How to sharpen your business saw to keep ahead of the competition

Have you remembered to sharpen your saw?

It was Abraham Lincoln who is first recorded as talking about the importance of sharpening one’s axe: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”  The woodcutter-turned-President stressed the need for preparation before undertaking a task. More recently, Steven R Covey introduced his 7^th Habit of Highly Effective People – Sharpen your Saw. The same can be applied to your business: you need to take time to work on your business in order to achieve optimum efficiency within it.  

The wood-cutting novices

Once upon a time, a rich man decided it would be fun to give some of his money away, but not for free. Instead he found two poor boys and told them whoever cut down the most trees in two days would get a great reward. Neither boy had  experience of felling trees, but both desperately wanted to win, given their financial status.

The two days started and the first lad hurried to start chopping trees. The second instead went off to the local book store and bought a ‘Wood Chopping for Dummies’ book. The first boy thought the second was an idiot; after all, they had a mere two days to chop the trees, so why waste time reading a silly book?

By the time the second had finished reading, the first was already two trees ahead. This was irrelevant, however, as the second boy now possessed a lot more knowledge and wisdom about tree felling than the first. He then proceeded to fell trees  at a much faster rate, going on to win the reward.

The moral of this story? Working without the right knowledge will produce disappointing results. Take time out to sharpen your saw!

I Don’t Use an Axe or Saw!

But you will use many business tools and techniques in delivering your product or service.  Sharpening you saw, being your best at whatever you are about to do makes perfect sense.  If you were about to create a spreadsheet to capture this month’s sales figures and the gross margins by product and by sales person, you would have to have a working knowledge of Excel; your knowledge of Excel is the saw in question here.  If, at a later date, you needed to generate some complex reports from a number of different spreadsheets for the first time, you are likely to need to use some Excel functionality you haven’t used before; a bit more saw sharpening would be a definite requirement.

Maybe sales are not what they once were, you are receiving fewer requests for quotations;  your sales process could be the saw in need of sharpening.

Because you are in the middle of your business, it can be difficult to see if performance is starting to decline. Sometimes we even stop a successful activity because we get ‘busy’, even when the ‘busy’ was a result of the successful activity!

Taking a high-level view of your business and sharpening the appropriate saws will help maintain and improve performance.

Management & Leadership

As a business owner you might think management and leadership is what it is, you do what you do.  As a business grows, more of your time is going to be taken up by management and leadership.  It’s essential to become the best manager/leader you can be if your business is going to be a success and provide you and your family with the lifestyle you deserve, probably lots of saw sharpening needed here.

Management and leadership are different disciplines, I will cover more in a future blog.

What does this mean for you? Take time out look at the business: how are you and your team functioning?  Where are there opportunities to improve, to sharpen the saw, to become more efficient, more profitable and probably less stressed?!

My clients benefit from a whole range of supporting materials to help them in all areas of their business*. 

If you’d like to know more about the business areas in which I can help you, call 01732 453 464.

Value Builder exclusive offer

Value Builder is an extraordinarily powerful tool to give business owners the insights they need to meet their business and personal goals, so I am personally committed to making it available to entrepreneurs in Kent, Sussex and Surrey, in the area indicated in the map.

Value Builder normally costs business owners £500.  However, I am delighted to offer it to selected businesses free of charge – and I am also pleased to offer the follow up 90-minute 121 consultation to go through your results at my expense.

Why?  Well, I want businesses to have the very best chance to grow and develop, delivering the results business owners and their families deserve.

Secondly, I want to see businesses thrive and recruit additional team members to further grow the business and help to boost the local economy.

The full list of towns where I can provide this service is below, but if you don’t see your location, give me a call or drop me an email I will let you know if I can help you.  If I can’t, I’ll put you in touch with one of my colleagues who helps businesses in your area.

To apply for your FREE Value Builder report and business strategy review

Call 01732 453 464

Or email julianweekes@actioncoach.com

I help business owners in the following towns:

Don’t see your location in the list? Drop me a line and I’ll let you know if I can help you – or put you in touch with one who my colleagues who works with business owners in your area.

*My clients benefit from supporting material and coaching in the following business areas:

Looking for support in one of these key business areas?

Call 01732 453 464

Or email julianweekes@actioncoach.com