Adapt your business by adopting the 5% rule

A wonderful mentor of mine, suggested to me once that you become a better business by adopting the 5% rule. 

That is, when you are reviewing your business operations to ask yourself, how can we do 5% better. Making incremental improvements on both the revenue and expenditure lines, can make a dramatic improvement to your overall business performance. 

In some instances, they are financial improvements, in some instances, they are operational improvements or even, subtle improvements to company culture.

I have been employing this rule for the last two years and the difference, whilst not visible immediately, over months of focus have made a significant difference to my business. It has taught me to be constructive, critical and above all adaptable in business.

In recent months, where the entire world has been asked to be adaptable and create a new normal whilst we fight this pandemic, I decided that the best way to do this was to once again, employ the trusty 5% rule - both professionally and personally.

I shared this perspective with my professional peer mentoring group known as The COVID (Collective of Virtual Individuals at a Distance) Collective where we shared a time where we felt on top of our game and the strategies we employed to get there. 

So I am on the call, thinking to myself “When was I at the top of my game?” - I couldn’t pinpoint it to one exact moment immediately. And then it hit me, so I shared the following…

“I have had some pretty terrific roles and as such, opportunities in my career - Australian Rugby Union, Tourism Australia, InterContinental Hotels Group. I started my own catering company at 25 and grew it after hours whilst working full time until which time, it became my full time gig allowing me to stay at home for a few years when the kids were babies and still make an income. 

“And I could argue that last year, when Sparrowly Group became a Telstra Business Awards Finalist was certainly a moment in time where I felt on top of my game - but why…

“It was recognition of almost five years of hard work - and this is, in part, because of our constant focus on incremental improvements that led us to that position.”

Then I went on to share, shockingly to myself (as it was the first time I had said this out loud)... that I actually feel on top of my game NOW, in amongst this new world that we are all working so hard to adapt to.

We all had to recalibrate and in that there has been and still is a lot of uncertainty. I certainly felt the impact of what was happening around me as I am sure many of you can relate to.

But then I thought, the only way to get through this was to reframe and go to my toolkit of strategies. One being, the 5% rule.

In order for me to be on top of my game, for myself personally, for the business, for my team and for my family, and to cope with this new world, the 5% rule enabled me to feel like I had control over what was happening and to respond to it proactively in chunks as opposed to trying to eat the entire elephant in one sitting.

Each day, I get up and I ask myself...

What can I do today to be 5% better?

So let me share with you a few things I have done in the last six weeks to adapt:

• I have continued to look at the revenue and the expense lines to find incremental improvements - even when you think you are efficient as you can be, you will always find wastage and...opportunity to improve.

• We have all felt the distance in ways and missed the office banter so finding the time each week outside the functional team zoom meetings to connect with my team individually to check in, celebrate special occasions or achievements has been important and likewise, the team with each other. Strong supportive relationships are what we want to keep out of all of this.

• At home, we continue to review our home budget monthly and whilst it is natural that we should all be saving some money, we have reallocated portions of that to other parts of the budget to enable longer term flexibility (e.g. superannuation).

• I am making sure that any online purchases that I make are with as many small businesses as possible. I thought I was good at doing this beforehand, but now it's not negotiable. 

• I started by doing 5% more exercise and built upon that and we are exercising as a family whereas before we all did our own sports, so we are naturally building our connectivity and find ourselves all looking forward to our next workout.

• With the increased screen time at work, a commitment to reducing my personal screen time by 5% each week means I have more time for activities that I probably found excuses not to do before - reading, playing with the kids (it seems that tweens and teens still like to play with their parents), and whilst I am ashamed to admit this, more time to ring my mum and chat. 

There are many other things I have done to improve built off the 5% better rule. When you add them all up, these, incremental improvements in your personal and professional life, end up impacting one another in positive ways. 

For me, the biggest improvement is the sense of calm I feel (and no, I haven’t taken up meditating or yoga). My mind is clear and I feel connected more than ever.

Go ahead, try it. Small, incremental improvements every day, will have an incredible impact, more than you can imagine and can help you come out at the other end of this new normal in a better place than you started.