Faithful Readers:

Faithful readers will recall my occasional mention of Kurtz’s Law:

“There is almost always an inverse relationship between procrastination on a task imagined to be difficult and how easy it ends up being to accomplish!”

I’m reminded of this weekly!

Most recently, I was dragging my heels on a self-imposed assignment and deadline.  My goal was to walk the downtown Main Street of my hometown, Milford, and introduce local merchants to the credit card savings solution I represent.  It must have taken me every bit of six (eight?) weeks to get out there and pound the pavement! 

And, just as Kurtz’s Law predicts, it was easier than expected! I now have a handful of viable prospects AND (best of all) I had multiple enjoyable conversations!  Possibly an embryonic friendship or two?

Why do I bring this up?

Tis my hope you’ll keep this little-known, yet wildly important maxim in mind while fulfilling this recommendation:  ELIMINATE ONE SOLUTION, PRODUCT OR DETRIMENTAL PRACTICE in each of the final four months of the year!

Newspaper?  Consider terminating one of your marginal special sections (one a month for four months?)!  You KNOW you have too many.  Any focus on one-time products or solutions works against selling the longer-term commitments that will serve you and customers better.

Or let’s talk restaurant?  Eliminate/Modify that annoying, robotic and ubiquitous, “…Good evening, my name is Sammy and I’ll be taking care of you”, greeting.  Did everyone in hospitality watch the same YouTube training video about greeting a patron?  Where are your personalities?  Talk to your customers; don’t regurgitate a memorized and impersonal salutation.

Here's a final example, yet I sincerely hope that regardless of what business you are in, you take 30 minutes each week (I’ll settle for a month) and ask yourself, “What can we change/stop/eliminate that we’ve been doing because ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it!’”

This might not be universal, but I’m asked to fill out paperwork seemingly each time I visit a doctor’s office.  Not so much with my primary care doc, but any specialist I see.  Dermatologist, optometrist, orthopedist, you name it.  To make things more annoying, each of them has a different friggin’ portal to join (for convenience?).  Inevitably, it seems like I’ve already filled out this “paperwork” online to save time upon arrival?  Speaking of arrival, I'm texted, emailed, voice-mailed and sometimes called to remind me of the appointment, asked to confirm it and am, inevitably (guess what?), still kept waiting upon arrival.

I triple-dog-dare the healthcare world to fix this confusing, overlapping, sometimes insulting treatment.

Good luck!  Please share what you decide to discard so I can give you a Fist Bump.  Don’t delay; it will NOT be too hard!

All the best,