If you’re like most small businesses, you don’t spend much time on internal seek-and-destroy missions that identify and kill unproductive elements of your business. This is a big mistake.
Every so often you need to look at everything, a 360 degree view of your business, and focus on getting rid of things that are no longer needed, important, or helping your company grow.
Start with these areas:
Products
For various reasons, you might cling to a product(s) that drains resources without producing ROI. Kill them. Inventory holding can be a drain on cash flow.
Equipment
Slay equipment that no longer provides value. Sell it. Trade it. Eliminate it. Free up more room for production, free up cash for more important, value producing investments.
People
Especially in a small company, each team member must remain in top form. With regular assessments, you can more easily identify bad hires or address dipping performance levels before they get out of hand. Never settle for ‘average’ people. Average is too expensive.
Space
Do you really need a 4,500 square foot space, or will 2,000 suffice? Can you work from your garage? Do you really need to buy/lease office furniture or will refurbished/used furniture do the job? Eliminating unnecessary overhead should be your obsession–start with your space.
Being able to kill things early is essential to the long-term growth and success of any company. Searching for things to kill is the first step to building a better and leaner company.
