Why, How, and What. The order that we’ll dive into this. The philosophy behind my ramblings seems important to me. I’m sure you’re ready to jump into taking this outline and making it work for you.
My consulting company is Better Than Yesterday. We find what the best are doing versus average and address the gap. To make that gap smaller, we choose one thing and just improve an increment better than yesterday, in a month we will be amazing. Want proof, let’s have some fun.
Sales seems like a great starting spot, let’s go by orders. If you do 50 orders on a Monday. Next Monday I want 51, without sacrificing the average ticket. What would you need to do to get that order? You have a week to find one order. Oh, did I mention that you can’t spend money? No buying flyers. Just talk to your customers. Just deliver great products and service. Just engage your team, easy for me to say as I type. We’ll get into the “what” more in the next section, this about the math behind incremental improvement.
Week 1, Monday: 50 orders.
Week 2, Monday: 51 orders.
…
Week 10, Monday 60 orders
…
Week 20, Monday, 70 orders (you’ve had to add staff now).
It’s about a mindset. If I had said increase your sales 40% in 20 weeks, you’d think I was a raging lunatic. Yet at the start of this, one order didn’t sound so hard.
Honestly, you’re not going to be up every week either. That’s where the Infinite Game kicks in. Are you ahead or behind? Ahead! Great, build a surplus. Behind, ok, go for 2 orders this week instead of 1 until you’re caught up.
<aside> 💡 Notice how I put a guardrail on this goal? Increase one order every Monday with lowering ticket. You can’t just give an order for free to win. You’ve got to do something. Notice there are no other goals. Make **work small.**
</aside>
You’re going to have to prioritize again. This keeps coming up because if you prioritize incorrectly, you will waste your time and the team's effort.
I follow Human Performance Improvement (HPI) to help along my continuous improvement journey. Find the best, find the average, and measure the gap. The core component for me is that most of the time it is not training that needs correction. It is expectations, communication, or equipment. I did a capstone project for my Certificate of Master Performance Consultant, now called Human Performance Improvement Certificate, and found the same issues. You can view the capstone here →
Capstone Proj Drew Helmholtz.docx
To learn more about HPI visit → https://www.td.org/product/p/759811E