Are you struggling to find time to grow your business?
Are you overwhelmed by the amount of projects that are on the go?
Do you feel you are restricted by the resources available to you?
Then understanding this concept will certainly help.
Leverage
Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as “influence or power used to achieve a desired result” or “the increase in force gained by using a lever”.
Leverage : Getting the highest possible outcome using the time and resources available to you.
Without the use of leverage, when we rely purely on the ‘force of effort’ to produce results, we end up struggling. Force of effort means spending a lot of time, money and energy to produce the highest possible outcome, while we could have produced the same outcome by (the understanding the use of leverage) using less time, money and effort.
How the British Olympic track cycling team crushed all its competition by the use of leverage
The British team worked just as hard as every other top team in the 2012 Olympics. But the success of the British team was overwhelming. Why? Here is a quote from British Cycling’s performance director Dave Brailsford: “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together”. Dave Brailsford understood the power of leverage.
Here is a specific example of how the British Cycling team used leverage thinking. They knew (just as all the other teams knew) that when an athlete loses training time due to illness and fatigue, they would lose some competitive edge. So how do you minimize (or avoid) illness and fatigue.
- They were trained to sleep in the right position and carry their own pillows wherever they went so that they can minimize fatigue.
- They were trained to clean their hands regularly to avoid illness that can be caused by bacteria!
To quote Dave Brailsford again “They’re tiny things but if you clump them together it makes a big difference.”
Dave and his team understood and applied the power of leverage.
How to apply the power of leverage in our business
Just as the British Cycling team did in the 2012 Olympics, if we look at every area in our business and broke it down in to its component parts and find better ways to improve those parts a little bit, then the power of leverage will come in to play.
There are several faces to leverage. You can harness the power of leverage by changing the way you think, apply a skill or approach a set of problems differently.
Below are some examples of how you can do that in your business.
Systemize most of your operations: Around 80% of what we do in business is repeating the same thing. Why not write simple systems so that anyone can follow the system and produce the same results.
Outsource: Your time is precious and spending time on tasks that can be outsourced effectively will drain your time and energy. Outsourcing when done properly will free you up focus on high value tasks.
Use direct response marketing: Whether generating leads or selling your products or services, by using direct response marketing you can measure results. If something can be measured, it can also be improved.
Strategize your actions: Everything you do in your business must support your strategy. Actions not backed by your strategy is simply hot air.
Upgrade your skills: Whether becoming an effective leader or being good at marketing, by continually upgrading your skills you bring the power of leverage in to play.
Optimize your environment: Is your work environment conducive to success? Is there anything that takes you and your team away from being productive?
Master your psychology: Not everything will go according to plan. Your psychology will dictate how you look at your challenges. Mastering your psychology means giving empowering meaning to your challenges and moving on.
Break a process down to its component parts and improve the component parts. For an example why not look at your profit generation process. It starts with 1) Attracting your potential customers (lead generation) 2) followed by the process of ‘conversion’ to paying customers 3) next we get them to spend a certain amount [average spend] and then 4) encourage them to shop more often [increase the number of transactions]. If you improve each of these four areas (lead generation, conversion, average spend, no of transactions) by 10% each, the result – your profits – will NOT increase by 10%… It will grow exponentially!
The list can go on and on. You can activate the power of leverage by asking a simple question. “How can I get maximum results from what I am already doing?”
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