The Boy Scout organization's long-standing mantra is one every business owner should adopt as his/her own: Be Prepared!

All right, I hear you. "Duh, Susan! Of course that's good advice!"

Well, as elementary as it may sound, in business it's better than good advice -- it can be cost-saving advice! In fact, if you're not heeding this simple "be prepared" message, you might be throwing away $1000s over a very short period of time!

Think I'm exaggerating? Think again.

Here are just a few examples:

1.Your secretary/receptionist is going on vacation. You call a temporary staffing agency to hire someone to come in for the two weeks she will be basking in the Bahamas. Do you outline specific assignments or tasks (in advance) so that the person knows what to do when he/she arrives to work for you? Or do you take up YOUR valuable time to teach the temp everything he/she needs to know "as you go"?

Cha-ching! That's costly training time.

2.Same employee. Same Bahamas vacation. Do you let the "real work" pile up until the secretary returns and then overload her with deadlines so she ends up putting in overtime?

Cha-ching! Overtime wages are one and a half to two times greater than regular hours worked – and it puts a strain on the employee, too, making her regret ever having taken the vacation.

3.Do current employees know what's expected of them during "down time" when business is a little slow? It's one thing for employees to be bored with what they're doing. It's quite another thing for them to be bored because they're doing nothing.

Cha-ching! That "downtime" is money out of your till.

4.Have you ever redone a task because it was done incorrectly the first time?

Cha-ching! You've just doubled the cost of doing it.

5.Have you ever taken or sent someone on an unplanned trip to the supply store because you didn't know you were running out of toner or copy paper? What about running out of postage in the middle of a mailing that MUST go out today?

Cha-ching. Short-sightedness can be costly.

In all of these examples, the common thread of waste is in delaying business – the business gets put on hold while you "fix, adjust, redo or run a quick errand." Add it all up and you've spent more than your time, you've spent money.

Individually, the wasted dollars related to these scenarios may not add up to much. But if you start stringing them together and allowing the same ones to happen over again, it suddenly turns into serious costs - costs directly related to not being ready for what you already knew was coming.

If you want to really see a change on the bottom line, learn the difference between "the cost of doing business" and "the cost of delaying business" by taking a little business advice from the Boy Scouts: Be Prepared.

Sidebar: Two Simple Ways to Cut Wasted Time

Okay, I've presented the potential problem areas of wasted time resulting in wasted money. So, what's the solution? The remedy isn't complicated. In fact, I'm going to make only two simple suggestions for getting your "Be Prepared" mantra to work . . . Here they are:

1.Written procedures
Help yourself by helping your employees with written instructions for important and repetitive tasks. And don't just prepare for an employee's planned absence. Prepare for the unplanned absences, too, like a death in the family or an extended illness. Make outlines of assignments, document procedures, and create a task or "to do" list for upcoming projects. A little forethought on the front end will make the entire project go smoother – and quicker.

2.Accountability
Accountability also improves efficiency. By deciding who is responsible for what, you eliminate "finger pointing" when something doesn't get done, and reduce the chances of things falling through the cracks or having to be redone.

That's it! Use just these two suggestions to better prepare yourself and your employees, and you'll see a remarkable difference in your efficiency rate, which will make a remarkable improvement to your bottom line.



About the Author
Susan Carter helps business owners "do more with less" to operate and market their small and growing businesses. She is the author of How To Make Your Business Run Without You, and distributes free business-building advice in her twice-monthly ezine, SuccessExpress Press, available at www.successideas.com