Essentialism can help building product manufacturers focus their time and resources on getting their products specified. Essentialism can be defined as “less but better”. It is a discipline that focuses energy on achieving fewer objectives but completing those objectives better.

In his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, author Greg McKeown makes the case that essentialism helps get things done right, not get more things done. How many building product manufacturers waste time, energy, and resources trying to accomplish everything. How many manufacturer team members have been stretched too thin, over-worked, and underutilized?

McKeown argues that if we invest in fewer goals that we will make significant progress in the core things that matter. How does this discipline and approach work in the construction industry? Let’s find out . . .

Sales and Marketing

Although essentialism may work for a forklift operator, many of the strategies of essentialism are directed at managers, sales and marketing, leadership positions, etc., not lower level staff of a company. Building product specification is one of the most critical aspects for a manufacturer. It can bring great success or failure.

Sales and marketing team members are often pulled in many directions and sometimes wear several hats. If product specification is the most critical outcome for a product rep, then anything that doesn’t support that outcome would be nonessential. A successful product rep with a track record of getting products specified can’t be all things to all people. They must live a disciplined life and determine where their time and resources must be spent to achieve a positive outcome.

A successful product rep chooses only a few things that matter, they consider the trade-offs of their decisions, they say “no” to everything except the essential, and carefully execute their decisions to do great work. Product reps need to determine if the demands on their time will lead to product specification. If they don’t, then they should decline.

Sometimes product reps can be a victim of their own success. In the early years, they have a clearly defined goal of how to succeed at getting their products specified. They gain a reputation as a successful product rep who knows the in’s and out’s and the “go to” person for difficult jobs. As the opportunities increase, the product rep’s efforts are spread thinner and they become distracted from their original intent. The pursuit of more leads to failure.

Essentialism Approach To Product Specification

Our daily lives can become cluttered with commitments, meetings, and activities that may or may not lead to product specification. Every now and then, it’s good to purge and de-clutter our business schedules and activities. Let’s review what McKeown recommends for successful outcomes.

Explore and Evaluate: Product reps need to constantly ask themselves if the activity they are doing will lead to product specification if that is one of their main goals. Yes, they still may have to participate in activities like filling out their monthly expense report but as we shall see, many activities can be eliminated or shifted to other personnel.

A product rep may create a list of their weekly activities and determine which ones don’t lead to product specification. A product rep may compare AIA webinars and CSI monthly meetings with trips to visit Fred the widget distributor. What day to day decisions lead directly to product specification?

Eliminate: After you determine what activities do and do not contribute to product specification, then a decision has to be made to eliminate those activities. Eliminating certain activities may cause issues with management, co-workers, and clients, but results can be achieved in a diplomatic way. We will explore this topic in greater detail in later posts.

Many business leaders have become successful because they said “no”. They pushed against social pressures and expectations and eliminated nonessentials to achieve their goals. They didn’t allow themselves to be pushed in several directions and lose their focus.

Execute: Once you have decided which activities lead to the highest possibility of product specification, you need to create a system to achieve the results efficiently. Essentialism is not a once a year purge and reset activity. Essentialism is a daily discipline where you make difficult trade-offs and better focus your time and energy to achieve success.

How do you break through the daily noise? What problems do you want to solve? What is within your control at your company to help eliminate burdens? What pointless meetings can you eliminate from your schedule, time-wasting email chains, and non-productive visits? Join us as we explore these topics in greater detail in future blog posts. If you do not prioritize your life, someone else will.