A YouTube talk by Mike Andes (founder of Augusta Lawn Care) advising small business owners to focus on the few activities that actually move the needle—primarily acquisition (marketing/sales) and fulfillment (operations/HR/equipment). Andes argues roughly 90–95% of daily tasks are low-impact distractions and recommends identifying and spending time on the 5–10% of high-value decisions (hiring, systems, sales process) that determine a business's future.
I believe that about 90% of what we do every single day and the things that we busy ourselves with as business owners actually do not move the needle. And really, if we just put those things aside, there's only a couple things in your business that actually matter and you're actually going to change the future of the business.
I like to group everything that happens in daily operations and where I'm spending my time in the business on two different areas. One is acquisition, that is, prior to someone becoming a customer, marketing, advertising, the sales process, estimate process, whatever it is. And the other side is fulfillment. And fulfillment is going to be after the sale has been consummated. And this in terms of operational and technologically and HR and your equipment, all of that stuff is all fulfillment. And most entrepreneurs fall in love with the acquisition side. We love marketing, we love growth, we like getting new customers. And then if you're really operationally strong, you usually enjoy hiring. You enjoy making things really efficient. You don't like a lot of change. You like making things really, really systems oriented. You're really good at organization. And so knowing that is typically how you're going to hire. If you're a really driven CEO that loves the sales side of things, you might need to hire someone that's more operationally strong and is going to add some systems and structure to the business and be able to hire, be a good leader, et cetera, and vice versa. And then occasionally you'll have an entrepreneur that can somewhat do both in terms of both being good at acquisition as well as fulfillment. Now, all of that to that, when you look at your day of what you spend your time on, I would say that 90 to 95% of things you do actually don't change the future of the business. They don't actually move the needle. And really what you should be focusing on is how do I make my 5, 10% of my day that I am spending on the highest value decisions in the business? How do I optimize that? Jeff Bezos is really famous for saying one thing that I thought was really interesting. He says he usually makes maybe one or two decisions a day that actually are important. And he said the rest of his day, whether or not he's busy or not doesn't really matter, because at the end of the day, those one or two decisions that he makes is going to lead to the greatest results. And so whether it mean he needs to optimize his sleep, whether that means he needs to clear his schedule and not take interviews or whatever it is he needs to optimize his day, to make really good decisions once or twice a day. What that means is the other 95 things he might do in a day, meetings he might take, really don't matter a whole lot to the business's success. And when we zero step back to small businesses because obviously we are not running Fortune 500 companies like Jeff Bezos did. However, when we look at our small business, I truly believe that most of us spend 90% of our time worrying, thinking about, strategizing, creating plans, budgeting around things that actually don't move the needle. We talk about trucks and type of equipment and what our uniforms are going to be and what our business card looks like and all these things in our business that actually don't move the needle, what type of blades we use, what type of string line we use, what type of mowers and tires and type of snow plowing, the brand we use, like the fuel type, electric, gas. Honestly, it doesn't really matter. If you actually look at your business and where it's going to be in five years, do those things actually move the needle? Probably not. And I truly believe the reason that bogs so many small business owners down, including myself, is the fact that we actually use those 90% of things that don't move the needle as a safeguard to not address the 5 or 10% of things that need to be dealt with and need to be changed and need attention in the business. For example, if you know that hiring and HR is your weak point, you might make sure you're really busy with the technological side of the business or the systems or organization or equipment or something else in the business and spend all your time on that as a safeguard to make sure you don't have the time to actually focus on the thing that's going to move the needle for the business, which is hiring HR and building a team. And so what I would recommend, what I would suggest is that the things that you're doing all throughout your day that you're so busy doing, doing that because you are so busy doing them, you don't have time for the things that actually are going to move the needle for the business. And we use that busyness and all those tasks that are 90% of our day as a way to block out our calendar from actually meal to slot in the things that are going to move the needle. And I can't tell you what going to move the needle is going to be for you, but I would ask yourself, is am I over indexing on acquisition versus fulfillment? If you really enjoy doing the work, you're probably really good at fulfillment. If you really enjoy getting new customers and growing the business, you probably over index towards acquisition and getting more customers. So what you got to ask yourself is do I as a form of coping mechanism, make sure I fill my schedule with acquisition and getting more customers simply because I don't want to deal with my team, I don't want to have hard conversations, I don't want to focus on hiring, I don't want to focus on equipment and therefore I just over index on sales and the acquisition side or vice versa. Do I still love what I do and the work that I do, whether it be plumbing or electrical or mowing grass or whatever it is, do I over index my focus on my time spent on those things? But the flaw of the business, the part that if I would fix, would move the needle the most, is that I need to actually focus on marketing. I need to create a great website, I need to create a sales system. I need to simplify it. I need to create systems around my sales process. That is how you step back and start to look at your business as an investor, as a third party and analyze what you where am I going wrong? I talked to so many small business owners that are so busy and trust me, I know what it's like to be I'm very busy. But we have to ask ourselves, are we using our calendar and blocking our calendar off with all the things that we like to do, are good at, enjoy doing, care a lot about, but using those as a crutch to keep from doing the things that are actually going to move the business forward? And I highly recommend acquisition fulfillment. Which one do you over index on and what can you do to force yourself to address the 5 or 10% of those decisions that you're probably pushing off into the corner because you're not good at them, you don't enjoy them, or you somehow feel like you're inferior at doing those tasks? I'm Mike Andes, founder of Augusta Lawn Care and if any of that was helpful, check out mikeandies.com also links in the description. Have a lot more information about different products and services that I offer and check this video out here where I talk about the upcoming recession that I see is going to happen in the next 12 to 18 months and what you should be doing in your small business to prepare for it.
