Our purchase order binder was falling apart: cover worn through, tabs bent, dividers that had given up sometime during COVID and pages working themselves loose. Everybody in the office used it daily, yet no one complained or replaced it.
It still worked.
That binder never created a cost I could point to. No client was harmed, and no money went directly out the door. It was one small aggravation absorbed into the way we operated. The trouble is that businesses absorb all sorts of aggravations. Eventually, some turn into duplicate entries, missed details and administrative hours nobody budgeted for.
Yes, Virginia, we still print purchase orders. We have reasons but that is a different column!
Here is my situation: twenty-five years in business, healthy, busy, booked through the end of the year and not accepting new implementation work until 2027. Yet we are examining more of the company right now than I have in a decade. Success can hide a surprising amount of wasted motion because there is no immediate penalty for leaving it alone.
The binder did not start this examination. Building customized software to run our business did. Amazing what you learn when you have to explain every handoff, approval, exception and “you know what I mean” to a program that most certainly does not know what you mean.
Success measures tell you where you have been
Revenue is a lagging indicator. So are a full calendar, a waiting list, a backlog and a year of bookings. Much of that success reflects decisions made for the market and client you understood several years ago. It offers no guarantee that the client walking through your door next spring will want the same experience, buy in the same way or value the same things.
That is the argument for reassessing while you are winning. Good years give you the money, staff and time to make changes on your own schedule and absorb a few mistakes. Bad years force many of the same decisions under far worse conditions.
So, look up. Where are clients finding designers now? What are they no longer willing to pay for? What did they consider an upgrade five years ago and now assume is included? Which vendor, service or competitor has changed while you were too busy to notice?
A full calendar can conceal a business model that needs review
We are changing our retail direction for that reason. The old approach was still producing sales, but it was built for a customer who shopped differently. We are moving toward a more curated, designer-led retail experience that offers greater customization and guidance without requiring a full-service engagement or keeping the shop open during fixed hours. I would rather test that idea from a position of strength than wait for declining traffic to make the decision for us.
Designers understand this instinctively.
We walk into homes that are attractive, functional and well maintained, yet can see within ten minutes that they no longer fit the family living there. The house did not fail anybody. It belongs to a previous version of their life.
Businesses reach the same point, but it is harder to notice because they are still producing and making money.
My definition of a well-run business has changed, too. Becoming a grandmother did not reduce my ambition, but it made me far more particular about where my hours go. I am not planning an exit. I am building a profitable, sustainable company that allows me to design, coach, contribute where my experience matters and stay out of work that should no longer require me.
Here is the work to ponder.
- Walk your own operation like a stranger for one week. (Trust me, it is illuminating)
Carry a notebook or use your phone and record five things: where work stalls; where information gets entered twice; where the same question comes up repeatedly; where someone has created a private workaround; and what important knowledge lives in exactly one person’s head.
Fix nothing during that week. Once you begin solving, you will stop seeing. You are collecting evidence, not putting out fires. At the end of the week, group your observations by people, process, technology and training. The patterns will tell you where to begin.
- Ask your team three questions, one person at a time
Do not do this in a staff meeting. People edit themselves in a group, especially when the person who created or manages the process is sitting across the table.
Ask each person: Which process would you refuse to rebuild if we opened the doors tomorrow? What frustrates you every week? Where do you lose the most time?
Write down the answers. Do not explain, defend the system or promise an immediate fix. Thank them and evaluate the complete list later.
- Build the only-me list
Create two columns on one page. On the left, everything that genuinely requires your judgment, your authority, or your relationships. On the right, everything you do because you are faster, because you always have, or because somebody dropped it once and you took it back and never handed it over again. (Guilty as charged!)
Now go through the right column and write a name and a date beside every line. If no name exists, decide whether the task needs an owner, training, automation or elimination. Do not hire someone merely to inherit work the company should stop doing.
- Run the no-growth exercise
Assume revenue cannot go up one dollar next year. Then answer four questions in writing: What would you fix anyway? Which system would you strengthen? Which service has gone stale and no longer fits the era we are working in? Which part of this business would you make easier to run without you standing in the middle of it?
Choose three answers. Put them on the calendar with real dates. Three finished beats twelve started.
- Kill one thing this quarter
A report nobody reads. An approval step that protects nothing and has become irrelevant. A form that duplicates another form. A service you keep offering out of habit not because it produces strong revenue relative to the effort required. A client type you have outgrown and do not wish to engage. Name it, set the date it dies and tell the team so it cannot creep back in when everyone gets busy.
Go find your binder. It is sitting in your business right now, worn out and functional, and everybody has stopped seeing it.
Cheryl Clendenon is principal of In Detail Interiors in Pensacola, Fla. and Home Accents Today’s Design Coaching Center columnist.
