Understanding implications of time on your business

bad.
He told me that the time when there is a full moon, catching fish throughout the day would be difficult.
The explanation given is that during full moon fish feed throughout the night which makes it difficult to catch them during the day as their bellies will still be full.
The days when there is no moon, fishing is likely to be good. This works well provided other factors such as pressure, and other atmospheric conditions are normal.
Other conditions such as overcast nights can affect the fishing patterns during the days when there is full moon.
However, I did follow these patterns to the core but the results were mixed. In some instances I failed to catch anything even when there was no moon at all.
I failed to get a proper explanation for this misnomer until Alan gave me a small lecture on what is known as major times and minor times in fishing.
The major feeding patterns are affected by solar and lunar patterns.
Major feeding patterns of bass are affected when the moon and sun rises and set on a 24-hour basis on a minutes basis.
More fish is likely to be caught during the 90-minute day window period surrounding those four factors.
It is further argued that fish are at their feeding peak four days before the new moon and four hours before full moon when the sun and moon rise and set.
In most of our conversations we talk about the importance of time. We all know the old saying “time is money”.
At one point or another we all say to somebody we don’t have time. Some go the extent of saying that they have no time to waste though they waste most of the time anyway.
To some extent we all understand that there is a clock. We all see reflections of movement of time through greying or losing our hair.
Every time I wake up I reflect on the movement of time by looking at how fast my children are developing into adulthood.
My observation has been that one’s success in life can be determined over a very short period of time when we notice and make use of opportunities
At one point we have all sung from the same hymn in terms of managing time.
So many managers have attended courses on time management. Issues of setting priorities, doing the urgent issues first have been preached to all and sundry.
Similarly, I thought it was enough to know that a fisherman must time his fishing to coincide with new moon and take a rest during full moon time.
This knowledge restricted me from taking advantage of opportunities presented during four days before the full moon.
I only took advantage of four days before the new moon. In most cases priorities are internally driven by management not externally driven by the customers, which presents several challenges.
Do we understand our customers feeding patterns? What is the dawn or dusk time for our customers?
What time does the moon rise or set for our customers? Most businesses know half-truths about their customer’s behavioural patterns.
In most cases marketers come up with marketing mixes that do not result in maximising returns because they are based on half-baked ideas of the customers.
Targeting to grow customer book during their minor feeding times will not grow your book substantially.
During this period after hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, selling life assurance is a difficult if not an impossible task to accomplish. However, I met a successful insurance sales representative recently.
He focussed on two products only, namely decreasing term assurance and policies with conversion options.
He told me that he visits human resources managers of most companies between the 12th and 18th of every month and this is the time when he gets information about employees who want to buy houses and those who are leaving for greener pastures come monthend.
He confesses that it is during this window period that he gets and concludes 90 percent of his monthly deals.
He told me that his marketing strategies are tailor-made for this specific period. He rarely takes off days during his major fishing period.
What is your major fishing period?
Do you understand your customers’ major feeding window period? Having the right colour of rubber/fluke or bait for the day will not yield maximum results if the fisherman is fishing during minor time when fish just feed occasionally.
Remember, only 7 percent of the day is major fishing time. In terms of executive management, this is the time managers really need to pay specific focus on.
However, if the packaging of the bait coincides with the major feeding time within the 90 minutes window period for the day, a fisherman is likely to enjoy a good harvest.
Some weeks ago we caught a reasonable amount of fish at dusk. Yet during the whole day we had not caught a reasonable amount of bass because we were fishing mostly during minor fishing times.
The 90 minutes daily window period implies that the highest quality business is obtained during 7 percent of the total working day.
This defines the 7 percent rule which states that during any business day 93 percent of the time is spend doing minor assignments and only 7 percent is in most cases the busiest time for your business.
Identification of peak period
All fishermen who are prepared to do a bit of research end up knowing some of the peak periods.
However, knowing peak periods without putting adequate preparation to capitalise on peak periods is a useless exercise.
For instance, if the peak period is at 1900 hours and if by that time the fisherman is extremely exhausted or has no bait to use, the major solar fishing window will go to waste.
The fisherman will only benefit from this window if he is fully resourced and mentally geared to outwit competition to catch a bigger catch.
The peak period in some cases is visible to most businessmen but what distinguishes successful businesses is competitive intelligence available to the business.
Competitive intelligence is based on internal and external data available to the company.
Competitive intelligence helps companies to answer questions such as what is the market potential?
What are the competitors future plans likely to be, what prices might customers be willing to pay, what is the best means of entering a market? (Dobney .com 2000-2001).
Internal data is very useful in determining cross selling and up selling opportunities.
External data provides strategic information such as market positioning, market size, market messages; industry pricing structure, competitors customer profiles.
External data can be collected from publications (University publications, books or regulatory publications (Such insurance commissioner’s publications), posts, tweets and other social networks. (Dobney.com //market intelligence)
Competitive intelligence assists companies to differentiate their products in order to create more value for customers so as to capitalise on the opportunities in the market place during the peak period.
Using competitive intelligence information some can choose to compete on price (to try and make it more attractive) and volumes.
They support their volume ambitions by using business linkages available to them.
In Zimbabwe, peak period for most catering companies is between 1300hours and 1400hours.
This is common knowledge to managers in this industry. All of them understand that they have to sell as much as possible during the one-hour window period, thereafter the sales will not be as impressive.
If your stove breaks down just before the peak period it will result in loss of opportunity for the day.
Similarly, in Zimbabwe the commuter taxi business thrives remarkably during the morning work rush hour and at the end of the day.
Failure to maximise profits during these critical times will spell the demise of the organisation.
The manager has to ensure that all the processes are synchronised to capture the opportunity.
Life would have been simple if understanding peak periods guaranteed success on its own.
The next challenge is outwitting the competition so that your company can have the bigger slice of the cake just as the fisherman has to compete with his adversaries to catch the biggest bass fish during peak hours identified.
Some businesses can even find ways of extending the peak period by repackaging its lunch for executive consumers who call at their offices after 1400 hours.
Those businesses that are able to extend peak periods tend to generate extra revenue for themselves.
Some extend peak times by influencing the budget and the budgeting process of their customers.
Your interaction with the customers will enable you to create a need/demand for your services from an otherwise uninterested customer.
This has a long gestation period though it is potentially beneficial to both parties.
This is particularly relevant to staff development and high technical services.