At the end of our Business Improvement Summit in Liverpool last week, we asked people for their biggest takeaway from the day.
Now, I was hoping most people would focus on all the wise words and lessons we’d given, but one attendee said his single biggest takeaway was an equation on the screen.
To be fair, it was a cracking equation. (And I have a maths degree, so that’s high praise indeed!)
It was this:
- (1.00) ^ 365 = 1
- (1.01) ^ 365 = 37.78
In other words:
- if nothing changes, nothing changes
- if you improve by 1% every day for a year, the result is nearly 38 times better
Before any of my university lecturers hit “reply”, I know that nobody literally improves by exactly 1% every single day.
But that is not really the point. The point is the power of small improvements, repeated consistently.
And I think that’s a really useful lesson for business owners, because many people think progress has to come from one big dramatic breakthrough:
- a huge new contract
- a major price rise
- a shiny new system
- a game-changing hire
- a complete reinvention of the business
Sometimes those things help. But, more often, real progress comes from smaller tweaks in the right places. Things like:
- improving your conversion rate a little
- nudging your prices up slightly
- tightening your gross profit margin
- collecting cash a bit quicker
- improving one team process
- following up more consistently
- cutting one or two costs that add no value (have you checked all your subscriptions recently?!?)
Each one on its own might not feel life-changing. But together, and repeated, they can make a massive difference.
That’s one of the reasons I liked this idea so much – it’s encouraging.
Because it means you don’t need to fix everything by next Tuesday. You don’t need to become a completely different business overnight. You just need to start improving the right things, steadily and consistently.
And that’s exactly what we see when we work with clients in our Business Diagnostic Reviews.
A big part of that process is looking at the seven key numbers in the business and understanding how small improvements in each one can add up to a much bigger overall result.
Usually, the answer isn’t some piece of magic.
It’s things like:
- a small improvement in pricing
- a small improvement in margins
- a small improvement in cash collection
- a small improvement in efficiency
- a small improvement in focus
Each one on its own might look modest. But when you can see the numbers clearly, and model the effect of improving them, you realise just how powerful those small gains can be.
And when they stack up, the results can be huge.
So here’s my question for you this week: What is the 1% improvement your business needs right now?
Not the giant fantasy plan. Not the thing you might do one day. Just the next meaningful 1%.
Because if you keep doing exactly what you’ve always done, you’ll tend to get what you’ve always got.
But small gains don’t stay small for long!
Cheers
Jon
PS I did get my daughters excited with the title “The 1% Club” – one of those rare TV programmes in that magic centre of the Venn Diagram of Davies family likes. Unfortunately, it was just boring maths instead!