For most non-retail businesses Friday is the slowest day of the week. What do you do on Friday?

Many businesses go into a sort of “unwind” mode. A lot of people go home early and some businesses even close early on Friday.

And yet when asked about marketing, product ideas or business improvement, the most frequent comment I hear is, “we just don’t have time.”

Friday is the most under utilized day of the week.

No, you don’t have to go into over-drive and work like crazy. But why not take advantage of the more relaxed attitude of Friday to get your teams together for M&M? (That’s a medical term for the review process of what went wrong)

And no, don’t spend Fridays focused on negative things.

I am suggesting that time on Friday be spent looking at the week. What went well? What could have been done better? Is there anything that can be changed to help the business run smoother?

It is a source of wonder to me that many businesses choose Monday or Tuesday for weekly or monthly meetings. Those are the busiest days of the week. And no, those meetings do not send a team into the week “fired up”.

Your business is small, maybe just you. That makes Friday extra important. Stop and think. We small business owners do not spend nearly enough time thinking. Thinking time is a luxury. Indulge yourself.

Where to start?

Pick an area of your business in need of improvement. If sales are slow, pick marketing. Turn off the email, step away from the phone and think of a couple things you can do today to improve sales.

Small improvements aggregate to BIG results. Many of my peers challenge this notion. They say that the business in trouble needs big initiatives to see big results. Problem is, those big things never get done.

Spend Fridays making small improvements and after a couple of months you will have implemented a lot of improvement!

Specifics:

What a blog post for your website
Change some wording on your website
Add a new picture or change a picture on your website
Google search for a couple of business directories where you can place free listings
Send “Thank You” notes to key customers
Search Google for your key words and check your placement
Search Bing and Yahoo for your sites (These are FAR less competitive search engines)
Give your employees encouragement, acknowledgment

There’s enough to get you started. Big or small, Friday is the day to really get something done.

Do it right and you can still go home early.

Chris Reich, TeachU.com
FW79—and moving.