Coaching Blog

Wake Up: Wake up to fear and how it affects your performance.

Sun, 30 May 2010 22:43:00 GMT

Last week I had an “aha” moment. In a blinding flash of the obvious I realised just how much of my behaviours were ruled by a range of fears to which I was completely oblivious.
Imagine what your life would be like if you recognised the fears that are holding you back – in every area of your life. Defensiveness, anger, jealousy, needing to be right, lack of confidence, needing to control things, unhealthy relationships, fights, office paranoia and countless other behaviours would vaporise!

Fear of abandonment, not being lovable, looking stupid, being judged by others, not getting approval, separation (not belonging to a group or higher power), uncertainty and not being able to control everything, of other people’s moods and fear for our safety – the list could be very long! Fears cause most of our negative behaviours.

Look at the three behaviour patterns you would like to stop. Write them down. Now ask yourself, “What am I frightened of in this situation?”
Write down the fears you identify. Then ask yourself, “When did it start? Is it still relevant? Does this fear play any useful purpose in my life now? Is it helping me achieve what I want in life?”

Then dwell on your answers. Most of the time, you will be stunned at how deep the fears are and how they are all from your early years in life.
You can then become your own “perfect parent” and deal with the issues that may not have been resolved when you were young.
Now it becomes a choice. Once you know about fear, you can choose to walk with the fears and let them rule your life, or you can consciously choose the way of joy.

WAKE UP AND WIN
Find the fears that are ruling your life and challenge them. Replace them with faith, hope and joy instead.

The Nuts and Bolts of Business Mentoring

Sun, 30 May 2010 22:42:00 GMT

The term “business mentoring” is currently very popular and is primarily used to distinguish from other types of mentoring and coaching interventions, e.g. sport and life coaching.

Like peak performance and success in sport, much of the credit is shared with the athlete’s coach and support staff, because, in effect, the attainment of success at the elite level is almost always a team effort.

In its simplest structure, mentoring is also a team-based activity. It’s the bringing together of two or more individuals (one with a high level of skill, experience and wisdom) who imparts that knowledge and wisdom to the other through effective questioning and engagement techniques.
In the 21st century, mentoring is perceived as an efficient and inexpensive method of enhancing the capability of individuals and businesses large or small. A mentoring program in your workplace can lead to the formation of beneficial relationships and networks that positively impact on the bottom line.

Yes, there exist skills and qualities that are required of both the mentor and mentee for a successful mentoring interaction. In their simplest forms, these are:
Your mentor should have a broad experience base preferably across many disciplines and coupled with an ability to share that range of expertise with you at a practical and pragmatic level. The outcome should be goal-directed and adaptable to your own strategic business success. A mentoring intervention is all about you and your goals, not those of the mentor.

Basic qualities for the mentee:

A desire to raise the bar and improve on your current performance
A commitment to work with an objective outsider
A commitment to time manage and attend scheduled mentoring sessions
The ability to follow through with suggestions and dare to innovate and to do things differently
Be a willing participant.
As a sounding board for your ideas, mentors will often focus on gaining your commitment to a “call to action”, identifying appropriate solutions to your specific business issues and ensuring their alignment to your defined business objectives.

Now, if we go back to our sports coaching analogy, I challenge you to name any major successful sporting team or individual anywhere in the world who does not have a coach or a technical support team behind them. I think you would be hard-pressed to identify many.

If we can assume that most readers of Business Matters magazine (particularly this article) are doing so with an underpinning desire to improve their personal effectiveness, I would really encourage you (if you don’t already have one) to identify a potential mentor.

Imagine having another successful entrepreneur/business operator willing to share their wisdom with you, identifying where their experiences may be appropriate for use in your particular situation. Typically, mentors can provide business support in the following areas.

Improved productivity
Improved organisational strength
Improved quality and customer service
Vastly improved retention of employees
Increased bottom-line and business profitability
More effective succession planning structures

In summary, as successful entrepreneurs, we are very aware of the commitment required to be successful in small business, and yes we know it’s not always easy when you are wearing all the hats and trying to do it all alone. We also know that life is too short not to enjoy the spoils of all your hard work.

When identifying business goals and objectives, think of an improved bottom line, team performance and improved work/life balance - these are areas where a good mentor can prove to be invaluable.
The TRAC Consulting – Panel of Business Mentors is based in the Sunshine Coast and is well credentialled across all levels of business from government to small business, and right through to the largest of multi-nationals, all with the capacity to help you grow your business.

Should you require more detailed information or need help identifying a suitable mentor who can support you in the realisation of your dreams and business objectives, feel free to give us a call at TRAC Consulting on (07) 5439 7999.

You, Your Life & Your Business Great expectations and effective results

Thu, 20 May 2010 02:27:00 GMT

Business Matters welcomes business strategy and planning expert Pauline Du Rietz.

When athletes or high achievers are interviewed just after they have performed, they don’t focus on what has just happened, whether it be good or bad – they focus on the challenge of achieving their personal best and stretching to make that happen. This is a technique that keeps them focused and motivated.

The psychology of performance and obtaining effective results suggests that what we expect has a huge influence on what we obtain, and that "intention" means nothing unless we combine it with "effective action". Our results are strongly connected to our expectations.

How do we obtain results? Anything we do will get a result, good or bad.

It’s not possible not to have expectations about something. You may be indifferent, however, this is still an expectation.

Three of the main "interactive behaviour" reasons relationships and businesses get into trouble are: perception; expectations and a failure to negotiate behaviours effectively.

PERCEPTION:

We often fail to communicate how we see things. We might assume that the other person will see the issue as we see it or demand they see it our way: "I know how the world is and you should see it my way."

EXPECTATIONS & INTERPERSONAL

NEGOTIATION SKILLS

We are not always conscious of our thoughts, but we have expectations about everything. Expectations are about what you believe should happen or want to have happen. In relationships and in business, people frequently fail to negotiate their expectations. Then they become upset when their expectations are not met.

Interpersonal negotiations’ skills help you obtain agreement about how you will move forward. If we stay locked in the disagreement stage, we become blocked, we react and we stagnate.

So, everything we do will obtain a result. If you want to get better results, you have to change your expectations and the things you are doing.

Pauline du Rietz is the director of programs for the Life Strategies & Relationship Management Centre on the Sunshine Coast.

Office Matters: transform your documents for electronic filing

Thu, 20 May 2010 01:07:00 GMT

Written by: gordon mackay from pacific office solutions document solutions specialist

Business success depends on the ability to secure, manage, and disseminate critical information in a document format. But in most organisations, as much as 80 percent of its information is locked up on user’s computers and e-mail servers. This content is usually difficult to access. What’s more, these vital business documents can easily be corrupted or lost and is extremely costly to re-create if an employee leaves the organisation or it is not properly backed up.

No matter how you look at it, there are some scary facts and figures about the cost of managing documents. It is said that for every $ you spend to create a document, you’ll spend as much as $9 managing it. Companies can spend $20 in labour to file a document & $120 in labour to find a misfiled one & $220 to re-create a lost document.

Modern office copiers are transforming the way we handle electronic documents.

Instead of specialist expensive scanners the standard office copier now usually comes with scanning either as standard or as an option. Some entrepreneurial copier manufacturers are even embedding software into the actual MFD itself, so you can easily send documents to any destination directly from the control panel. The scanned documents are transformed in one easy step from the MFD’s panel, which eliminates the need for expensive desktop OCR (optical character recognition) packages that are usually licensed for each workstation

You can now easily transform paper documents into Excel spreadsheets, Word documents & searchable PDFs. This means documents can be stored easily, located, tracked, accessed and sent instantly to the people who need them at the touch of a button, directly to your desktop, a network folder or an email address. With a built-in address book on the MFD, your frequently-used locations are available at your fingertips.

Book More Clients

Wed, 19 May 2010 23:39:00 GMT

Book More Clients was written by Sunshine Coast local Craig Allingham. Craig initially trained as a physiotherapist in Australia and has therefore been dealing with clients on a constant basis. In addition to his clinical work, Craig has represented his profession and country at four Olympic Games and contributes now as an educator and corporate trainer through many forums and articles.
Now working as a professional development consultant, Craig is in demand as a keynote speaker and business skill trainer in Australia and overseas. A very entertaining presenter, he delivers serious health and / or business messages with humour and panache.
Part of his current work is as a Quality in Practice surveyor for health businesses in Australia. In this role, Craig has observed the inconsistencies between clinical excellence and business excellence in health practices and, in fact, any business that is customer facing, wherever service is involved. He saw a need to educate business people in business and service delivery.
Craig believes this book fills a training gap at the frontline of these service organisations and provides practical examples to illustrate the importance of using the right words at the right time to generate new and ongoing business opportunities. The purpose of the book is basically how to turn customers into cash flow and includes sections on:

Telephone skills, scripts and strategies for satisfying clients and generating business.
Being in control of your desk.
Cash flow – it pays your salary.
Handling awkward moments.
Business strategies for the boss.
Understanding, meeting and exceeding client expectations.
Putting it all together.

Book More Clients is very easy reading, full of humour and will probably pay for itself within the first week or so.
You can purchase the book for just $29.95 online at www.redsok.com or ask at your local book store.

Publisher – Redsok Publishing
ISBN – 97870980399936 (pbk)

Business Benchmarking

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:44:00 GMT

Right now in your business do you know who makes the most money for you and why? Have you got enough of the right people doing the right jobs? Answers to these questions and many more are just some of the benefits of having your business benchmarked against others in your industry.
Do you ever wonder how your business performs compared to your competitors? Are you charging enough for your products and services? Are you spending too much on advertising? Are you paying too much rent? Are your staff costs too high? What is the average bottom line of your competitors?
Business Benchmarking enables you to go beyond the numbers and see where you sit in relation to your competition and how you can improve business performance. By comparing your operations against others in the industry you can quickly identify the strengths, weaknesses threats and opportunities to your business. See how your business compares against your competitors
Success in most businesses is not so much about understanding the numbers, but more about managing the results.

What is benchmarking?
Benchmarking is a process of comparing characteristics of your business with other businesses. When choosing to benchmark your business, you have a number of choices about who and what you can benchmark against.

Industry sector

Other businesses in your sector will have many characteristics in common with you so comparisons can teach you about work practices in the industry that may lead to a competitive edge for your business.

Business size

Comparisons with other businesses of the same size as yours can be just as useful. Benchmarking other sole traders, for instance, may show you a more efficient way of handling the accounts or keeping in contact with customers. Comparing to a bigger business could show better staff management practices.

Business operations

Despite being in different industries, there may be other businesses operating in a similar way to yours. For instance, an online soap shop compared sales results with an online book shop and found their sales were much less. Further scrutiny showed the book shop offered credit card payments; by introducing credit card facilities, the soap shop quickly increased sales.

Benchmarking benefits

The benefits of benchmarking for your business:

Increased profitability - how to keep more of what you turnover in your pocket.
Improved productivity - you can see who makes the most money for you, and why.
You can see if you have enough of the right people doing the right jobs.
Budgets - know exactly where every hard-earned dollar goes.
What to do to your business to look good on paper – banks love this!
How to achieve sustainable growth.
Lets you know how high to set your goals,.and put in place an action plan.

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WAKE UP!

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 05:37:00 GMT

Welcome to the Wake-up Call column. This article is full of sound tips to help you become more aware of how you can improve your success, performance, resilience, “get noticed”-factor and anything else that will help you find success and fulfillment at work (and home!). A reminder of things we know but may have forgotten.

Many of us wander around in a daze of unconsciousness. Our eyes are open but our brains are not registering what is really happening in our world and how we are shaping it.
What would your world be like if you were really aware of what your contribution was to every situation you find yourself in? For example, when I speak at conferences, I say that all communication is in loops.

What you do affects the other person, which in turn affects you and so on. We all want the other person to change, don’t we? But there is little or no likelihood of that happening. They will not change just because we want them to! Do you think your most challenging colleague will change what irritates you just because you want them to? I don’t think so!

So what we must do is be aware of our side of the equation - our responsibility, what we can actually work on – and change it. If we change, they change in response!
As of today, become aware of your contribution to every situation you find yourself in. And then take responsibility to make changes and watch with wonder what unfolds.

Ask yourself these questions – then act on the answers!

What is my contribution to the tension between us?

How do I affect others at work? Is it a positive impact or do I appear to be surrounded by pessimists who are useless? (In this case, look in a mirror for more insight into why you are surrounded by these people!)

Am I seen as dynamic and enthusiastic and engaged? (Ask others if you don’t know.)

What can I do to improve my attitude? My skills? My perceptions of what is happening?

What can I do to be a more valuable contributor to the team?

How can I help others succeed?

WAKE UP AND WIN!
The more you try to help others succeed, the more you are likely to succeed. With ease and grace.

Amanda Gore is a keynote speaker, experience creator, educator and author of The Gospel of Joy and You Can be Happy. www.amandagore.com amanda@amandagore.com

By Amanda Gore

Book Review – The Design of Business, by Roger Martin

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:08:00 GMT

Is creativity or reliability more important for your business? Do you provide a repeatable and reliable product or service, or do you focus on creating unique solutions?
It’s easy to think that you have to choose one or the other, but in his book, The Design of Business, Roger Martin discusses businesses who have found a balance between these competing imperatives. It’s called Design Thinking, and Roger Martin sees it as the next competitive advantage for business.

Design thinking is a way of working that allows innovation and efficiency to co-exist within a dynamic business environment. As Martin explains, design thinking is all about solving wicked problems. Traditional analytical problem solving, or reliability thinking, relies on using what has happened in the past to predict what will happen in the future. Wicked problems, however, are problems that can’t be solved by looking to the past. Instead, what’s required is an ability to imagine new solutions beyond our current knowledge.

Many management and business strategy issues can be seen as wicked problems. They involve many people from different disciplines and arise in complex environments where answers are not clear-cut and the past cannot be used as a predictor of the future. Yet reliability thinking still tends to prevail, as organisations often see themselves and their environments as stable or unchanging. From a strategy perspective there is a danger if a company fails to adapt to the inevitable changes in its environment.

To embrace design thinking businesses owners and managers may need to see themselves as problem setters, rather than problem solvers. Martin explains the concept of the Knowledge Funnel, giving examples of companies who actively seek out the next important mystery or wicked problem. They create value and improve their efficiency and profitability by turning these mysteries into rules-of-thumb and finally into algorithms that provide predictable solutions to the mystery.

Roger Martin’s book, The Design of Business, is thought provoking and will give business owners and managers an insight into how the way they think can affect the way they operate their businesses.

Dr Monique Beedles
Teak Yew Pty Ltd

ph: 0417 521 842
strategy@teakyew.com
www.teakyew.com

PO Box 72
CALOUNDRA QLD 4551

Want to get engaged?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:53:00 GMT

By Johanna Bernard, JLB and Associates

The importance of speaking in public may not be so obvious. ‘Of course it’s obvious’ you may say to yourself or ‘My role doesn’t entail any public speaking or presentations.’ Whatever your thinking let’s get straight to it. In life we need to communicate publically every day. We talk to our family, thank our barista as we pay for our morning coffee and talk to our colleagues, boss, suppliers, prospective clients and clients. Successful presentations and public speaking skills are important in personal relationships as well as business, sales and selling, training, teaching, lecturing and generally entertaining an audience.

Presentations and public speaking skills are not limited to exceptional people - anyone can give a good quality presentation, or perform public speaking to a proficient and even extraordinary level. We share with you below how you can make instant improvements, whether it is your next sales call or you are speaking in front of 20 or more people.

You may know your subject from top to bottom and yet still manage to cleverly convey it in a manner that does little to inspire your listeners! Let me ask you this, do you believe that when you are in front of an audience you are basically ‘Selling from the Stage’?   For those of you thinking yes, you are right. It’s a fact; when you are in front of others you are selling yourself, no matter what the product, service or information you are sharing, they need to buy YOU first.

There are two reasons for being in front of an audience of any size. Number one is to educate, share and/or inform your listeners. Number two is to persuade, influence, alter and/or intensify your listener’s viewpoint or beliefs and inspire them to act. So how do you keep your audience engaged?

There are 4 key parts to every presentation. Below are 5 tips, taken from the Format 4 Fun training program, that are must do’s for ALL meetings/presentation/seminars. Incorporate these and you will surprise yourself at how you have them eating out of your hand.

1.   Set the stage – make sure you have a sexy presentation title, introduce yourself and let the audience know what the talk is about up front. Don’t keep them guessing.

2.   Keep control of the situation – know your desired outcome before you walk in to the room, what do you want the end result to be for the audience? Do you want them to walk away feeling inspired? Buy your products?

3.   Sell the benefits - Remind them, consistently throughout, what the benefits are and more importantly how it benefits them. Then remind them again and again.

4.   Commitment- Get a little commitment at a time throughout. Never ask a question where they can say no. E.g. you’re all in sales so tell me, is getting more clients a high priority?

5.   Use tie-downs – tie-downs are short questions where the answer is always yes. Do not ask the type of questions where the answer could be no. Tie downs simply reinforce the agreement frame your audience is already in. E.g. this would be great for you, wouldn’t it?

Bonus Tip- Use your body! Given that 55% of our communication is through our body language using our hand gestures, body movements, facial expression are of utmost importance. Where and how you move should be part of your preparation, whether it’s a new business meeting or in front of 30 people, body language counts!

We all see things the same way, don't we?

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:37:00 GMT

By Johanna Bernard, JLB and Associates

We may not think about it often, however each of us live in our own individual reality.
The way we grew up determines how we see the world and dictates how we respond. Humans are ‘meaning making’ machines; nothing has meaning aside from the significance we give it. Given this why do we expect someone to immediately see our point of view and why do we believe we can see theirs?

So what?

In the weekly meeting the manager of a strong performing sales team explains the need for everyone to perform to achieve the company’s revenue target. He leaves the meeting ‘knowing’ he’s inspired and motivated the group.
Outside the boardroom the sales team talk among themselves, high on the thought of what’s to come when they reach the goal. Two of the team look worriedly at each other. The goal to them is too far away and unachievable, no matter that they are on track and keen to do their best.

Another team member hurries to her desk, knowing that although she’s on target her days are numbered. The last of the team, motivated by achieving short term goals goes to his desk and types www.seek.com.au into his computer.

What the!

If the manager noticed his team’s reactions he would no doubt be frustrated with his staff, but it should be himself he is looking at not them. Identify how YOU can make a difference by first looking at yourself and learning how to get the response you want. Take time to learn how to interact with your team using language that evokes and inspires. This will reinvigorate your team. Increasing productivity and revenue. If there is no one in your company to help get started you could consider engaging a third party. Look for an organisation that measures based on tangible results so you can determine the return on your investment. Below are specific tips to get you started.
3 tips on how to fully engage your team

Listen for the preferred communication style

Determine the makeup of your team by listening to how they ‘language’. Listen for language that is Kinaesthetic, Visual, and Auditory and/or Auditory Digital. Whilst it’s possible that some use all of these styles a preferred style in a work environment is often easily distinguishable.

Use language common to all styles when addressing a group (list not exhaustive)

Visual – see, look, imagine, picture, envision, focused, show, illuminate
Kinaesthetic – feel, touch, make contact, get a handle, catch on
Auditory – hear, rings a bell, all ears, question, silence, resonate, tune in/out
Auditory Digital – sense, think, learn, know, conceive, process, decide, change

Use individual preferred style when meeting one on one

Use their preferred style when talking one on one. As a manager learn to recognise ‘language’ that will resonate with them. Use the above suggested words when communicating.

Many of us may not realise the ‘language’ they use is open to entirely different interpretation depending on an individuals prior experiences. We each perceive the world based on our past experiences, unconsciously training our mind to respond a certain way. Once we recognise this and detach from our minds rigid patterns, relating to the world gets easier.

We begin to recognise that life presents us with what we need to evolve into our greatest potential. To benefit from this possibility you can choose to be more exploratory and take risks.

Use your time with the best of intentions; choose to make work and life in general enjoyable for yourself and those around you. Whatever you’re current circumstances, learning more about yourself and most importantly taking action can be an adventure in itself.

Pursue a hiring strategy

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:17:00 GMT

Written by Bruce Campbell, ActionCOACH.

In the sporting world, team owners and general managers are always looking for what could best be termed the ‘value’ player. This is the player who brings great value to the team, at a fraction of the cost of a superstar.

In today’s business world, business owners are in a unique position. Not only can they get great ‘value’ players for the companies, they can also get superstars but only if they are willing to risk hiring at a time when others are firing or laying off.

If you are looking at building your company for the long term, now is the perfect time to hire and even bring on board that superstar sales person or performer you’ve had your eye on for a while.

Not only will that person bring tremendous value to your company in terms of performance, they also bring with them reputation, credibility and over the long term, more revenue and profit.

In the process of saving a wage, you can actually be costing yourself a fortune by cutting your company off from the growth opportunities you could discover from hiring, especially if you are a customer-oriented company.

Whenever you lose an employee, the potential exists to lose 10 or 20 customers with them. However, you could stand to bring that many to your company with the right hire, especially if a top performer at another company is dissatisfied or in a situation that would lead to them soon being let go.

To get great people however, you need to be the kind of company great people want to work for.

It’s not easy, but the benefits will accrue through our current winter and far into the economic spring and summer.

So how can you hire and recruit the best people in today’s economy?

Target your industry’s superstars. During the last economic summer, the tight labour market had companies selling themselves to potential employees. Today it's a different story, and you may be able to lure a superstar away from a failing competitor or a high achiever who is in the position looking to make a change.

Develop a good company culture. To attract top talent, you need to develop a company and a company culture that is aligned to successful core ideals and values. This includes having a company vision and mission, but also setting and following rules of the game that focus on achievement, participation, risk–taking and inclusion. Word-of-mouth in the labour market and employee networks is just as strong and effective as it is in the world of advertising.

Hold group interviews. One of the greatest ways to leverage you interview time with prospective candidates is by holding a group interview session, instead of an individual interview session with each candidate – at least for the first round of interviews. Here’s why: A single, one hour group interview session with 10 potenital candidates leaves you another nine hours to devote to other tasks – or to a series of follow up interviews with your next round of candidates.

Create bonus structures based on performance. Tie employee performance to the bottom line by structuring bonus plans oriented around key performance indicators or those performance drivers that not only reflect on the employees’ production, but contribution to the bottom line.

By creating a team–orientated, performance-driven culture of merit and achievement, you’ll soon discover you are aligning your employees’ goals to your company’s goals. If you really want to position yourself or reposition yourself for the growth that will come, a hiring strategy instead of firing strategy may be the best strategy you could pursue.

It's a numbers game

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:32:00 GMT

Written by Bruce Campbell, ActionCOACH.

Do you know how many customers you need or how many sales you need to make a profit? What about to break-even? Do you know how long you will have to work this year just to pay your taxes? How many prospects you need in your sales pipeline to generate enough customers to make your profit margin? What is your profit margin?

If you’re struggling to answer these basic questions, you’re not alone.

You can lift your profits immediately simply by knowing the numbers that lead to them. In fact, the majority of the most profitable and highest growth companies are those that know their numbers at every possible level. They know very clearly that you cannot manage what you do no measure.

The key to knowing your numbers is simply knowing and understanding exactly what your business needs to produce to give you the profit you need to survive and grow far into the future.

Most business owners I’ve coached over the years have no clue what their real numbers are, possibly because they don’t want to be faced with the reality the of the numbers.

To prosper, you’re going to have to put the fear of numbers behind you and embrace what they will reveal to you. Not only will mastery of your numbers give you an edge over your competition, it will give you power to make better decisions in real time, regardless of the economy.

Numbers will tell you where you are right now. Beyond revenues and expenses, your numbers will show your profit margins, as well as vital figures relating to sales. If you know how many people come through your doors a day and how many actually buy something, you suddenly have a handle on the sales conversion rate.

By that measure, if you know you always convert 15 per cent of your prospects into a sale, and you know you need 12 sales to profit, you can easily determine you’ll need 80 people though your doors on average to be profitable. (12/15 per cent = 80).

Numbers will also guide you where you want to go. Are you looking for an extra $10,000 in gross profit on a 25 per cent profit margin? You’ll need to generate a turnover of at least $40,000 ($10,000/25 per cent = $40,000).

Are you a professional who charges $100 an hour who now wants to double your income? You might need to determine whether it is better for you to charge $200 over 2000 working hours a year or charge $400 multiplied by 1000 working house a year.

In either case, the numbers will give you an indication based on your market and profession of what can work for you. They will also show you where you might need to revamp your business so you can get to your targeted revenue.

That's not bad news, it’s just news. But it will help you determine what you will need to go to improve and enhance your professional skill set or revamp your product and services mix. The numbers might show you that you can afford to hire a great sales person to sell and two additional administration people to handle the books while you network or leverage your highest skills to build the business in new and innovative ways.

Take some time, right now, and introduce yourself to the past, present and future numbers of your particular business. Because if you don't master your numbers, your numbers will surely master you.

Back to business basics

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:37:00 GMT

Written by Bruce Campbell, ActionCOACH.

Sometimes, it pays to change your business for the sake of change. At other times, you have to change your business because the market tells you to. And if you don't change, you’re dead.

Like it or not, we are living in those times. Market forces worldwide are causing a whirlwind of creative destruction for businesses and their owners. The question is, how will you react to our current economic circumstances, and how can you make the money you will need to survive?

So, how can you gain some clarity for your business amid all the media noise and pessimism?

First, you must realise that the needs of your customers and your market are different than those needs were a year ago, or even six months ago. Simply put, you will have to adapt to those different needs and change your business in the direction of meeting those needs, in order to survive.

The new vision for your business should be highly focused and scaled to what you customers truly want. In these times, success will not necessarily be based on what you want to offer, but rather what the market is telling you to offer.

You will also need to put an extreme focus on profitability. This may mean scaling back your plans for 20 locations nationwide, to ten locations that run on higher profit margins. Now is not necessarily the time to overstretch. In fact, doing so and getting caught short of cash and/or human capital, is death for any business.

A laser-like focus on profit and operations will pay off big during the next economic spring. Not only will you be better positioned financially than your competition, you will also develop the discipline to stay close to your core business.

While other companies will use the next boom to chase after any market or sell any product, your efforts now to pare down and narrow your focus, will keep you from making the same mistakes in the future. In addition to a changed mindset and business focus, you will need to commit to marketing at every level of your business.

This does not mean buying high priced advertisments in newspapers or on TV. It means creating a marketing and sales-orientated culture that runs your business. Consider everything from how your team answers the phone, to how they greet customers and guide them through the sales process, to developing a solid customer database.

While I am sure you have heard all of this before, you would be amazed how many owners do not do the simplest things that could make them successful. For instance, ActionCoach has discovered only about seven per cent of all business owners know what their breakeven is on a given day, let alone over the course of a month or year.

Do you know yours? Isn’t it time you found out?

Focus, marketing mastery and numbers mastery will be crucial if you want to ride out this downturn. Put another way, it is not your competition that is forcing the game this time. It is the market, and although the market’s judgement is harsh, in my experience it is always fair.

You simply cannot run a successful company without profit and without systemised ways to grow your customer base and keep them coming back.

Right now, the world’s economic stage is being set of the next big boom. When will it happen? Who knows? The point is that now is the time to get your own basics right so when the economic recovery hits full swing, you will be ready to capture even greater profits and success. So start now and take the next few days to develop a new vision and plan for your company based on what your company customers and the market, is telling you.

That feedback could be the foundation for some of the best (and most profitable) decisions you could ever make for your company.