PEMBROKE, Mass. — Just about all dry cleaners are hard workers. You can’t run a drycleaning business and not put in the hours, pitch in with the “grunt” activities, and do endless paperwork. Workweeks of 50, 60 or 70 hours are not unheard of. But working hard doesn’t mean you’re working smart. It doesn’t mean that you’re undertaking those activities which ensure your firm’s continuance, if not prosperity. Nor does it mean that the company is obtaining the best that you can offer.
Your workday is determined by the size of your business, the workload, the staff, and the procedures set in place. Your day is a patchwork of solving customer problems, helping out with the processing, dealing with vendors, and ordering supplies.
Being a hands-on manager is necessary to run a good business, but possibly you can release yourself from some of these obligations and do more overseeing and spend more time with big-picture issues.
Make cold calls from the comfort of your office. Out of the phone book, call prospects and try to convince the individuals to give you a try. To mothers, suggest that you use special cleaning solvents for children’s wear. For senior citizens, talk about Senior Day every month, during which such individuals receive a 25% discount. For mature, busy families, tout your pickup/delivery service at standard prices. Offer an incentive: “Come in this month with some clothes to clean and receive a $5 supermarket coupon.”
Give talks at clubs and organizations. Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, Knights of Columbus, and other organizations all regularly have speakers. Many of these groups meet at lunchtime during a weekday. Give a 10-minute talk on the benefits of dry cleaning for preserving garments. Or give a talk on making your life less complicated by employing “make-life-easier” agents, such as dry cleaners who do pickup and delivery.
Once you have arranged to devote a third of each day to winning new accounts or expanding the business, see what else you can do to make the rest of your day more productive. If you spent an hour a day inspecting finished product, perhaps you could assign that task to an underling, making sure to train him to look for everything you do. Such a step could free up another hour, which can be devoted to something more important.
Maybe you’ve been manning the counter every afternoon, after the day staffer leaves and before the evening high schooler comes in at 5 p.m. Only two hours spent was your old thinking. But perhaps you can hire a person to come in for two hours every afternoon between 3 and 5, which would free up your workday to do more pressing activities.
Yes, it is important to know what’s going on at the front counter, but possibly that could be done more efficiently by periodically coming in and observing counter staffers. Besides, having a 10-minute talk with your old customer, Mrs. Kelsey, about the future of the Republican Party is not exactly doing business. Probably, those freed-up two hours spent in the plant seeing that each staffer is performing his/her tasks as efficiently/productively as possible would be more valuable for the long-run health of the firm.
If you spend a good one-third of your day responding to customer problems, perhaps you could assign a staffer—a counterperson or the cleaner—half the task. Divide up the calls each morning between you and the other person. You have customers with last names beginning with A to L. The other person services those customers whose last name begins with M to Z. Of course, you must carefully train the individual as to the nuances of dealing with difficult customers. This will free up an hour and a half every day.
You’re probably thinking, “This delicate task cannot be done by anyone else but me, because only I know all the customers.” Think again. Everyone is replaceable. Staffers can be trained to do even your sensitive jobs. It’s a matter of selecting the right person and training him completely and overseeing his interactions so that the customer is placated.
Possibly you could reduce the time you spend on giving directions to workers—say you spend an hour a day at the task—by writing out worksheets or, even better, typing the information in the computer the night before and having staffers obtain their assignments on their cell phones. Or put all information on a clipboard for the person to pick up in the morning and come to you only when there is a question. Yes, you want to keep in touch with your people, but the connection could be made much more effectively over other matters during spare moments in the workday. Do this and you free up an hour every morning.
Yes, you are hard-working, but you might not be as efficient as you could be. Yes, every hour of the day is occupied, but that time might not be occupied productively. For instance, if you do not devote a third of your available time for soliciting and building your business, it is a good indication that you are not fully utilizing your time effectively.
Miss Part 1? Read it HERE.
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