A retailer colleague said they missed a significant deal opportunity because it came in by email, and they don’t have time to read emails.
Every day, we choose how we spend our time in our businesses. It’s on us if we miss an opportunity that has been pitched through a regular business communication channel like email.
Often in retail, being time poor is a choice.
While having enough hours in the day can be challenging, there are steps we can take to save time:
- Before you spend time on something, ask yourself if it has value. Being busy doesn’t always equal value.
- Prefer suppliers who save you time, like those who provide electronic invoices for stock and those who use digital forms rather than paper. Let your suppliers know that you will give preference to those who save you time.
- Eliminate manual paperwork. Use your software to track all sales, manage end-of-shift balancing and feed data to your accounting software.
- Make better use of technology. Review everyday processes like stock ordering. See whether your existing technology could save time doing this work.
- Stop doing stuff. First, for a few days, write down everything you do. Then, review the list and stop doing things that are not genuinely valuable for the business.
- Eliminate manual processes at the sales counter. Scan all items sold. Have your point-of-sale software integrated with your EFTPOS terminal. Eliminate double data entry.
- Manage time spent with sales reps based on the financial return for the business.
- Make it easier for shoppers to shop in your store. Better signs with products can answer questions that people might otherwise want you to answer for them. If you save time for shoppers, you save time for yourself.
- Create task lists to systemise regular tasks such as shop open, shop close, daily cleaning, stock pricing and more. Having written processes can make them more efficient.
- Give someone the authority to complete a task and let go.
- Ask everyone working in the business for ideas on time-saving. They may see opportunities you’re missing.
- Finish each day by writing a to-do list for the next day.
- Start each day by completing tasks on your to-do list.
- Maintain a list of if I have time tasks you can do if you have spare time. Without such a list, you could lose time thinking about what you could do.
Time is an asset that needs to be managed as such. Each packet of time you spend on something in the business needs to serve the goal of the business and add value to it.
Some business owners like to feel time-poor because it gives them a feeling of being busy and having value. Being busy doesn’t always equal value for the business.
Let’s circle back to the colleague who missed the opportunity sitting in their inbox. By implementing even a few of the steps we suggest, they wouldn’t just be “finding time” to read emails; they would be making time. Effective time management is about creating robust processes that allow the business to function efficiently without constant, frantic intervention. It’s about building the necessary bandwidth to see the opportunities that are already there and, crucially, having the capacity to act on them.
Our advice: don’t work to be time poor.
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newsXpress is a marketing group that supports small local independent retailers to thrive. Find out more at help@newsxpress.com.au.
