Philip Campbell's Blog

Stop Doing the Dishes

Try this little test for one full week and see what happens.

Here's the test:

Stop doing the dishes at home.

Allow them to stack up for a full week.

Save yourself the time and trouble of cleaning up after meals. After you enjoy a good meal, put the dishes in the sink or on the counter and get on to the other things you have to do. Move on to the more important things around the house.

Just think how much time you will free up for yourself.

Life is better (and easier) now, right?

Well, maybe not.

After the first day or so, a couple thoughts start to run through your head.

"I'm still going to have to do the dishes. And when I do, there is going to be a huge stack and it's going to take a long time to clean them all. After a week, they are also going to be smelly and have old and hardened food all over them."

You would be embarrassed when friends come over and see a dirty pile of dishes stacked up in your kitchen. At some point, even your kids are going to start feeling embarrassed! J

Stop and ask yourself this question - do most people do the dishes every day because they just love doing the dishes?

Of course not.

They do them each day because it's one of those chores that is best done in bite-sized chunks. It is work that has to be done. So you are wise to do it in the least painful way possible – a little bit every day.

Doing the dishes every day is the practice of doing today's work today.

You do it because the alternative approach is a really bad idea.

You need to put this same approach to work in your business. Especially the accounting and financial side of your business.

 

FREE REPORT: A 3-Part Plan to Breathe Financial Life Back into Your Business. If you are an entrepreneur or business owner, this FREE GUIDE provides you a step-by-step, simple process for creating a financial future that is bigger and brighter than your past. Click here to get it FREE.

Bad Customers Crowd Out Good Customers

Have you ever had a customer or client that makes you cringe when they call (or you see an email come in from them)?

"Oh no, not that a$$hole again!"

Our natural instinct in business is to try to treat every customer like they are a good customer. Even the ones we dislike working with.

Given the hard work required to get a new customer, the thought of losing a customer can be scary.

But just like you have to pull weeds in your yard or your garden, you also have to "weed out" bad customers.

The Pumpkin Plan

Mike Michalowicz, the author of The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field, includes a beautiful approach to identifying the customers that need to go.

First, list your customers and rank them by revenue. Then, before identifying the ones that make you cringe, answer these questions for each one:

Do they pay on time when they feel like it or not at all?

Do they refer others to you, or do they keep you all to themselves?

Would they tell you if you made a horrible (or horribly stupid) mistake, let you fix it and let it go, or would they rub your nose in it every chance they got?

Is a super-sweet deal on the horizon, or are they maxed out with you?

Do they tell you what they need and want, or do they expect you to read their minds?

Do they respect your expertise, or do they consistently undermine or question you?

Are they coming back for more, more, more, or are they one-hit wonders?

Bad Customers Crowd Out Good Customers

One of the best reason to let bad customers go is to make room for good customers.

It is an important part of learning how to be more profitable in business.

FREE REPORT: A 3-Part Plan to Breathe Financial Life Back into Your Business. If you are an entrepreneur or business owner, this FREE GUIDE provides you a step-by-step, simple process for creating a financial future that is bigger and brighter than your past. Click here to get it FREE.