How to Eliminate 50% of Your Business Worries

If you are in business, you are probably saying to yourself right now: “The title of this article is ridiculous. I have been running my business for 19 yrs. and I certainly know the answers if anybody does. The idea of anybody trying to tell me how I can eliminate 50% percent of my business worries-it’s absurd!!!!

Fair Enough — I would have felt exactly the same way yourself a few years ago if I had seen this title on an article. It promises a lot — and promises are cheap

Let’s be very frank about it: maybe I won’t be able to help you eliminate 50% of your business worries. In the last analysis no one can do that expect yourself. But what I can do is to show you how other people have done it — and leave the rest up to you

“Those who do not know how to fight worry die young” — Alexis Carrel

Since worry is that serious would not you be satisfied if I could help you eliminate even ten percent of your worries? Yes? Good!!! Well!!!I am going to show you how one business executive eliminated not 50% of his worries but 75% trying to solve business problems

Furthermore, I am not going to tell you this story about a “Mr Jones” or “Mr X” or “a man I know in Ohio “Vague stories that you cannot check-up on. It concerns a very real person- Leon Shamim a former partner and general manager of one of the foremost publishing houses in US: Simon and Schuster Rocketeer Centre NY

Here is Leon Shimkims experience in his own words: -“For 15 years I spent almost half of every business day holding conferences discussing problems. Should we do this or that or nothing at all? We would get tense twist in our chairs walk the floor argue and go around in circles. When night came, I would be utterly exhausted. I fully expected to go on doing this sort of thing for the rest of my life. I had been doing it for 15 years and it never occurred to me that there was abetter way of doing it. If anyone has told me that I could eliminate three fourth of all the time I spent in those worried conferences and three fourths of my nervous strain — I would have thought he was a wild eye slap happy arm chair optimist. Yet I devised a plan that did just that, I have been using this plan for 8 years. It has performed wonders for my efficiency my health and my happiness

“It sounds like magic -but like all magic tricks it is extremely simple when you see how it is done “

“Here is the secret: First, I immediately stopped the procedure I had been using in my conferences for 15 years — a procedures that began with my troubled associates reciting all the details of what had gone wrong and ending up by asking: “What shall we do”? Second, I made a new rule — a rule that everyone who wishes to present a problem to me must first prepare and submit a memorandum answering these four questions:

Q:1-What is the problem?

In the old days we used to spend an hour or two in a worried conferences without anyone knowing specifically and concretely what the real problem was. We used to work ourselves into a lather discussing our troubles without ever touching to write out specifically what our problem was.

Q:2-What is the cause of the problem?

As I Look back over my career, I am appalled to the wasted hours I have spent in worried conferences without ever trying to find out clearly the conditions which lay at the root of the problems

Q:3-What are all possible solutions of the problems?

In the old days one man in the conferences would suggest one solution. Someone else would argue with him. Tempers would flare. We would often get clear off the subject and at the end of conference no one would have written down all the various things we could do to attack the problem

Q:4: What solution do you suggest?

I used to go into a conference with a man who had spent hours worrying about a situation and going around in circles without ever once thinking through all possible solutions and then writing down. This is the solution I recommend

“My associate rarely come to me now with their problems. Why? because they have discovered that in order to answer those four questions, they have to get all the facts and think their problems through. And after they have done that, they find in three fourths of the cases they don’t have to consult me at all because the proper solution has popped out like a piece of bread popping out like a piece of bread popping out from an electric toast. Even in those cases where consultation is necessary the discussion takes about one third the time formerly required because it proceeds along an orderly logical path to a reasoned conclusion

Much less time is new consumed in the house of Simon and Schuster in worrying and talking about what is wrong and a lot more action is obtained towards making those things right.

My friend Frank Bettger one of the top insurance men in America told me he not only reduced his business worries but nearly doubled his income by similar method

“Years ago,”, said Frank Bettger,” when I first started to sell insurance, I was filled with a boundary’s enthusiasm and love for my work. Then something happened. I become so discouraged that I dispensed my work and thought of giving it up. I think I would have quit — If I had not got the idea one Saturday morning of sitting down and trying to get the root of my worries

1 I asked myself first, ‘Just what is the problem? ‘The problem was: that I was not getting high enough returns for the struggling amount of calls I was making I seemed to do pretty well at selling a prospect until the moment came for closing a sale. Then the customer would say, ‘well I think it over, Mr Bettger. Came and see me again’. It was the time I wasted on these follow up calls that was causing my depression

2 I asked myself, “What are the possible solutions? “But to get the answers to that one I had to study the facts. I got out my record book for last 12 months and studies the figures

“I made an astounding discovery!!!Right there in black and white I discovered that 70% of my sales had been closed on the very first interview!!23 % of my sale had been closed on the second interview!!And only seven percent of my sales had been closed on those third, fourth, fifth etc interview which were running me ragged and talking up time. In other world I was wasting fully one half of my working day on a part of my business which was responsible for only seven percent of my sales

3’What is the answer? ‘The answer was obvious. I immediately cut our all visits beyond the second interview and spent the extra time building up new prospects. The results were unbelievable. In a very short time, I had doubled the cash value of every visit I made”