Getting Overwhelmed

The problem with being hit with a series of issues, one after another, is that you can quickly get overwhelmed. Suddenly, the good idea you had to expand your business doesn’t look so bright. But you need to accept the fact that problems are inherent in any business. How you deal with them will set you apart.

You need an organized approach to dealing with things as they come up. If you just react to each situation, you may find yourself surviving today just to deal with the same problem tomorrow. For instance, if you have a customer who was not happy with the service they received when they called in, you may personally apologize to that customer and make it right. You may even reprimand the customer service rep. But if you don’t spend a little time looking at the root of the problem, it is bound to occur again. In this case, there probably needs to be better training and/or better customer service procedures.

Start a Spreadsheet

The reason you don’t do the in depth analysis is that you are overwhelmed and too busy at the moment. So you just do the short term response. You may think you will go back and work on the problem when you get some time, but without a plan that is very unlikely.

So here is a simple solution. Start a list of all of the issues that come up during the day. Write them on sticky notes, a notepad, your hand, or whatever. Noting the issues is very important, because just by doing that you will start to see patterns and will have a road map to underlying issues.

At some point in the day, put those issues in a spreadsheet. If you are too busy, have an employee do it for you. If you have a lot of different issues, it is a good idea to use separate tabs in the spreadsheet for each category. Yours might be “office issues”, “customer service issues”, “product issues”, etc.

Once you have a column of issues, add three more columns. The first will be labeled Short Term Response. This is where you write in what you did immediately to fix the issue. The next column will be labeled Long Term Response. This is where you will write in the solution that will make the issue never happen again. It may be some time before you get the right response for this column. The last column will be Notes. Here, you can write down your thoughts, discussions, or whatever as they relate to the issue.

Patterns and Solutions

As you begin to write down all of the issues that come up during a typical day, you will see a story unfold in front of you. Just as interesting will be the story of your immediate responses. Do you react with an even hand and a cool head, or not?

You may find that a lot of your issues stem from one procedure (or lack of procedure) or from one employee. This is what you want to know, because then you can go to the root of the issue and fix it for good.

What’s more, as you build your list, you will have it handy to refer to when you do have some time to work on the business. I suggest scheduling time every week to work on your list of issues. If you have other people that can help you do this, all the better. Schedule a weekly meeting. The ultimate goal is to have the Long Term Response column filled out for every issue, and to gain the upper hand on your business issues. You have better things to be doing every day than putting out fires.

Take Action

Today, write down any issues that come up. Then, create a spreadsheet and fill in the issues column along with your immediate response. And remember, even if you put off dealing with the issue, that is a response. Just write in “ignored”.  Schedule a time this week to review the list and start to solve your recurring issues.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BradfordShimp.com

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This post is of a more personal nature. Fear is something I struggle with. Mostly fear of failure and/or rejection. In business, it often holds me back from trying new things, from taking risks. I am writing this, though, because I know that so many of us are holding back because of some kind of fear.

Fear is a funny thing. It is a very real part of our lives, but in the end, it is not a real thing at all. My daughter might be convinced in her head that there is a monster under her bed. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell her monsters aren’t real, she is still afraid. And while we as adults think its silly, we all have our own version of a monster under the bed.

I, for one, don’t like roller coasters. While I could rationalize that the reason I don’t like them is that they upset my stomach, the truth is that they are down right scary. And yet, a lot of the world thinks they are fun! I know someone who refuses to fly. I have no problem with flying and know how safe it is. This doesn’t matter to her, because she is afraid.

We let fear put up walls in our lives. We let it hold us back. Which is funny, because fear is just an emotion. It can be overcome, usually by just doing the thing that scares us. This is especially true with business risks. Big ones, like should your start your own business, and smaller ones too.

Fear is like a mirage. If you just walk straight at it, it will disappear. Yet, I know for a fact that there are certain fears that I will never approach willingly on my own. And maybe we don’t have to tackle every one of our fears. But are there any that are holding you back from success? I’m not talking about flying or bungee jumping or hospitals here. I’m talking about things like calling a potential big client. Things like hiring a new person, or starting a company. These things are scary in their own right, but they are not usually the bone-chilling kind of scary.

I remember when I first went into sales. I am not really a people person, and I had never done anything in life to prepare me for sales work. I was scared. But I was also motivated. Every time I would pick up the phone or do a meeting, I would get nervous. But once I was in the moment, everything was fine. This wasn’t lethal, I learned. I wouldn’t say that I fell in love with direct sales work, but I did beat my fear. I found out if I took it head on, I could overcome it.

The question is this, what fears are standing in the way of your success? For me, most of my fears are about failure. What if I can’t succeed with my goals and vision? How about you?

Sometimes, simply identifying the fear takes you a long way to overcoming it. You may have been fooling yourself into thinking you weren’t calling on prospects because your business wasn’t ready to grow, when in fact you are just afraid of rejection.

Once you identify areas of fear in your life, what can you do to overcome that fear? Try moving yourself toward the fear, and see whether or not it is just a mirage.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BradfordShimp.com

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(I don’t know who that woman is, but you can buy this hand truck through RandMH.com, where I got the picture).  

For a few months now, one of our hand trucks had a flat tire.  It would mostly sit there.  Someone would try to use it from time to time. It would get loaded up with boxes and then when it was tilted back, the flat would become apparent.  So it would go back to sitting.  This went on for some time.

It should be said that we had another hand truck, so we made do.  Sometimes one was out on a delivery though, and that would cause a bit of a hassle. 

At one point someone even considered buying a new hand truck, but decided against it because of the expense. 

For some reason, I was made aware of the situation. I had known about the flat before, but assumed it was fixed. Well, when I found out that it was still flat, I proposed a solution. Why not buy a new wheel?

I instantly got the green light.  

What follows is absolutely amazing. I ordered the new wheel from Rand. It came in a few days later. I opened the box and took out the new wheel. I then went to the cart, removed a pin, took off the flat wheel and put the new wheel in its place, replacing the pin.  It took me less than a minute.  

Remember, that cart had been out of commission for months.  

Of course, I am not telling you a story about a hand truck that I fixed, though I am pretty proud of myself. There is a greater allegory here concerning problems.  

A problem, no matter how small, will never be fixed until it is confronted. A problem that is ignored does not go away. Often, it becomes a bigger problem. On the other hand, problems that are faced up to are usually solvable. Sometimes the solution is quite easy, like a new wheel. But if you never face a problem dead on, you will never know if the solution is easy or hard. It will just nag at you, like that lame hand truck that no one could use.

So, if you have a problem, face it. Take care of it right away and it won’t be there to constantly nag you. It is always surprising how easy most problems are to solve, especially when they are confronted right away.  

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Bradford Shimp is a reader, writer, and thinker on business issues.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.  

To further your business education, you should be reading relevant business books.  Check out Books Unwound to learn more about great titles that can really help you in your business.

Your business is an apple that you want to save.  Sometimes, a problem will worm its way through your organization.  When faced with a problem, you have several options.  

You can ignore it.  

You can react to it, or patch it.

You can fix it.

Ignoring a worm in an apple will not make the worm go away.  Eventually, the worm will eat the entire apple and there will be nothing left to salvage.  The same thing will happen when a problem goes ignored at your small business.  It is easy to think that if you ignore the problem and it doesn’t raise its head again, you have dodged a bullet.  As an owner of a small business with several employees, you may find yourself ignoring problems actively, with the thought in the back of your mind that either the problem will fix itself or your employees will figure out a solution.  If you are lucky and have great employees, they will indeed find a solution.  The problem here is that their solution may be far from one that you would come up with.  One solution an employee may make that you would never make is this, they could quit.  If they are annoyed by having to cover for a customer service problem and feeling stress from angry customers, they may view quitting as their only option.  

Maybe you don’t ignore a problem, but you don’t really have time to fix it either.  You may find yourself trying to plug that little wormhole.  You react and solve problems on a customer by customer basis.  The thing with that approach is that the worm is still in there causing havic.  You may be able to solve the problem as far as the customer is concerned, but you will need to do it over and over again with many customers.  What happens when you have to solve the same problem with the same customer more than once?  You will probably have a new problem of finding a new customer.  

Simply reacting to a problem is not enough.  It is alot of extra work and takes you away from building your business.  If problems aren’t dealt with, you will start to find that your job is to put out fires.  That’s probably not what you signed up for when you started your small business.  However, it is an easy rut to get stuck in.  There are two main reasons you might find yourself becoming a reacter, someone who is simply plugging the wormhole.  

1. You don’t think you have time right now to address the underlying issue.

2. You don’t think you know how to fix the problem.

Being too busy to fix problems in your business is a fatal mistake.  Remember, I am not talking about reacting to problems.  The fact is, if you have consistent problems, you are already spending too much of your time on problems.  Instead of problem-solving, you are problem-deflecting.  

Devote some extra hours and trace your problem back to its source.  Find the worm and pull it out of your organization.  This will free up more future time.  That’s worth a few late nights, right?

As far as not knowing how to fix the problem…  The fact is, you probably do know how to fix it, but you just don’t know what is causing it.  Once you take the time to really look at the problem you will figure out what is causing it.  And then you will know what to do.  Just make sure you spend the time to really find the cause.  For instance, an employee may be making a mistake regularly.  At first glance you may think the employee is the problem causer.  However, if you look more closely, you may find that the system you have your employee using is flawed, or that training has been inadequate.  Keep looking until you find the absolute cause of your problem.  

Finding the worm takes some effort, but the reward of a worm free apple, err business, are well worth it!