Who do you want to be right now?
A better mother, father, leader, life partner?
Present the Be, Do, Have mindset.
Write down who you need to be, so you can do the things you need to do in order to get what you want to have.
What do you love doing - both outside of work and at work?
What do you need to stop doing?
Write down at least three things you want to do more of and three things you want to stop doing or pass on to others.
How many hours per week will you commit to each of the things you love doing?
Take back control of your life by starting with a commitment to the things outside of work that you love doing.
Write this down.
What holidays do you want to have?
Be specific so the image is implanted in your mind.
Where do you want to go?
When?
Write this down, then block the time out in your calendar when you return to work.
How much income do you need to deliver on your new life?
Don’t worry about the how yet; just write the number down.
Now you each have your own personal plan.
Make this visible in some way.
Start working in this new way now.
Remember, you have a choice.
You are not a victim.
Nobody else will create this for you.
How many new things does a 5 year old child learn in a day?
How enthusiastically does she embrace the world of possibility, the desire to learn and improve?
How easily does she give up?
Why is it that, as grown-ups we forget the 5 year old mindset and close our minds to new learning?
New learning opportunities are everywhere and in this digital world there’s simply no excuse to avoid new learning.
Here are my top five ways to learn more (and hence be able to run a better business):
Resist the urge to ‘hang out’ on your phone.
Unless you’re reading something that will teach you something new.
Enrol in courses / workshops either online or in person.
Choose topics that are going to help you in business.
Equally valuable are podcasts you can listen to when stuck in traffic.
Face to face workshops and seminars are ideal too.
Read more.
Both recreational and business books.
Spend at least 30 minutes reading each night.
It will help you sleep better too.
Keep a journal of your learnings.
You’ll be able to revisit them later.
You don’t know something until you can teach it to someone else.
Turn off your TV.
Spend that time reading or listening to podcasts instead.
So, what is it that you need to learn more about?
Is it leadership, business management, sales skills, or simply how to write better?
What will be the best way to gain this knowledge?
Write this down.
Set yourself some targets, perhaps it’s reading for 30 minutes per day.
Go home and share your target with someone else and keep a record of how you’re going.
Start today!
The first two steps were about getting clear on exactly what you want and then being open to change and new learning.
Step three is about defining where you are now, warts and all, which is so often overlooked.
If you’re using GoogleMaps to get directions, what does it ask you?
It asks you what your starting point is.
It needs to know where you are now, so it can tell you how to get to where you want to go.
While this may seem obvious, too often business owners try to make a plan without fully understanding where they’re starting from.
And when I say, ‘warts and all’, I mean that you need to have a very honest and accurate understanding about the following five points:
The degree to which owners and leaders are aligned in their thinking.
If they were asked independently where the business is headed, would they say the same thing?
The current level of activity that is generating the sales numbers and returns you’re achieving.
It’s not just about the sales numbers themselves.
For example, how many leads are you generating per month?
How many proposals are being written and accepted?
What is your average sales value?
How many networking events are you attending or running per month?
You need to know this in order to improve.
The extent to which your team has bought into your plan, your culture, and your core purpose.
Without the team on board, you will not achieve leverage.
A study on employee engagement showed that only 30% of employees in companies were engaged, 52% were disengaged and 18% were actively disengaged.
Studies also prove that businesses with engaged team members significantly outperform those without.
The appropriateness of the measurement and reporting systems you have in place to track your results.
It’s all very well to set targets, but if you can’t measure them, you’ll be flying blind.
Your five biggest vulnerabilities right now.
Where are things most likely to break in the near future?
For example, poor systemisation, high team member turnover, cashflow strains, or a weak Balance Sheet.
So, just as GoogleMaps asks you for your starting point, before you make a plan to head somewhere new, you must understand where you are right now.
Skip this step at your peril.
So, to recap the first three steps: Step 1 is getting clear on exactly what you want, Step 2 is about being open to change and Step 3 is knowing, warts and all, where you are right now.
You’re now ready for the next step - making a clear plan.
Remember that the business is there to serve you, not the other way around.
You shouldn’t be a slave to your business.
So, refer back to Step 1 where you recorded who you want to BE, how you want to work, and the hours you are prepared to put in.
Build your plan around what you want personally from the business.
If you need $100,000 per year to cover your living costs and that family holiday, and you know your overheads are currently $100,000, then you need a gross profit of $200,000.
If your current gross profit margin is 50%, then your annual sales need to be $400,000 (or $8,695 per week if you plan to work 46 weeks per year).
You can see now why you need to understand your current situation.
If you can improve your margin by 2% to 52%, you only need to make $8,361 in sales per week.
This budget should form part of your plan.
Make sure your plan is linked directly to how your business will deliver on your personal goals.
Follow these rules for creating a solid plan:
Keep it on one page.
Two sides if you must.
Identify no more than four main goals for the year.
If you have too many goals, you’ll struggle to achieve them effectively.
Cascade your annual goals into 90 day goals.
Identify the actions you need to complete in order to achieve those goals.
Identify no more than five Key Performance Indicators.
Any more and you’ll lose focus.
Share the plan with your team.
Their personal career goals should be linked with your plan.
Help them to define their own actions and KPIs.
These should be recorded in their job description.
Keep the plan highly visible to your team.
Track your progress against your plan and celebrate success along the way.
Review your plan at least quarterly.
Have someone independent hold you accountable.
Remember, “a dream written down becomes a goal.
A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan.
And a plan backed by action makes it reality” - Greg S Reid.
Your Business Plan is your ‘how to guide’ to achieve what you want in your life.
It’s the most fundamental document in your entire business.
How good is yours?
Have you ever heard the saying ‘start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats’?
The bus is rarely discussed.
What if your business isn’t a bus?
Maybe it‘s a jet boat with two seats.
Maybe it needs to be a train with multiple carriages, a great driver and a conductor connecting all passengers.
Step 5 is getting your organisation structure right.
This should allow your revenue to increase without creating bottlenecks, overloading team members, and causing errors or mistakes.
Bottom line returns should then increase at a rate greater than the revenue increase as the business becomes more efficient and achieves economies of scale.
The organisation structure shows the departments in your business, who is responsible for what (whether they’re employees or external contractors) and how the hierarchy works.
This is called the 10 hats organisation structure.
The 10 hats, or departments, are:
Shareholder.
Director.
Leadership.
Product / Service Development.
Operations.
Marketing.
Sales.
Finance.
HR.
Admin / IT.
There should be only one leader of the business, and one leader for each of the 10 departments.
One person can wear multiple hats; but there can’t be more than one leader for each department.
For example, the leader of the Admin/IT department may also be the leader of the Finance department.
Make sure that there are ‘team members in training’ to start wearing some of the hats that the business owner is currently wearing.
Each role should have a clear job description with no more than 10 key responsibilities.
Each key responsibility should have clear tasks and KPIs flowing from it.
Remember that nobody can manage more than five people effectively, so create teams within each department (each with a team leader).
Review your structure regularly and update the key responsibilities if they change.
In other words, keep your structure as a living and breathing document that your team understands.
Check in with your team regularly to ensure that what they’re doing aligns with your structure.
Ask whether there have been any changes in the team member’s role at each performance review.
Then make sure they are the right person to be doing those new tasks or re-assign them to the correct person.
Valuing the opinions and contributions of your entire team is hugely important.
However, having a clear hierarchy is key to avoid bottle necks, make smart and consistent decisions, and manage risk as your business grows.
It also provides clarity for the team and an opportunity for advancement.
Step 6 involves working on your leadership skills and building a stronger workplace culture.
Have you ever asked yourself if your workplace is toxic?
The average person spends more than 40,000 hours of their life at work.
That’s one heck of a long time if your work environment is not fun; even worse if it’s toxic.
A toxic workplace generally exhibits some or all of the following characteristics:
A lack of trust between the owners and the team - a sense of ‘us and them’.
No Core Values; or worse - Core Values that aren’t lived into.
After meeting meetings.
Those coffee or desk chats where team members bag the person who lead the meeting that just happened.
Highly stressful interactions are the norm.
As opposed to the exception.
Team members and owners mistreating each other.
Working in self-serving ways instead of for the benefit of the team.
Especially if this is done behind team members’ backs.
No team buy in to the business’s core purpose or goals.
Or a complete absence of purpose and goals.
“Culture Eats strategy for breakfast” - these are the wise words of Peter Drucker.
We simply cannot afford to operate with a toxic workplace.
And, the opportunity cost of not investing in our workplace culture is big.
Take an honest look at your business through these above points, then follow these steps:
Use a collaborative approach to set no more than five Core Values.
Each with a definition.
Define your core purpose.
Why does your business exist for your clients?
Check out Simon Sinek’s video ‘Start With Why’ on YouTube.
Make your purpose and Core Values highly visible.
Ensure each team member has memorised them and hold each other to account for living into them.
Break down your plan into goals and actions for each team member.
The sum of the individual team goals will deliver on your overall plan.
Celebrate success.
Give recognition to team members for great performance.
Meet with your team regularly.
This ensures you support them effectively and address minor issues before resentment builds.
Actively discourage those after meeting meetings.
People should contribute openly at the appropriate time.
Stop playing favourites.
Give equal opportunity for your team members to grow and shine.
Avoid being held to ransom by toxic employees.
Open the ‘door of opportunities’ for them.
Have more fun at work.
Building fun or resilience exercises into the working week helps people refresh and find flow easier when they get back to work.
To quote Henry Ford, in relation to teamwork: “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success”.
Step 7 is all about accountability.
There’s only one way to ensure that the actions you commit to get done - give someone nagging rights to follow you up.
Let’s think about how 99% of people approach their New Year’s resolutions each year; they start with the ones they didn’t achieve last year!
Similarly, if you set a goal to go to the gym regularly, simply having a gym membership will not be enough.
Most personal trainers are primarily there to make sure that their clients show up.
Without a personal trainer it would be easier to put off a gym session and justify the decision with a below the line excuse.
So, who are the best people to hold you to account?
Again, using the sports analogy, do successful teams want hard coaches or soft coaches?
The answer is obvious.
It’s the same in business.
We all need someone who has the backbone to hold us firmly to account; to dish out consequences to us for any failure to act.
A life partner or friend (most often!) won’t be hard enough on us.
They’ll be more likely to let us off because they don’t want to upset us.
On the other hand, a hard coach is not so much worried about upsetting us in the short term.
They’re simply being a stand for us achieving the results we say we want to achieve, which in the long term will make us much happier.
Great coaches demonstrate more than backbone.
They also demonstrate heart; that is they care that we achieve the goals we’ve set.
That’s not to say they’re soft; quite the contrary.
But their approach is all about what we need to do to achieve the goal we have set.
Who do you use as an accountability coach?
Make sure you select someone with that essential backbone and heart.
Most businesses generate the vast majority of their new business from referrals.
And the great thing about referrals, is that they don’t cost you anything.
The best place to gain new referrals is by networking with your existing clients and people you do business with.
This is Step 8.
So, how can you maximise referrals from your networks?
Here are five ideas for you to consider:
Consider the lifetime value of a new client to you.
On the flipchart draw the following example (update figures to your local currency): Let’s say you own a restaurant.
The average customer spends $100 per visit and visits five times per year.
The restaurant’s gross profit margin is 66% and their customers generally keep returning for around five years.
So, the lifetime value of the restaurant’s customers would be $1,650 ($100 x 5 x 66% x 5).
With this value in mind, what could you give your customers to demonstrate how much you appreciate their repeat business?
Perhaps it’s as simple as complimentary drink.
They will certainly spread the word.
Identify the businesses you work with that complement your services.
For example, a surveyor may work with lawyers, valuers, bankers, accountants, and tradespeople.
Create an informal group of these people who work well together, and commit to a regular social get together.
Focus on how you can work more effectively together.
Or simply use the time to be more sociable and have fun!
Focus on referring more work to your network than you seek in return.
When you give work to others, it will create a desire in them to give back to you.
This is called the Law of Reciprocity.
When you do something nice for someone, they’ll often reciprocate with a gesture far more generous.
In this case, more referrals.
Find out where your target market hangs out in the greatest numbers.
There may be existing networks that you can join that refer work to you when you join them.
For example, BNI, Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, etc.
Sponsor and get involved with voluntary or non-profit organisations.
Choose something that you or your team are interested in.
This could be a sports club.
Don’t ‘peddle your wares’ or try to sell when attending these clubs.
Just wear branded clothing or have signage up as appropriate.
Prospective customers need to know you, like you, and trust you before they will buy from you.
Which of these five ideas can you implement today?
NZAU VERSION
Step 9 is monitoring your progress.
When you are driving, there are three things you look at on your dashboard, right?
Your speed, your fuel level and the engine’s temperature.
It should be the same in your business.
What are the three to five most important things, KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, for you to keep an eye on?
How do you decide which are the most important, and how do you calculate them?
Use this four step process to create your own dashboard:
First you need to understand which KPIs have the greatest influence on your ability to achieve your goals.
For a professional firm, this might be the average hourly rate invoiced (not charged to a timesheet!).
For a contracting firm, it might be your gross margin for any job.
For a retailer, it could be the average transaction value for the day or the week.
Remember when we were discussing where you are now (warts and all), you worked out the current level of activity that’s generating the sales numbers and returns you’re achieving now.
So, you need to know which of your KPIs, when increased or decreased, will have the biggest impact on your future results.
Choose no more than five KPIs to measure.
Next, work out how you’ll measure the five KPIs.
Make sure the measurement process is automated wherever possible.
For example, if you want to measure your gross margin by job, you’ll need to dissect your income and expenses on a job by job basis.
Most cashbook systems enable you to do this.
If you want to measure average income per client per annum, you need to measure your revenue on a rolling 12 month basis and divide this by the number of clients you have.
From here, you need to set up a simple one page report that you can produce on a weekly or monthly basis to track your progress against these five KPIs.
Make sure you allocate time to go through this report every time it’s produced and share the results with your team.
Repeat these steps with your individual team members.
The KPIs for team members will be different to the KPIs for the overall business.
Establishing KPIs for each team member lets them understand the definition of a great day’s work for them.
Monitoring and reporting the KPIs regularly will help your team know if they’re on track.
UK VERSION
Step 9 is monitoring your progress.
When you are driving, there are three things you look at on your dashboard, right?
Your speed, your fuel level and the engine’s temperature.
It should be the same in your business.
What are the three to five most important things, KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, for you to keep an eye on?
How do you decide which are the most important, and how do you calculate them?
Use this four step process to create your own dashboard:
First you need to understand which KPIs have the greatest influence on your ability to achieve your goals.
For a professional firm, this might be the average hourly rate invoiced (not charged to a timesheet!).
For a contracting firm, it might be your gross margin for any job.
For a retailer, it could be the average transaction value for the day or the week.
Remember when we were discussing where you are now (warts and all), you worked out the current level of activity that’s generating the sales numbers and returns you’re achieving now.
So, you need to know which of your KPIs, when increased or decreased, will have the biggest impact on your future results.
Choose no more than five KPIs to measure.
Next, work out how you’ll measure the five KPIs.
Make sure the measurement process is automated wherever possible.
For example, if you want to measure your gross margin by job, you’ll need to dissect your income and expenses on a job by job basis.
Most cashbook systems enable you to do this.
If you want to measure average income per client per annum, you need to measure your revenue on a rolling 12 month basis and divide this by the number of clients you have.
From here, you need to set up a simple one page report that you can produce on a weekly or monthly basis to track your progress against these five KPIs.
Make sure you allocate time to go through this report every time it’s produced and share the results with your team.
Repeat these steps with your individual team members.
The KPIs for team members will be different to the KPIs for the overall business.
Establishing KPIs for each team member lets them understand the definition of a great day’s work for them.
Monitoring and reporting the KPIs regularly will help your team know if they’re on track.
This last step, of course, should not come last.
Rather it should be something that you focus on all the time.
It’s step 10 here though so you’ll end this seminar focusing on yourself and what you love.
Just as the airline team tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself before assisting others, you need to look after number one at all times.
What are the things that fill your ‘well of happiness’?
These are the activities that restore your energy and resilience levels and help you to face the challenges in business.
They might be flamenco dancing, yoga, or mountain-biking.
They might be reading books, walking in the forest, or meeting with friends for coffee.
Most likely, they’re the things you just don’t have time for right now.
Of course you have the time; you have just as many hours in your day as Einstein or Helen Keller had - you are just choosing not to spend your time on these happiness activities.
Make a list of the activities that make you happy.
The things that you are putting off doing because you think you don’t have time.
Now make a commitment to yourself to spend at least one hour per day doing the things that you have listed.
Share that commitment to the person you have asked in step 7 to hold you to account.
Keep a log of every time you do these activities in your journal until they become an engrained habit.
Let’s summarise the 10 Steps to building a better business….
There are several ways we can help you achieve your goals.
For those of you who don’t have a Business Plan, we can help you develop a one page Business Plan.
This is step 4 in building a better business.
We’ll work with you to gain absolute clarity on what you want from your business.
We’ll help you set four SMART goals for the year and identify the 90 day goals and actions required to achieve these.
We can also develop a Cashflow Forecast for you so you understand the expected cash inflows and outflows in your business.
You can then monitor and maintain your cashflow on a monthly basis and ensure you’re tracking toward your targets.
Remember step 7 was getting someone to hold you accountable to achieving your goals?
We can provide this independent accountability.
Quarterly Coaching is a great option, but we have monthly or bi-monthly coaching available too.
A Complimentary Client Review is a meeting we offer to clients each year to review your business goals and how they tie in with your personal goals, identify the biggest challenges you’re facing, and then establish how we can work together to address these challenges and ensure you achieve your goals.
A Proactive Accounting Meeting is similar to the Complimentary Client Review, but is for anyone who is not currently a client.
Whatever you need help with, remember it’s likely you’ll need to stretch, and get out of your comfort zone.
One of the biggest problems in business if FTI - Failure To Implement.
If you don’t write down the actions you need to take, you just won’t do them.
What three actions will you take after attending this seminar?
Or what projects do you need to begin to start solving the problems you’ve been experiencing in your business?
Doing nothing is simply not an option.
Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Do something different.
Give attendees five minutes to complete their Evaluation Form.
Hold up the form and run through the service options at the bottom.
Explain that if they tick a box you will simply send them a proposal for the service within the next two days.
Wait while they complete the form and when it appears that most have stopped writing, go to the next slide.
Ask if anyone has any questions.
When no more questions are forthcoming, click through to the next slide.
Thank everyone for attending and participating in the seminar and invite them to stay for a drink and mingle.