you have been given.

Build Your Business to a Higher Level

Each time we use our creativity in business, we set ourselves apart from other print businesses.

This elevates us in the mind of the customer, leading us to higher levels of creativity.

When we employ that creative habit over time and our competitors do not, we will separate ourselves from the pack. This creativity will take our businesses to a higher level.

Inspire Others

When we employ our creativity we will inspire others.

Who has not been excited or inspired by all the changes we see in the print industry?

I can personally remember seeing the Kodak Prosper running several years ago at 600 feet/minute. I thought I was seeing the future of print. It has taken time, but ink jet is making an impact in many areas of the print industry.

Who has not been inspired by the work of Steve Jobs and the impact he had in the computer and even the music industry?

Creativity does not have to come in the form of breakthroughs to be inspiring.

If it incrementally takes us to another level, it will inspire people to seek higher levels of creativity themselves.

There is tremendous value in creativity in business, for our customers, our team members, and ourselves.

What value have you seen in creativity in the print industry? What are some examples?

Image via Freeimages.com

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Culture.

Culture, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is, “the beliefs, customs, arts … of a particular group,” and, “a way of thinking, behaving or working that exists in a place or organization.”

It is the print industry leader’s responsibility to set the culture.

It is the responsibility of the other members of the team to support and propagate the culture.

Culture is critical to long-term success.

Because people come and go, having a strong culture that drives the way the company conducts its business is the best way to keep the company values strong. That way, even when people leave, the culture will remain.

Leaders in a print industry business can’t always be present. And when leaders are not there, it is the culture—the way a company does business—that keeps everything humming.

Here are a few ideas for establishing and continuing your company’s culture:

Establish the Vision, Mission and Values

Vision, mission, and values don’t just live in your head. It is important to write them down and then communicate your vision team members.

If you want your team members to treat customers a certain way, then you must have that discussion. You can’t take for granted that everyone has the same philosophy.

For example, if you want your team members to value productivity, then you need to write it down and communicate it to our team.

Engage Leadership

All leaders—in the print industry and beyond—need to buy in. They need to believe in what the company stands for, where it is going, and how it will get there.

All leaders need to continually live and reinforce the way the company does business.

The leaders carry the culture with them every day, in every discussion and every email. They also reinforce the culture by deciding where they spend their time and where they spend the company’s money.

Drive Empowerment, Responsibility and Accountability

Great cultures empower their people to get the job done. They  instill a sense of responsibility to carry out their assignments.

Accountability for the results and the way results are achieved is also crucial for reinforcing behavior.

If under-performers are not coached up or coached out, then the good performers who are sacrificing for the good of the team will be discouraged.

The accountability of under-performers must be sought by all leaders. That helps reinforce the desired culture.

Recognize Team Members

When team members conduct themselves in a way that the leaders want them to, then leaders must find ways to recognize them. This could be in front of the rest of the team. It could just be a memo to all team members or dinner with the boss.

The key is to pick something meaningful. Something that reinforces the culture as it builds on it.

Recognizing team members will keep them on the path of the culture desired. It will reinforce to other team members what is important to the company.

Commit to Culture for Printing Industry Success

Culture creation is hard work.

You need to accept this up front and be committed to creating the culture you want. The payoff will be sustaining and growing your print industry business in the long-term.

As a leaders, we want to see our companies continue beyond us. Culture is the vehicle to do it.

Do you see culture as an opportunity to grow your print industry business in the long-term?

What are some ideas you may have or implemented to create and sustain a great culture?

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The act of blogging must be much bigger than simply writing a blog. It must be part of a mission you are passionate about. Without that mission, blogging becomes drudgery.

If you have your eye on a goal and a blog is part of executing that goal, then it won’t just be about cranking out a blog. But the thought must be about working toward your mission.

In the same vein, blogging cannot be about just making money. That’s like saying the goal of a business is to make money. In my opinion, the goal of a business is to serve others. Without money a business cannot survive, but making money is not its ultimate goal or its purpose for being.

Similarly, we wouldn’t say the goal of life is to eat. We need to food to live, but that is not our purpose.

Find your purpose. Whether it’s serving and helping others or something else entirely, if blogging is part of how you accomplish your purpose then that’s why you should blog.

Keep that purpose in mind and blogging will be something you will want to do, as it takes you toward your purpose.

Here are a few less-commonly cited reasons why you should blog:

Create Clarity

One of the greatest benefits blogging has brought me is developing clarity in my own mind around the topic I blog about each week. As I write, I understand better what I think about an issue that has been on my mind.

Also, others chime in on the blog post who have different points of view. These readers bring perspective you may have never considered had you not blogged on the topic.

Ignite Change

Putting your ideas out there can ignite change in others—and I have also found blogging has changed me.

When I first started blogging it was more about sharing a point of view and starting a discussion on a topic. Over time, I have come to realize blogging changes you, the writer. You become a better listener, thinker, and (hopefully) writer as you blog. That in itself is a great reason you should blog.

Develop New Relationships

Relationships are one of the most important aspects of life, whether in business or your personal life. Blogging allows you to meet and talk with a variety of people you would have never met otherwise. Best yet, it gives you the opportunity to contribute to other people’s lives and help them accomplish their goals, as well.

Recognize What is Important

Blogging helps me understand not only what is important in the print business, but in life. It makes me see what is important to me simply because I cannot write about everything.

There’s no reason why you should blog on any topic that doesn’t truly matter to you—it’s a waste of your time. Instead, you will need to filter your thoughts and ideas and focus only on what is key.

Final Thoughts on Why You Should Blog: To Contribute to Others

At the end of our lives, we will look back and ask ourselves if we have made a contribution to others. We will want to be able to say we have made a difference in people’s lives. If you can do that through blogging, that’s a compelling reason why you should blog.

Blogging, for example about the print industry, allows you to make that contribution and enrich the lives of others with your own unique perspective.

Blogging can be very beneficial to you and others in the print industry. What reasons can you name for why you should blog?

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It used to be that the most effective leadership style was “Command and Control.” This style was inspired by the way we led our troops in World War II. This method has continued to find favor right up to the present moment in the print industry.

However, this leadership style has given way to a more effective style we can label “Inspire and Engage.”

In a command and control environment, leaders decide to tell everyone what to do, and subordinates are expected follow orders.

On the other hand, leaders can choose an inspire and engage style. In this environment, we communicate to our team the vision, mission, values, milestones, and plans that will inspire them. Then we ask them to personally get engaged in helping the company to achieve those print industry goals.

Certainly, print industry leaders need to have some level of command and control in order to hold people accountable for their work. Ultimately, however, the fuel for significant growth and achievement in our printing businesses must come from an inspire and engage leadership style.

Changing leadership styles is not an overnight process. It takes time.

Here are several ideas to help implement an inspire and engagee leadership style. These can be useful to you whether you are the CEO, customer service manager, or the sales manager:

Communicate Your Vision and Goals Relative to the Print Industry

This may seem obvious, but if we want to accomplish goals or achieve our vision, we have to let others know what our goals are and what our big picture vision is. This helps the team cement in their own minds what success looks like and what it will mean to them when their department or company hits the target.

Create Plans as a Team

Call your team together as you begin to outline the plans needed to accomplish your goals. Since they are involved, they will be inspired and engaged in helping the team reach those goals.

Develop Scorekeeping Mechanisms

Everyone wants to know the score so they know how close they are to achieving success. Keeping score will keep the team engaged and inspire them on to future efforts. Additionally, scorekeeping helps the team make mid-course adjustments if they are falling short.

Initiate Regular Team Meetings

Engage your team in meetings at regular intervals—monthly at a minimum—to review the team’s progress toward the goals. After the review, ask the team members what could be improved to further engage them in the effort. Depending on the ideas for improvement, you may want to establish another team to tackle those new ideas.

Provide Recognition

At regular intervals, provide the necessary motivation to keep the fires burning and your team fueled for additional progress through recognition. Recognition could take many forms, including group recognition, money, time off, dinner and a movie, or anything else that helps people feel appreciated and recognized.

If you operate in the print industry today, you’ll certainly find that inspire and engage is a much more effective leadership style than command and control.

How do you see others use inspire-and-engage strategies, or how do you effectively employ inspire and engage strategies in your area of responsibility?

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The lifeblood of any business is its customers. They are the purpose of our business—and any purpose other than serving your customers puts your company in a vulnerable position.

The fact is, demanding customers make us better. Their needs help bring about never-ending improvement as we make changes for their benefit.

Since customers are the purpose of our business, it’s important to understand and calculate the lifetime value of a customer.

There are many ways to look at the value of a customer—here is one way:

Calculating the Lifetime Value of a Customer in the Print Industry

Annual Revenue. Calculate the annual average revenue of each customer.

Longevity. Calculate the number of years this customer will be with your company.

Referrals. Calculate the number of people who buy print that this customer will refer you to in the future.

Referral Longevity. Calculate the number of years this referral customer will be with your company.

Here is an example:

Annual Revenue for Customer = $100,000
Longevity = 20 years
20 years x $100,000/year = $2,000,000

Average number of referrals = two
Longevity = 20 years
20 years x $100,000/year/referral x 2 referrals = $4,000,000

Current Customer Lifetime Revenue = $2,000,000
Referral Customer Lifetime Revenue = $4,000,000
Total Current and Referral Customer Revenue from one current customer = $6,000,000

Wow … $6,000,0000 of revenue over 20 years as the result of one current customer! This shows the significant revenue impact of taking care of our customers.

There are several ways you may want to use this tool:

Communication to Your Team

Take the time to talk with all of your team members about the lifetime value of your customers, whether your team members are in sales, customer service, or any other position. They probably never thought of this value before now. It will open their eyes to the importance of retaining each customer over a long period of time.

Improve Your Processes

If you develop a better understanding of the lifetime value of a customer then you will want to improve those processes that have a positive effect on the customer experience. As a result, your customer will feel more appreciated and be more likely to stick with you for the long haul.

Place the Customer First

All of us say that the customer comes first, but many of our companies could do a better job removing the roadblocks to better serve them.

Survey Your Customers

Find out what is actually important to your customers and then develop a plan to make those desires happen. In the process of surveying your customers, you will create loyal customers.

There is much value in understanding the lifetime value of a customer. It opens people’s eyes to how much keeping a customer means to a business, as well as serves as a motivator to improve the customer’s experience.

How do you calculate and use the lifetime value of a customer in your print business?

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Pruning may be one of the most important activities you can spend your time on in order to accelerate your progress toward your goals.

As we prune away those items that do not bear fruit, we have the opportunity to re-allocate and re-focus our time and effort on items that really make a difference in reaching the vision and goals we have for our print business.

Here are several ideas and ways to prune your print business or your own activities:

• Review Your Vision and Goals. When we do this, we refocus our minds on what we desire to achieve. This creates a better alignment between what we want to achieve and the activities we spend our time on daily.
• Define Your “Why.” Once we have an understanding of our vision and goals, it is important to define the why—the reason we want to reach our vision and goals. The “why” or the purpose provides the fuel and motivation to keep going when progress becomes challenging. Knowing our purpose will aid us in figuring out what activities we want to spend our time on daily.
• Conduct a Time Inventory. Go online and find a weekly time inventory sheet or use an Excel file that is broken into 15 minute increments. Take the time to record what you are working on during that week. If we are going to spend more time on what matters, we first have to know where we are spending our time so we can prune what does not help us reach our goals from our schedule and activities.
• Review the Time Inventory. Examine the time inventory and highlight those activities that are not contributing to the vision and goals you have for your print business. This will give you a sense of what you can prune.
• Delegate or Eliminate. Create a list of those activities that you want to stop doing. Next, decide whether the activity is even worth being done by you or someone else in your company. If the activity is not worth doing in the sense that it does not take you or your print business where you want to go and there are no negative consequences of not doing it then eliminate it. Next, review all the remaining activities and decide how you can possibly delegate it to someone else and delegate it. If you need additional support for the important activities, consider contacting a company that you can contract for a part-time person such as eaHelp.

If you regularly prune your print business, you will find that you will make more progress faster toward your goals and you will also have more satisfaction in what you do.

You will be working on what is your unique ability and delegating what others can do better than you.

What has worked for you when pruning your activities?

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Of course you have.

If we want to get better at what we do we need to find ways to continuously improve productivity. There are probably many ways and ideas to get this done.

For the purposes of creating a method to continuously improve productivity, I have suggested a process for you to follow.

Decide on Your Goal

First, we have to identify what our goal is. Do we want to increase our print revenue by 10% this year or add 10 new customers that provide at least $10,000 in new revenue or something else?

Once we have decided on our goal then we can proceed to the next step.

Plan Your Path

Create a step-by-step plan for how you will reach your goal. Make sure you add dates for each action item so you can check progress at a later date.

If you take the time upfront to properly plan you will be able to take a much shorter route to the goal than if you just winged it.

Create Key Performance Indicators to Measure Success

In order to follow the progress, we need to create KPIs.

As an example, if I want to grow revenue 10% then I would track revenue daily, weekly and monthly so I can see how I am tracking against the goal.

If I want to add 10 new customers of at least $10,000 each then I would track the number of new customers and their dollar volume which would be the KPI for that goal.

Review Progress Periodically

Set a time each week to review your progress against your goal and plan. How are you doing? What successes did you achieve? Why? What held back your progress?

By asking these questions we are able to build on our successes and increased focus to the roadblocks that are holding us back from achieving our goal.

Create Next Steps

During your progress review, start plotting the next steps for the coming week.

When we take the time to think about this we will shorten the path to achieving our goal.

Take Action

I recommend having a bias for action. We certainly need to plan, but we must take action if we are to achieve our goal in the timeframe we desire.

When we take action and then review progress weekly, we will have the opportunity to make mid-course corrections before we veer off the path to our goal too far.

Improve Productivity

In the print industry, it is an ongoing challenge to improve productivity, but with the right goal, plan, weekly review and a bias for action we can continuously excel.

What actions do you take to improve productivity?

photo credit: Shutterstock

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In the print industry today, we are all confronted by challenges. But challenges are opportunities in disguise. As crazy as it may seem, there are reasons to welcome challenges into your life and make the most of them.

Here are five reasons to welcome challenges.

Challenges are Opportunities for Growth

If you think back on challenges you have faced in your life, did you not grow from those experiences?

Most likely, to get through a challenge you had to grow so you could come out on the other side. Once you get through it you will have grown in your wisdom and experience.

Challenges are Prime Moments for Learning

When we are challenged we have the opportunity to learn from that situation. When we learn from that situation we can apply that learning to our business going forward from there.

With this new learning we can continue to accelerate toward our goals since we are past the roadblock of that challenge.

Challenges Can Improve Our Relationships

How many challenges can we get through by ourselves without the help of others? When we are challenged we have the ability to engage others, which further builds our relationships with those we work with in our print business or even in our personal lives.

We need a team of people to help us get through challenges and the team will be tighter once they emerge from that challenge.

Challenges Can Have Silver Linings

When we are challenged we have the opportunity to look for the silver lining.

I know that when I am in the midst of a challenge I may not want to do so but if I can focus on how to make the most of it then I can create opportunities on the other side of them. Next, I can leverage that silver lining to make more progress in our print business.

Challenges are Opportunities to Help Others

In our print industry occupations, we encounter many challenges.

When we confront them and learn how to move through them we can gain a learning from that challenge as well as a more positive attitude about them. When we have a learning in the midst of the challenge we want to write it down or file it away in our minds.

One day we may see others inside or even outside of the print industry that may face a similar challenge and we will be prepared to help them.

Wading through challenges requires a positive attitude about them.

What other reasons do you see that challenges are opportunities?

photo credit: Shutterstock

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