Several years ago, I was with a dealer in a man-cave/home theatre. The space overlooked the Pacific Ocean, high above Avilia Beach, just south of San Luis Obispo.

The dealer had ceded to the buyer’s desire to use his legacy Bose 901’s as the L/R speakers in the multi-channel media space. He had purchased them in the mid-1970s, at the Post Exchange (PX) during his tour of South-east Asia.

The home owner had a personal emotional attachment to these speakers, but it was not ‘sonically justified’.

The problem is these speakers had really bizarre dispersion patterns and spectral deficiencies, not to mention matching issues that made for an unpredictable sound stage.

And this was a $60,000 or $70,000 room.

The dealer was actually the second integrator involved with the project. He had ‘stolen’ the gig after the first contractor failed to “fulfill the expectations of the home owner”.

The first integrator made the fateful decision to let the home owner’s choice of speaker determine the outcome of the job, and it cost him dearly. (When people asked the owner who installed the sub-par system, you can bet he neglected to mention his insistence on using his legacy speakers… but he would have sure made the point that the system sucked.)

So, under which bias do you make your product, design and management decisions?

We have all been there: the intersection that could determine the direction, culture and even the viability of our company. Each day we decide on what we deem most important, where we decide to invest our time, the crew and project.

By what standards are you divining your direction? How are you exercising discernment in the navigation of your firm or department?

The Welder dealer math looks something like this: let’s say you are looking to turn over $650,000 in 2016. That means that if you work 50 hours a week, each hour will require $260 of new revenue. So those two hours you spent shooting the $#!+ with that rep yesterday cost you ~$500.

Sobering.

Here are four simple suggestions to help you free up time that could be better spent on building your business.

1. Shed some product lines; some just don’t earn the same return they used to. They are just not worth the effort.

By what measure should you invest in new or parallel services, like offering monitored security? Or automated car washes, exotic aquarium design and maintenance, or indoor water features?

When can you start offering VR devices and the accompanying content? These are in their infancy; the learning, quality and price curve will make the current devices look lame in just a few months. So we suggest you invest in a system that allows clients to test drive them; take the edge off their curiosity. Just don’t push too hard.

2. Take a weekend to engineer an onboarding process for inventory and gear.

This means that you have a test station with some source components and infrastructure that will enable quick, efficient vetting of gear. It may seem counter-intuitive, but in the long run is saves you time (most all 7-figure firms do this now).

3. Outsource your accounting and some of the HR and paycheck burden.

4. Have your project manager or sales guy meet with reps instead of you.

They can give you their perspectives and input on all the important aspects of the pitch, freeing you up to other, more important things. They can also recommend which line could be displaced internally and what benefits might be harvested by engaging the new idea. This also has residual benefits of helping the crew feel more empowered and ownership in your contracting practice.

Read Decide and Conquer by Stephen Robbins (about $10 from Amazon). It’s a great resource for you to understand your personal bias in your decision making process. I found this to be a really easy exercise and should only take a weekend afternoon to complete.

Also, find a creative way to re-purpose those 901s (or whatever your dear client is emotionally attached to)… like putting them in the garage or patio.

And as usual, for more of these irritating perspectives visit our website at www.weld2.com.