Streamline Your Horse Business With a Tip From Sailors
Not too long ago, the preferred means of travel was by sail or by horse. As a result, language is peppered with expressions derived from horsemen’s and sailors’ jargon.
“Chomping at the bit,” “giving a leg up,” and “feeling his oats” are examples of horsemen’s lingo adapted into every day speech today. Likewise, original sailing expressions such as “by and large,” “taken aback,” and “shake a leg” have melded into conversational language.
You know most of the horse lingo meanings, but you may not know a sailing term: windage.
Without getting technical, windage is a measure of the resistance created as an object moves through the air. In certain situations in sailing, reducing windage created by people and objects on deck is crucial for maintaining optimum speed.
Reducing windage in your business, metaphorically, is just as important. Things that slow you down are windage: a messy desk, failure to back up computer data, an uncharged cell phone, lack of written systems in the barn, incompetent employees, and unclear goals.
When sailors want to reduce windage for more speed, they simply remove or reduce the size of the object on the deck.
Tackle windage problems in your business one at a time.
- File the distracting stack of papers on your desk and you’ll speed through today’s work faster.
- Recharge your cell phone every night before you go to sleep and you and it will be refreshed in the morning.
- Train or replace employees who lack the skills necessary for the job for smoother work days.
What’s preventing you from reducing or removing the windage objects on your business deck that are slowing you down?
Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business.
Visit his website: www.ProfitableHorseman.com for more articles like this one and to subscribe to his free electronic newsletter about being profitable in the horse business.
