Ever been to a coffee shop where it took forever to place an order, another eternity to get your coffee, a lifetime for the wrong slice of cake to arrive and then, incredibly, you had to wait to give them your money?

Would you return to a business like this? If your answer is no, then that shop has just lost your patronage and that of your family, friends and colleagues. How many dollars per month does that add up to?

A better level of organisation at each step of the process could have attracted those dollars. From an efficient ordering system to ensuring the physical space was set up to suit its' purpose. As in the coffee shop, any improvements you make to your business processes will relate directly to your clientele numbers. Which of course relate directly to your balance sheet. It's simple: more organised equals more profit. Do any of these areas in your business need to be better organised?

Meetings
Whether it's a Skype call or networking at the coffee shop, you'll benefit most from an organised approach. Have a check list for each meeting:
Do you really need to attend, or is it simply a ‘feel good' meeting?
What do you want to achieve? Have clarity about your purpose and your desired outcomes of the meeting.
Know how long you are prepared to spend in the meeting.
Ensure you have a reliable system for taking notes, and highlighting any actions needed.

Customer Follow up
You've heard it before: ‘retaining a customer is far cheaper than attracting a new one'
• Create a schedule of how many times per year you contact each type of customer.
• Detail how you contact them and what you aim to gain for the contact.
• Set up a reliable reminder system, so you don't miss anyone.
• Don't be scared off by fancy systems, simple tools like an excel spreadsheet or outlook calendar can be very effective.

Email
You may have heard them before. But guess what? That's because they work. Here are some basic organising strategies for taming the email beast. How many of them are you implementing?
• Handle email in blocks. Do not let it control your day. Schedule set times throughout the day to read and respond to email-and stick to them.
• Set up folders for emails on the same subject/project. In a perfect world this system will imitate the system you have for hardcopy documents
• Dedicate 15 minutes at the end of each week to delete or archive actioned emails
• Your Inbox should for current projects or tasks waiting to be done and should ALWAYS have room for incoming mail.
• Separate business and personal emails, preferably with two different addresses.
• Repeat after me: ‘ I do three jobs each morning before I open my email'. It's a great way to start a productive day.

Written by Roz Howland, published at www.flyingsolo.com.au July2009