Tough Decisions Have to be Made
Posted On: 2008-05-02
Wow what a start to the day. If you read my column yesterday you'll know that I like to have a fairly structured day with deadlines met early and plenty of completed work by the time I'm done but, just like yesterday, I'm running way behind and I haven't got one thing that I can tick off as being completed.
But, if the plan all comes together by the time 4pm rolls around I'll have lots of work finished and I just might be able to spend the weekend doing something other than catching up on the work left over from the last five days. On the other hand of course it could all fall apart and Steve and I could be working through the night.
Come back Steve ... don't run away screaming ... I didn't mean it ... really I didn't.
Know your strengths
It's interesting how there are times when you come across something that someone has written that really resonates with where you're at right now. Steve and I are doing some preliminary thinking about one of the periodic reviews we do of our business and there are a couple of services we provide for several clients that we may end up dropping.
While I was thinking about that I came across a blog entry on a blog by a venture capitalist. He suggested that the really smart people in business are those who know what their strengths are and then surround themselves with people who can cover their weaknesses.
That's definitely the way my business is developing and I've been building up a great team that does some wonderful work in an area that's growing for us. At the same time there's another area of work where I've never really been able to attract totally dependable people and now might be the time to cut loose that part of my “empire” and that's tied in with the next point I want to talk about.
Are you really making money?
I know lots of people who are very busy all day, every day of their working life. There's no doubt, they do a lot of work but are they really making any money from all that work? At the end of the day are they putting food on their tables, paying their bills and putting something aside for a rainy day or just making ends meet?
That's something that Steve often points out to me about some of the work my business handles. Quite frankly some of it takes up a lot of time but really doesn't pay all that much and supervising those who do that work takes me away from work that could make me a whole lot more.
To be brutally honest all I'm really doing is providing someone else with a job and that's fine if they're actually earning enough to pay their wages and provide a profit for my business. But if they're not then I'm just wasting my time.
So is everything you're doing making you a profit ... or are there things that you're doing that simply keep you busy without really boosting your bottom line?
I know that deciding whether a task or project is going to generate a real profit or not is hard to tell at first and you really do have to try it for a while to see where it might lead. But then comes a time when you have to be honest about what you're achieving and if it's not going to lead anywhere profitable then you just have to cut it loose and go on to something else.
Sure, there can be some pain in doing that and others may not understand your motives and perhaps even resent what you're doing but ultimately the only person who is responsible for your success or failure is you so sometimes you have to make unpleasant decisions just so you can survive.
Crappy keyboards
If you haven't read the story yet then let me be the first to tell you that your keyboard may not be as clean as your toilet. Of course if you're a bachelor then you're toilet is probably much worse than anything else in your house ... but if you're a normal geeky webmaster who cleans his toilet then the chances are your keyboard is a real health hazard.
It seems that a number of keyboards were tested in a London office recently and one was found to be much worse than the recommended limit for bacteria ... now there's something I never knew before, there's a recommended limit for germs in keyboards.
Anyway, one particular keyboard was well over the limit and of course it just happened to belong to the guy who always ate lunch at his desk. Now if that resonates with you then maybe you should be spending this weekend cleaning your keyboard ... and maybe your toilet too ... you don't want all those dirty germs jumping up and biting your ass while you're sitting there now do you?
On that low note I shall depart the building for the weekend ... see you on Monday.