Pride: In the Name of Love

I'm definitely a messy pup. In absence for a full time cleaner my house is, at the best of times, in need of a good and thorough tidy up.

My workplace, however, is a very different story.

While it occasionally dips into chaos (more often than not following several coinciding print deliveries) it is, in the main, a bastion of tidiness and order in which we take great pride as a team.

We're currently working with some businesses who have let that pride slip. Battered down by the ravages of two years' recessionary sales, they've taken less and less care of their appearance and it's become a major problem for them.

Team members no longer really care about how things look, placing items here, there and everywhere. And as the level of clutter increases, the sales figures fall at a similar pace.

So we've suggested something revolutionary to help them kick start sales: tidy up.

Have a good clearout. Hire a skip. Dump it all. Un-deck the halls. Make some space.

We did the same thing ourselves a few months ago. I stopped procrastinating, hired a storage facility and we spent a weekend archiving and shifting boxes. Interestingly we seem to be busier with more client work than ever. A coincidence? I don't think so.

The impact on one business we're working with is equally positive. The business owner is beaming with pride. They have started making plans for the future. They are excited about where they work. Their sales have (suspiciously) started to increase.

And with no "sales and marketing" involved whatsoever.

Take a look around your office tomorrow morning. If it looks like it needs a good clearout, talk to your colleagues schedule in a late evening or a Saturday morning and get it done. It'll make a big difference to your working life. I promise you.