Unique Insights

10 Reasons Why Your Business Needs External Advisors

2014-12-22T14:34:00.000+11:00

Far too many business owners baulk at the perceived costs of engaging external advisors to assist them to improve the performance of their businesses. In the long run, this reluctance to invest in external advice, generally proves detrimental to the profitability and sustainability of their businesses.

As a questionable but understandable cost saving measure, many owners of established businesses tend to rely on web-based information sites such as http://scoop.it/t/business-improvement or Government Small Business sites such as http://business.gov.au in preference to engaging external advisors.

Whilst accessing free advice from reputable online sites is a step in the right direction, the main problem with this approach is that often, the key link between the advice offered and the skills available in the relevant business to successfully apply the advice, is missing.

Sometimes, less experienced business owners, access information from sites where the business information on offer is not only of poor quality but is often wrong, and acting upon such advice, can create additional problems.

The other aspect which limits the value of free online advice is the assumptions made by the business owners or their managers, as to the actual problem that they are seeking information to help them to resolve.

It is often the case, that a symptom of a problem is being addressed, where a more complete, focussed and analytical investigation by an experienced external advisor, would establish the real underlying problem, one that must be resolved before the business can move forward.

Aligned to the perceived cost of external advisors being a barrier to greater engagement between businesses and external advisors, is a poor understanding by many businesses of the benefits that external advisors bring to any assignment, and the real return on investment that building a short term or ongoing relationship with an external advisor, can provide.

The real benefits that external advisors bring to any business which has the foresight to engage them include;

1) Fresh and different perspectives

External advisors are usually very experienced, well qualified, and through interacting with numerous businesses in a variety of industries over many years, they can look at your business from multiple perspectives, as distinct from your own limited perspective.

2) Unbiased viewpoint

An external advisor is independent, unaligned to prevailing points of view within a business, and can call it exactly as they see it, usually without fear or favour. They are able to resist filtering information via the cultural bias of the prevailing culture, and as such, can readily spot the obvious.

3) Greater and often more up to date expertise

Good external advisors generally hold relevant business related tertiary qualifications, are usually continuous learners, and generally hold memberships of relevant professional bodies that assist them to stay up to date with current business thinking, legislative changes and relevant technological advances.

4) Broader experience base

External advisors in general, work from a base of extensive experience, often across many industries, and most have held senior positions in listed and unlisted companies, as well as private companies, before becoming business advisors. They also come with an extensive base of contacts that they can draw upon depending on the situations they encounter.

5) Time management

Your time is vital, and the more of it you can spend on areas which utilise your strengths, the better off your business will be for this focus. An external advisor, by focussing on what they do best, will complete assignments much faster that you can, and the results they deliver will usually be time effective in implementation, thereby saving you even more valuable time.

6) Level of analytical skills

To survive in the business world, analytical skills of a high order are a pre-requisite for any professional business advisor. The skill to ask the right questions, of the right people, and analyse the information provided, before making recommendations or assisting to rectify a problem, is a skill not easily, or quickly, attained.

7) Add more weight to management change initiatives

Any management team attempting to introduce change initiatives, will find that support for the changes in the form of well justified recommendations coming from an external advisor, will assist greatly in selling those changes into the rest of the business.

8) Transference of skills and methodologies

External advisors undertaking assignments in any business will interact with key employees, who will observe both the skills displayed by the external advisor, and the methodologies they utilise as they proceed, thereby obtaining skills and knowledge they would not otherwise had obtained.

9) Stakeholder evidence of your mindset

All businesses have stakeholders and whether they shareholders, vendors, suppliers, customers, clients or employees, they will notice the engagement of external advisors. The mindset of a business owner or manager who is willing to engage external advisors, is different than that of someone unwilling to do so, and engaging external advisors is a clear and positive mindset indication.

10) Profitability enhancement

To build a successful reputation, leading to future engagements, an external advisor is very conscious of the need to deliver tangible and measurable outcomes. As a consequence, the usual outcome of the involvement of an external advisor, are changes which once bedded down, positively impact on bottom line performance.

Clearly understanding the range of benefits that an external advisor can bring to a business, allows a business owner to conduct a more balanced assessment of the potential return on investment available, from engaging a suitable external advisor.

In most cases, a balanced assessment will establish that the returns on offer will fully justify a business owner’s decision, to advance down the path of engaging an external advisor.

What problems are you currently struggling to address in your business, that could benefit from a fresh perspective delivered by an experienced, well qualified and independent, external advisor?

Perhaps it is time for you to throw a key problem or two, and a dollar or two, in the direction of an external advisor, and find out what a difference one can make in assisting you to improve the overall performance of your business.

Trade Show Mistakes Costing Business Dearly

2010-04-12T17:26:00.007+10:00

Last week, I had the occasion to visit a major five day trade show, and what I witnessed, I found hard to comprehend.

I couldn’t believe some of the poor performances that I witnessed from many of those manning the booths for companies, most which had paid big attendance fees and were also incurring high daily expenses, to participate.

Deadly Trade Show Sins on Display

Just a few of the litany of poor performances witnessed included;

Three caffeine addicts having their mid afternoon coffees, chatting aimlessly about sporting performances, with their bodies facing the back of their booth, completely oblivious to to the six people who were reading their brochures and wall posters, and the one person in particular who obviously wanted to engage with the company, but after a minute of being ignored, just shook his head and walked away.
One young lady, left to man a booth alone, engrossed in a heavy duty conversation via her mobile phone, totally ignoring three separate visitors, in the space of two minutes.
The failure of 9 out of 12 booth staff to ask for a business card or contact details from myself after answering questions relating to their products or services.
Three sales people all dealing with responding to the questions being asked by one demanding enquirer, whilst ignoring everyone else who passed through their large booth, in the space of five minutes.
Young, inexperienced, female staff accosting passing foot traffic with pleas to enter their competition to win a pitiful prize. An affront resulting in the majority of people, other than young men, bypassing their booth completely.
Two young male spruikers, far more intent on picking up the cute hostesses at a neighbouring booth, than performing the roles for which their company was paying them to perform.
Two booths completely unmanned and without at least having substantial information boards, business literature, and business cards that those passing by, during the absence of the booth operator, could at least take advantage of if they had interest in the products on offer.
With two and a half days still to go in the show, far too many staffers displaying far too obvious signs of boredom and preferences to be anywhere other than in the booth they have been employed to man.
Apart from five or six well trained operators (perhaps actual business owners), the general reluctance of booth operators to step out from the bowels of their booths to actively engage with the traffic passing the front of their booth, was a too common occurrence.

Cost of Poor Trade Show Performance

The return on investment (ROI) for participating in a trade show has to be measured in terms of;

leads generated,
products sold,
contracts entered into,
contacts made, and
brand awareness created.

The performances I witnessed, as outlined above, will obviously have affected the ROI of the individual companies concerned, and may possibly lead to some companies electing to bypass the event in future, to the detriment of their businesses.

Failure to achieve an adequate return on investment in such a major, enduring and popular trade show is really unacceptable, and speaks badly of the management skills of those charged with conducting the event for their companies.

Preventing Poor Trade Show Performance

What gets measured gets done. This is a truism and if you want to prevent poor performance at your next trade show you need to;

Outline company expectations in term of the ROI expected from the participation.
Make all participants aware of the cost the company is incurring by attending.
Set individual targets for those manning the both.
Ensure adequate training is provided to all staff attending.
Monitor performance throughout the event and provide constant feedback.
Be aware of brand reputation when selecting staff to attend.
Debrief after the event to determine ways to do better next time.

Ask Yourself

How does your company manage its trade show participation?

Does your company set the required return on its investment in advance of committing the funds?

Are all of the staff deployed adequately trained, provided with performance targets, made aware of the costs involved, and effectively monitored throughout the show?

BLOGGERS THRIVE WHEN READERS COMMENT - if you have a moment, please provide your feedback /reactions.

If your business is based in Melbourne Australia, and you need assistance to develop and grow it in order to provide you with a certain level of future prosperity, check out our website http://www.rhodan.com.au and, if you think we can help you, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Posted via web from Unique Insights

Avoid Personal Flat Battery Syndrome

2010-03-23T22:48:00.000+11:00

Small business owners are notorious for burning the candle at both ends as they struggle to meet all of the demands placed upon them as they build and develop their businesses. Eventually, the constant demands on one’s time, the lack of sufficient rest and respite, and the constant pressures of making the weekly payroll, can take their toll and the business owner may find themselves ending up with a very flat battery.

The temptation to simply soldier on and hope for the best, regardless of the price paid personally, is generally overwhelming for most small business owners who find themselves in this difficult situation. Unfortunately, for most who reach this point, it is hard for them to see that they are fighting against themselves in a battle they can’t, realistically, ever expect to win.

The Problem

The problem for a business owner of soldiering on without the necessary battery power to provide forward momentum, is that they will find that at very best their business slowly grinds to a standstill, and at worst, they will find themself operating a business that is actually sliding downhill fast.

Prevention is Easier than the Cure

As with most ailments that develop over time, prevention is usually far easier than the cure. As a business owner, it is most advisable that you ensure that the energy level in your personal battery never dips below the level where it can fire you up each morning, full of energy and enthusiasm for the challenges of the coming day.

So what can a business owner do to avoid their energy levels dropping to the point where their battery is absolutely flat?

Firstly, understand and accept the following;

The human body was not created to function 24/7 and perform effectively under constant stress, and the body itself requires adequate rest, exercise, and appropriate fuel to operate at its optimum level.
The human brain needs strong blood flow to deliver the oxygen it needs, and deep breathing whilst not stressed out, is a good way to deliver the oxygen needed to enhance the brains ability to reason, exercise sound judgement, and make effective decisions.
If you don’t give your body and your brain what they need on a regular and consistent basis, they will both adjust to lower levels of performance, making it much harder for them to be encouraged back to peak performance in the future. The longer this situation is allowed to continue, the harder and longer the recovery period will be, and the less likely a return to full peak performance, will be achieved.

Secondly, consider the following business truisms, and take appropriate action;

Doing everything that you can possible do yourself, rather than delegating or outsourcing non critical activities, is never going to make the best use of your time, skills or energy.
No business plan ever properly formulated, had a key objective of killing or destroying the mental or physical health, of the business owner.
Working on the business itself is as important, if not more important in most cases, than working in the business.
No business owner ever got wealthy or lived to a ripe age through flogging a dead horse.
Without sound foundations, good support mechanisms, consistent and regular cash flows, competent and committed staff, sound business policies, procedures and practices, and good leadership, the chances of long term business success are minimal.

Thirdly, a separate focus on a range of activities outside the business itself is necessary to provide;

A sense of balance and a mental break from constantly focussing on the business.
Alternative experiences to encourage development of different perspectives of problems and issues, new perspectives which can be applied back in the business.
Self development both personally and professionally in an environment more conducive of delivering the required learning outcomes.
Activities which involve socialising with family and friends and letting them know that their support helps both sustain you in your business, and provides the reasons to continue.

Finally, make time just for yourself to;

Regularly sit quietly alone and uninterrupted and reflect on your own contributions to your business and the effectiveness of those contributions, and note any adjustments you can make to reduce the personal impost, that the business places upon you as the owner.
Reward yourself with a bit of regular personal pleasure, be that a massage, a long walk, a hard run, a quiet drink in your favourite bar, an afternoon nap, a bit fishing or gardening, or any other activity that is for your pleasure alone.
Contemplate what life after your business life will look like (assuming the business doesn’t kill you first).

Self Protection

There you have it, four areas in which you can take appropriate action to ensure that your personal battery never goes flat and causes your business to grind to a standstill, or rapidly go downhill.

Ask Yourself

Are you finding that you are rapidly approaching the stage when you might end up with a flat battery?

Are you aware of the needs of your body and brain for adequate rest, exercise and fuel?

What are you going to do to ensure that your battery never goes flat?

BLOGGERS THRIVE WHEN READERS COMMENT - if you have a moment, please provide your feedback /reactions.
If your business is based in Melbourne Australia, and you need assistance to develop and grow it in order to provide you with a certain level of future prosperity, check out our website http://www.rhodan.com.au and, if you think we can help you, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Gain Business through Promoting your Expertise

2010-03-09T15:24:00.004+11:00

One of the toughest tasks for a SME business owner is generating new business. This may be necessary to either replace lost business, or to grow the business itself on the back of consistently increasing the volume of new business, whilst simultaneously minimising the loss of current business.

A common reason why many business owners find the going tough when it comes to new business acquisition, is because they are doing the all of chasing to find the new business, rather than new business seeking them out, to provide the products or services, required to satisfy their needs.

We all know that the cost of acquiring new business via promotions, advertising, direct selling or indirect sales activity can be quite high. We also know that often the budgets available to SME business owners, are not as extensive as usually required, to fund the costs of acquiring a constant flow of new business from such activities.

An alternative way of acquiring new business, is to get the new business to come to you as a consequence of the recognition of your expertise, and the reputation you have established in providing that expertise, to the market.

Unfortunately, as good as your expertise and reputation may be, unless the wider market that you wish to serve, is made aware of how good your expertise is, and you then continually reinforce this message at every opportunity, you will forever be chasing new business to maintain momentum in your business enterprise.

There are many cost effective ways to raise your market’s awareness of your particular expertise in producing something for sale or providing a particular service. The important thing is to develop a specific strategy for increasing your profile in your designated market, and then work this strategy until you see your expertise acknowledged via the avenue of business coming directly to you, without you having to be the hunter all of the time.

Steps you can take to promote your expertise in a cost effective way include;

Write and publish articles, that demonstrate your expertise, at your own blog site or submit articles to other blogs which cater to your target market,
Write and submit articles relevant to your industry to your local paper, relevant industry publications, regular newsletters that circulate in your business community, and as many relevant online forums that seek such content,
Volunteer to provide some of your expertise to local community groups or major charities,
Volunteer to be a speaker on subjects within your area of expertise at as many local business and local networking groups as you can find,
Register your business and detail the expertise you offer on as many of the free online business registers that will help people find you in your customer/client catchment area,
Get well structured testimonials that highlight the key elements of your expertise as well as the quality of your products/services and make these as prominent as possible on your website,
Ensure that your e-mail signature block highlights your expertise as well as your contact details, and where possible includes a link to the testimonials on your website, and
Where you have a telephone system that has the capability of putting callers on hold utilise a message on hold system to ensure they are listening to a message about your expertise whilst they are on hold.

The more ways that you can find to promote your expertise in a cost effective way, the more business you will see by way of direct engagement, and the less hunting you will need to do, to ensure that your business consistently generates new customers/clients.

Are you doing as much as you should be doing to promote your expertise?

What is it currently costing you to acquire a new customer/client?

How much more profitable would your business be if you could reduce this cost yet continue to acquire new customers at a satisfactory rate to continue to grow your business?

BLOGGERS THRIVE WHEN READERS COMMENT - if you have a moment, please provide your feedback /reactions.

If your business is based in Melbourne Australia, and you need assistance to develop and grow it in order to provide you with a certain level of future prosperity, check out our website http://www.rhodan.com.au and, if you think we can help you, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Posted via web from Unique Insights

The Lone Ranger had support; do YOU have enough?

2010-02-25T14:28:00.002+11:00

We all know that life as a Business Owner can be tough going. This recognised reality actually works in your favour, as it lessens the competition you face in the market, for your product or service. It also provides you with the opportunity to do well financially, if you are able to surmount the hurdles that you will inevitably face, as you develop and grow your own business.

One of the critical elements, that will determine whether or not you will be successful as a business owner, is the degree of support you can engender from others as you travel along the path to eventual success.

This external support is absolutely necessary to keep you buoyant and focussed on your objectives, despite the difficulties you will encounter on a daily basis. The various types of support you will need from others include;

a) Someone to act as a sounding board for you to bounce ideas off and to assist you to evaluate the validity of your ideas before you act on them impetuously, or erroneously,

b) Someone to help you with brainstorming ideas for problem resolution, promoting and marketing your business, development of new products or services, and effectively managing your available resources,

c) Someone who will provide you with continual encouragement to continue to persevere with facing the daily challenges that need to be met to make your business a success,

d) Someone in the same boat as yourself as a business owner to share information, share leads, share celebrations of the small wins you make each week, share the emotional ups and downs that only a fellow business owner will understand, and share the pain when everything doesn’t go as well as planned.

e) Someone who can introduce you into appropriate networks that you need to be part of to gain the required level of exposure in your market, in order to be highly visible to your customers or clients,

f) Someone who is willing to allow you access to their similar business so that you can benchmark your operations against theirs to determine areas for improvement in your own, and

g) Someone who can act as your businesses financial guardian angel to point you in the right direction and to ensure that you don’t make any terminal mistakes in the management of the cash flow of your business.

It is likely that you will need support from a number of different people to ensure you have the support that you require.

If you are very lucky, you will find two or three people, who between them, can give you the level of support you need to get your business to the stage where it can then afford to engage professional firms or individual professionals, to provide the support systems that every successful business needs, to enable it to continue to thrive and prosper.

So where do you find the people you need to provide the support to you that can make your difficult role a little easier and provide a greater chance for you to become a successful business owner?

The following list highlights great places to look for the people you can turn to for the necessary levels of support for yourself, as you grow your business;

a) Members of your immediate and extended family,

b) Members of clubs, associations and groups that you belong to or have had previous associations with,

c) Programs for business owners established by your Local Council, State Government Instrumentalities and National Government Departments,

d) Networking Groups specifically set up to support SME business owners,

e) Informal networks of non-competing local business owners in your immediate vicinity, and

f) Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter that have a business focus.

To garnish the support you need you must be passionate about your business and the outcomes you are trying to achieve, and use the right approach when sounding others out for the level of support you require.

You will usually find that if you approach the right people in the right way, even if you have not had a really strong previous relationship with them, most will, within the bounds of reasonableness, go out of the way to help others, especially if there is any form of reciprocity involved.

Are you acting a little like a modern day Robinson Crusoe?

Do you understand the benefits that the types of support outlined above can deliver to your business?

Will you now develop a plan to ensure you get the level of support you deserve and need?

BLOGGERS THRIVE WHEN READERS COMMENT - if you have a moment, please provide your feedback /reactions.

Posted via web from Unique Insights

Is your Business a Nest Egg or a Future Millstone?

2010-02-17T15:54:00.002+11:00

If you are a business owner not planning to sell up in the next five years and you wish to avoid future unpleasant financial surprises, especially when the time comes to retire from your business, then this article is for you.

If however, you are one of many business owners who are planning to retire solely on the proceeds of the sale of your businesses during the next 5 years or so, you may already be too late to avoid an unpleasant surprise, but you may still be able to mitigate the extent of the unpleasantness, so I have also included a few suggestions in this article for achieving this outcome.

The unpleasant surprise referred to above, which has its roots in the large bulge of baby boomer business owners all planning to exit their businesses around the same time and the likelihood of far fewer prospective purchasers being in the market at that time, will most likely take the form of significantly lower selling prices, usually well below expectations, being achieved for the sale of these businesses.

A more extreme, unpleasant surprise which is likely to be experienced by sellers for many of the last century style of businesses still owned by many baby boomers, will be little or no demand at all, from potential buyers for these businesses.

For baby boomer business owners, your key challenges in the period between now and your planned retirement date will be to; reinvent or revitalise your business, systemise it so that it can operate independently of your direct involvement, enhance its saleability by any other means available to you including quickly increasing profitability, introduce succession planning or plan for an internal buyout at a specific future date, and perhaps to consider introducing new shareholders now, rather than at the time you choose to retire.

For all business owners of later generations, the situation unfolding now for many of the baby boomer business owners is one you should seek to avoid, at all costs.

You definitely need to utilise your business to provide the substantial nest egg that you will need to have in order to afford a comfortable retirement, but this should be achieved by ensuring that you are always an employee of your own business, and that the business makes regular contributions of an adequate amount on your behalf, to the employee superannuation fund run by the business on behalf of its employees.

To achieve this outcome, you need to ensure that the prime objective of your businesses today is to operate profitably at all times, and at a level which allows the owners to draw a living wage, and make adequate superannuation contributions on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis for as long as the business operates.

If this can be achieved, any risk of the business not being able to be sold at the time it needs to be sold, or selling for a price far less than the amount needed for retirement, is completely mitigated. The bonus of course being that, if the business is able to be sold when desired, all proceeds are simply icing on the cake, and the price obtained is immaterial.

The difficulty in reaching this outcome is that few SME business owners have the achievement of a minimum level of profit as their prime and ongoing business objective.

It may sound easy enough, but it takes both foresight and discipline, as well as dogged determination on behalf of the business owner to implement, enforce and continually reinforce everything required to keep all endeavours of the business focuses on achieving the level of profit which allows the consistent payment of wages to the owners, and the making of the required level of superannuation contributions on a regular basis.

Is your business paying you a wage and making regular contributions to a superannuation fund on your behalf?

Is the making of a required minimum level of profit the prime business objective of your business?

Is your business culture capable of being reshaped to allow such an objective to be successfully implemented?

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New Eyes Rectify SME Blindness

2010-02-09T10:26:00.002+11:00

Being a SME business owner can be both lonely and demanding and often this can result in the business owner experiencing the “not being able to see the forest for the trees” syndrome.

One effect of suffering from this quite common affliction is that a SME business owner can start to live wholly in their own world, and eventually lose sight of the bigger, business picture. I call this affliction SME Blindness.

The very nature of business ownership in the SME environment is such that SME business owners often have to severely stretch their personal skill sets, and can find that they are spending most of their time engaged in activities that are far from the best use of their time and abilities, and which tend to bury them deeper and deeper into their own darkening world.

The amount of time engaged in such activities, usually mostly of an operational nature, also makes it harder for the SME business owner to be as strategic in their decision making as they need to be if they want to grow and prosper with their business endeavours, and be well prepared to face greater challenges in the future with their eyes wide open.

In many cases, the business concerned is the owner’s “baby”, and the attachment can be so strong that objective analysis and cutting the umbilical cord when necessary, are almost impossible when the business is not performing as it should, or major changes need to be made to ensure ongoing survival. We all know that no mother ever had an ugly baby, but if you look around, some are definitely better looking than others, but who would ever directly tell a mother that she had an ugly baby.

If your business is not performing to your expectations, perhaps it is now time to bring in an independent pair of fresh eyes to help you to critically look at your business, so that you can gain new perspectives, and can then utilise the insights gained through this process to implement the appropriate changes to re-invigorate your business.

There are many ways you can avail yourself of a fresh pair of eyes for your business, but first you need to determine what will work best for you, your team, and your business.

You should consider your own strengths as well as the strengths of your business, your own ego and the culture of your business, your willingness to change and the capability of your business to adapt and quickly adjust to changes, the cash flow of your business and its financial capacity to meet any costs involved, and the adequacy of yourself and your team to take your business to a new level, or in a different direction.

Once you determine what you believe is holding yourself and your team back from successfully growing your business to the level that matches your expectations (remembering that this is your reality, but analysis by others may subsequently come up with different findings) you can target the market to find the fresh pair of eyes you need to give you a greater and fresher independent perspective.

You might decide to find a mentor, access community or local government resources, utilise resources from any associations of which you are a member, hire a business coach, engage a business advisor, call in a management consultant, or actually employ (either part-time or full-time) a good business manager, with complementary skill sets to your own.

Whatever you choose, you must be willing to work with the person concerned, and make sure that you establish upfront, how you will value their contribution. Where appropriate, ensure that where fees are involved, you look on the fee as an investment in the future of your business, not a cost to minimize at the expense of the quality of the outcomes likely to be produced.

In general, look for a pair of eyes that are well qualified, have broad business experience, have owned a business themselves, have a track record that demonstrates good analytical and consultancy skills, and who will commit to providing their expertise for as long as it takes for you to extract all that you can from the relationship.

Is your business well and truly in need of a fresh set of eyes to flesh out the reasons why your business is not doing as well as expected?

Are you willing to expose yourself to that level of scrutiny for the greater good of your business?

Do you see the cost that you may incur in bringing in a fresh pair of eyes to look over your business as an investment in the future of your business or an expense to be minimized?

Posted via web from Unique Insights

Federise your Business for Ultimate Success

2010-01-31T11:52:00.003+11:00

Living in Melbourne, the home city of the 2010 Asia Pacific Grand Slam of Tennis, otherwise known as the Australian Open, it has been hard to escape the blanket exposure Roger Federer has received over the last two weeks, as he has danced his way to yet another Grand Slam Final.

Whilst I have always been conscious of the growing legend that Roger Federer is creating as his career trajectory continues unabated, the statistics rolled out in the local media throughout the last week or so, and the ever growing list of records he is breaking or simply extending further, are simply breathtaking.

Taking in his clinical approach to winning his semi-final the other night, I began to wonder what lesson for business success could be found by analysing the real essence of Roger Federer.

This article is being written and will be published prior to Roger playing off in the final this evening against the great British hope Andy Murray, but the outcome of this single match will not change the person that Roger has become, or the success of brand Federer, other than creating more records, should he be successful.

Amazing as it may seem, the essential essence of Roger Federer and his keys to achieving unbelievable sporting and financial success, can be found in words starting with the letter P.

So here is a comprehensive list of the secrets to business success, as distilled from the exploits of one supreme sportsman, using only words commencing with the letter P.

Apply the lessons of each of these P elements to your business, and watch it take on a new life.

1) Preparation

Roger never comes to a tournament unprepared to go the full distance. He leaves nothing to chance and reliance on luck has never been his approach. His fitness has always been a key element of his success, and he has employed the best to ensure that it stays that way.

2) Practice

Roger is the ultimate example of practice making perfect, the ease at which he executes his strokes, moves around the court, anticipates opponent’s moves and clinically steps up to a higher level whenever necessary, screams out hours and hours of practice and continual refinement of technique.

3) Participation

Roger is a participant in the wider world of tennis other than just participating as a player. His voice is respected and he gives his time to advancing the interests of all professional tennis players. His approach should see his “tennis career” extend well beyond his playing days.

4) Performance

Roger is the ultimate performer. He always brings his A game to the court and spectators know that regardless of whether or not the match is competitive, they will observe a master in action, and leave with a finer appreciation of what it takes to succeed at the highest level.

5) Professionalism

Roger and professionalism go hand in hand, which is a lot more than can be said of all of his contemporaries. Has there ever been a more professional sportsperson. I doubt it. Long after matches are over, Roger is still giving media interviews which he conducts in English, German and French, respecting the needs of various media organisations.

6) Persistence

Roger is nothing if not persistent. He waited a number of years before achieving his first success at Grand Slam level, and once having tasted success, he has persisted with all of the work required to maintain ongoing success, in a highly competitive environment.

7) Personality

Roger is regarded as one of the nicest people to ever compete and succeed consistently at the highest level of his chosen sport. His personality is also his brand, and surely brand Federer, is now one of the most valued brands going around. The brand reflects the person and the personality continually adds value to the brand.

8) Posture

Roger walks on to the court and no-one is in any doubt that he is there to do the business of winning. Off court his posture is one of co-operative endeavour to assist those who support the periphery of the world that he inhabits as he plies his trade. His standing outside the tennis world continues to grow, and his work with his own foundation supports this growing respect.

9) Pride

Roger takes great pride in his achievements but suppresses the temptation to let his ego become rampant as a consequence of climbing many tall mountains on the way to where he is today. He now plays for his place in history as the best male tennis player to ever play the game.

10) Projection

Roger projects the expectation of being successful in all of his tennis endeavours and whilst this may be intimidating for opponents he does not overtly set out to intimidate lesser opponents. None the less, he always projects the intent that winning is his sole objective when he steps onto the court.

11) Power

Roger exercises power in a controlled and deliberate manner. His power comes from both his physical prowess and well developed techniques and from his status as a champion of his chosen field. He has not been known to use his power unwisely or inappropriately in any endeavours on or off the court.

12) Promotion

Roger quietly and judiciously, continually promotes both his own brand and the sport which has richly rewarded him, over the years. He is now assiduously promoting his own foundation, and during the current Grand Slam, he used his promotion skills to raise considerable funds for the people of Haiti.

13) Patience

Roger is now clearly a patient man. Success did not come immediately to him, he was somewhat petulant in his earlier days, and seen to be in a hurry but now is approaching statesman status, whilst continuing to compete successfully at the highest level.

14) Perfection

Roger will dispute this, but in the eyes of tennis players and supporters worldwide, Roger Federer is as close to the perfect tennis player that anyone is ever likely to see in their lifetimes. He is blessed with natural talent, but has carefully honed this talent on a consistent basis for over ten years, to reach that state of perfection.

15) Predictability

Roger created a new record this week in reaching his 23^rd consecutive Grand Slam semi-final. Tournament organisers, the media, the paying spectators and many other stakeholders have benefitted from this predictability over the last 5 years. No other player gets close in terms of predictability, and few would ever bet against Roger before a semi-final.

16) Profitability

Roger has redefined tennis as a business and is probably one of very many who treat it as such. His predictability as demonstrated above ensures consistent cash flow and avoids the peaks and troughs of revenue generation. Brand Federer continues to grow in value and it would be impossible to estimate the earnings potential of this brand over the next twenty years or so.

There you have it, sixteen words, each starting with the letter P, which defines why Roger Federer experiences a level of success which, others only dream about. As a business owner you can learn valuable lessons through assessing yourself and your business against such precise benchmarks.

How do you and your business measure up?

Where can you take action using these lessons to grow your business to a new level?

Do you have what it takes to climb your personal mountains?

Posted via web from Unique Insights

Attack it Before it Gets Big Enough to Eat You.

2010-01-19T16:23:00.004+11:00

As business owners, we are always aware that there are problems we should be addressing in various areas of our business, but often we confine them to the too hard basket, or turn a blind eye to them, in the vain hope that they will somehow just go away, or someone else will resolve them for us.

The chief reason for this particular mindset is not an unwillingness to deal with all of the problems of running and operating a business, but rather the propensity of small business owners to focus on today’s most urgent problem, as well as older problems that have recently assumed a greater level of importance, due to the damage they are now inflicting on the business.

The downside of this understandable approach is that as a business owner you can get blind-sided by what was initially a small problem, but which has festered out of sight and mind, to become a much bigger problem that is about to bite you when you least expect it.

So how do you break the cycle and address problems as they arise, and when they are easier to resolve, rather than just putting them aside to deal with later? The following six step process may assist you to address the tendency to ignore problems until it is too late, and the damage has been done.

1) Identify it is real and then quantify the extent and rate severity.

The fact that someone says something is a problem doesn’t necessarily mean that it is. It may actually be a symptom of an unidentified larger problem, or a consequence of a misunderstanding, or a deficit of knowledge, about the relevant subject matter.

Once you have established the problem is real, you need to quickly quantify the extent of the problem, and rate its severity relative to your business operations. This will allow you to establish an order of priority in taking action to resolve a series of problems if you have more than one to address.

2) List the key benefits of solving the problem immediately.

Look at the problem from the perspectives of; the business, the shareholders, employees, external stakeholders, customers/clients etc, and list what the key benefits of resolving the identified problem will be for each group. This exercise should be quick and should also determine how widespread the effects of not solving the problem will be. It will also assist in pointing you in the right direction for Step 3.

3) Collect and evaluate a range of potential solutions.

Don’t just rely on your own intuition or knowledge when considering potential solutions or you may miss more effective or more efficient solution that are readily available. Share the problem around and canvas, as widely as you deem necessary relative to the severity of the problem, for suggestions on how it can be effectively and efficiently resolved.

Allow only a short period for feedback, and as soon as this expires, evaluate the suggestions and rank them from the best to the least attractive, in terms of resolving the problem quickly.

4) Evaluate the chosen suggestions against the tools and resources available to implement.

What may have been rated the best solution could, on closer examination of what tools and resources will be required to implement it, be relegated down the list of preferred solutions. It is therefore necessary to carefully evaluate each suggested solution, so that the one to be proceeded with can actually be successfully implemented.

5) Sell the chosen solution to those who will implement it.

This is an important step to ensuring that the problem identified is addressed and put to bed. The benefits to the business of resolving the problem as identified in Step 2, should be highlighted again, and specific individuals charged with implementing the solution within a specific time frame.

6) Check implementation is complete and validate that problem is now buried.

This final step is critical. On the completion date check with those charged with implementing the solution to ascertain that full implementation is completed, and then validate the outcome is as expected.

As part of this process always ask, if in implementing this solution whether any other problems were identified, which now should be addressed. You will be surprised how often resolving one problem assists in identifying others that also need to be addressed.

There you have it, a quick and simple 6 step process to dealing with problems as they arise, rather than when they create a fire, which you may or may not be able to put out.

***********************************************************************************

Are you a business owner or manager who sweeps problems under the carpet rather than dealing with them when they arise?

Do you see the value in using this six step process to ensure problems do not fester in your business?

What will you do when you next become aware of a small problem in your business?

Turn Employees into Raving Advocates

2010-01-12T16:03:00.003+11:00

How fantastic would it be for your future business revenue, if every one of your employees was a raving advocate for yourself, your business, and the products or services you offer to the market?

It is not hard to see that a concerted effort, to encourage all of your employees to raving advocates rather than just wage slaves, is clearly in your best interests.

What is difficult to understand, is why so few businesses have ever managed to succeed, in achieving such an optimum outcome.

Because it is an impossible task, I hear you mutter!

Not really.

It can be achieved, but only if you decide to make the challenge of turning all of your employees into raving ambassadors, a key focus for your business strategy over the next 12 to 18 months, and you are willing, and able to lead from the front, to make sure it happens.

If you are up to the challenge, the first thing you need to do is to change your own thinking and make absolutely sure that you acknowledge to yourself, and then accept, that you have the right to expect your employees to bring business into your enterprise from their own personal networks, and also through their advocacy of your business in their own, outside working hours, interactions with others.

It is a fair assumption that the majority of your employees (for whom you sign the pay cheques and who, in the main, are dependent on this income) will, in the right circumstances, under the right conditioning, and responding to effective management, be willing to meet your reasonable expectations as to the personal contribution required from them, to help your business grow and prosper.

Obviously, if you don’t currently have any level of expectation in respect to employee advocacy of your business, you won’t have any systems, policies and processes in place to encourage, reward, direct and manage employee activity in this arena.

Therefore, if you want the rewards which flow from having a team of raving advocates on your payroll, you will need a lot more than just rhetoric, to achieve ultimate success.

A very comprehensive and complex book could be written on the subject of how to get your employees to adopt your business as their own and become its raving advocates, so this article will only attempt to point you in the right direction, and suggest a few of the steps which will most likely need to be taken, to deliver the desired outcome.

An understanding of the Sphere of Influence is a good starting point. Basically it is said that the average adult in the workforce has a personal sphere of influence (to varying degrees) over approximately 200 people. Multiply this by the number of employees in your business, and you will quickly see the tremendous potential for your business to greatly increase its own sphere of influence, by tapping into each employee’s network.

In addition to people already in employee’s networks, the majority of employees through community activities, sporting pursuits, entertainment choices etc, interact every year with hundreds of people they have not previously met, providing you with great opportunities to help them to help you, by tailoring their answers to the age old questions; Who do you work for? What are they like to work for? What do they actually do?

You can also assist your employees to help you by providing them with scripted conversation starters to open up more opportunities for them to be asked these questions.

So how do you get all of your employees onboard with your challenge to turn them into raving advocates for your business?

The first step is to communicate that you regard each employee as an extension of yourself and, regardless of their individual roles, your expectation of each employee is that they will personally make an ongoing, and measurable contribution, to introducing new business to your enterprise.

The next step is to communicate to your employees the benefits to the business if they all meet your expectations, and ask them to tell you what it would take collectively, and individually, for them to become raving advocates.

You may get a surprise as to some of the answers you receive, and if you strike initial reticence, the following list can be used to generate possibilities;

a)      Group rewards if new business generated through employee activities meets minimum targets ie; Bigger, better Christmas Party in a fantastic location.

b)      Individual rewards for those who exceed expectations by wide margins ie; pay increase or bonuses.

c)       Training programs during work hours to prepare employees for the role of raving advocate and to enhance their understanding of the importance of this role to the ongoing success of your business ie; networking skills training.

d)      Special discounts on company products or services for both employees who embrace the raving advocate role, and those whom they introduce to your business.

e)      Allow employees to develop a clear Unique Selling Proposition for your product or service that they can identify with, and which they can also easily articulate.

f)       Profiling individual employees in the company newsletter along with photos of them with new customers/clients they have introduced to the business.

g)      Allow employees a key role in building a Facebook fan page for your business and allow them ongoing participation in this endeavour.

h)      Allow employees to host seminars for their own contacts to learn about company products or services and provide everything needed to ensure each seminar is successful.

i)        Let employees have a degree of control over their work environment and give them the tools they identify as being necessary to turn them into raving advocates; ie free or discounted wireless broadband modem with shaped and limited data allowance for home use, for the purpose of promoting your business through their own social media activities.

j)        Set up an employee run (perhaps management moderated) blog for your business where employees can blog to their hearts content about you, your business, your products/services and anything else that those subscribing to the blog are interested in and will engage with your business as a consequence of that interest

k)      Allow time of in lieu of approved, after hours endeavours, by employees at networking events, seminars and presentations they make to their contacts on behalf of your business.

l)        Throw and end of month party each month for all employees and use it as an informal forum to thank all contributors, single out exceptional efforts for specific praise or monthly awards, and reinforce expectations.

m)    Provide sought after privileges ie; a car parking spot to the employee(s) deemed to have supported to the highest degree the role of raving advocate over a specific period, and allow them the use of the privilege until the end of the next review period.

n)      Agree to review company policies, rules and procedures to remove barriers which may prevent employees wanting to embrace the company as a raving advocate.

o)      Make it clear that any managers who themselves become roadblocks or discourage employees in any way from being willing to be raving advocates of the business, through their actions or inactions, will not have a long term future in the business.

p)      Agree to build appropriate systems and develop the relevant policy and procedures to ensure that raving advocacy by employees becomes the way we do business around here, ie; effect and embed the change in business culture which must happen, and

q)      Anything else you can think of to facilitate the change you require in your employees.

The next step is to decide on the actual expectation level that you will apply and ensure that you get employee agreement that this is a realistic expectation relative to employee’s wages/ salaries and the trade-offs conceded to encourage them to become your raving advocates.

Once this critical agreement is reached, the next step is to decide on and create the necessary systems, policies and procedures that will embed the activity, as a key component of your operations, and provide the framework for effectively managing the process.

The steps which follow will be the steps needed to implement decisions made, monitor progress, review outcomes, moderate expectations if required, and respond to feedback from the employees themselves.

There will be of course many more things that you could do and probably will need to do to create the ultimate sales machine for your business, but to achieve success, you will need to play the role of idea champion, and make this endeavour one of your key priorities.

Can you clearly see the benefit of creating an army of raving advocates out of your employees?

What do you estimate to be the ROI you might achieve from allocating your time and the resources available to you to deploy this army?

Are you up to the challenge?

Posted via web from Unique Insights

Is Social Media Sucking your Business Dry?

2010-01-05T21:03:00.003+11:00

Being blissfully unaware of the entire social media landscape before embracing LinkedIn about two years ago, and then branching out over the last six months or so to embrace facebook, twitter, blogger, instant messaging, web-based e-mail and the like, I had no idea of the amount of time, that active participants in this so-called social media age, must commit to remain active and relative to their audiences.

As a management consultant, I am now concerned for all business owners who have employees with direct and unfettered internet access, and who do not employ an IT manager, or have a very good understanding themselves, of the social media landscape.

My concern stems from the fact that even with an IT manager or a good understanding of social media, it is far from an easy task to determine the extent to which company time and resources are being misappropriated through the private social media activities undertaken by employees.

Without one, or both of these elements, at your disposal to stem systematic abuse, your business profitability, is at the mercy of your employees.

Apart from the time such private activities can suck out of any business day, there is also the cost of bandwidth effectively stolen from your business and used to download music, movies, video clips etc to ipods, mobile telephones, flash drives and the like, for private use (the fact that such devices can also be used to download and steal business data, is a separate issue all together).

Those of you with wireless capabilities enabled in your business premises may, to your cost, find that employees and their friends are accessing your internet connection for downloads after hours, via smart phones or laptops operated from cars parked within range of your business broadband signal.

The critical danger will be where you have one, or more employees, who develop an addiction to social media activities. There are already terms such as Facebook addict, Twitter addict, and Social Media Whore, being bandied about on the internet, with some users applying these labels to themselves.

Don’t just think that it won’t affect any of your employees, and remember that it is not only the young, that are heavily into social media. You need to develop a real awareness of the dangers both financial, and potentially legal, of providing unfettered internet access to your employees.

Remember that if you feed an addiction, it will only get worse.

As with gambling, alcohol, and illicit drug addicts, it is ultimately a downhill spiral, with the employer bearing the brunt of the collateral damage, and ultimately paying a high price, before eventually needing to dismiss the errant employee.

Don’t think social media is a passing fad. If you have lived in blissful ignorance like myself until recently, you are about to be hit by a fundamental change in the way in which the world communicates and transacts.

I am old enough to have commenced work before mainframe computing impacted on the workplace, and well before personal computers were thought of, and certainly many years before that other supposed passing fad, the internet, was available to the masses.

I have no doubt that unauthorised social media activities by employees are going to become a large and problematic issue for small business owners, especially those not equipped to fully understand, much less handle, the risks inherent in this growing problem.

Do you know just how much time your employees spend on unauthorised social media activities during working hours?

Would you have any idea if any of your employees are social media addicts?

Do you understand that this is an issue that you can ignore, but only at your own peril?

Posted via web from Unique Insights

Blogging is Tough Going for Business Owners

2009-12-23T19:42:00.003+11:00

Writing and posting a regular business blog is seen by many as an efficient and cost effective way to promote your business expertise and your business brand. It is also now seen as an integral element of a necessary social media strategy, one that businesses that continue to ignore embracing, do so at their own peril.

Whilst it may be correct to say that doing it yourself is an efficient and cost effective means of blogging, this statement relates to an ideal world, and the reality will be far from this for most business owners, who will generally be far from efficient and effective at this multi-faceted task.

Unless you possess a fantastic skill set, have a great handle on the language and its nuances, can find the time and the clear headspace to do the writing task properly, and you can then be disciplined enough to publish and promote your blog on a consistent and regular cycle, I would suggest you save yourself a lot of pain, and look at your alternatives.

As a first time blogger, with no previous experience at all of blogging, twittering, and face booking (if that is the right term), it has been a tough ongoing assignment for me to establish a blogging platform, choose topics to blog about, write and edit same, publish and promote each blog, and monitor the statistics to see who was reading them, where the readers are located, and how they accessed each blog.

Having said that, this article is the twenty-fifth consecutive, weekly business blog, that I have authored and posted to the "Unique Insights" Blog Site, and it will be the last for this year. Along this short journey, the Blog Site was awarded a Top 100 Business Blog Award, and it is now consistently read by business owners in over 35 countries, each week.

My experience over this last six months, tells me that the discipline required, the brain power necessary, the creativity that needed to be found, the understanding of audience needs that must be developed, as well as the ability to continually maintain a high level of enthusiasm, will mount a serious challenge to most business owners wanting to do it all themselves.

As a management consultant, I felt it was necessary for me to experience exactly what a business owning client would go through, if I was to recommend to them, that they promote themselves and their business, via a blog that they needed to write and publish themselves. This was the driver that sustained me through my first six months of blogging, and without this driver, it would have been difficult to maintain the momentum.

Following my own personal experience, my recommendation to any business owner thinking of doing it themselves, would be to outsource the majority of the heavy lifting that is involved, and just play the key roles of idea generator and final editor.

However, before embarking down this path, I would strongly suggest all business owners need to be absolutely clear on what outcomes they expect to achieve from blogging, at what cost, and by when, so that they can adequately brief anyone they engage, and have a way of measuring return on investment, so that they can stop the activity if it is not delivering to expectations.

Will I continue blogging, yes I will, as I have now gone through the pain of acquiring the required skills and have caught the bug. However, commencing with this article, and for all future articles, I will be posting via e-mail through Posterous (which I have just discovered and recommend anyone just starting out blogging should investigate) to my own domain, rather than via Blogger at the Blogspot domain.

Will your business have a social media strategy in place for 2010?

Will a blog site be part of your social media strategy if you adopt one?

Will you outsource the heavy lifting and stay focussed on areas where your strengths lie?

As this is my last article for 2009, I would like to wish all of my subscribers and casual readers, a happy festive season and a happy, healthy and prosperous year in 2010.

Posted via web from Unique Insights

Stay Focused on the Main Game

2009-12-15T21:25:00.002+11:00

As a business owner you are the focus of all incoming demands on your time and attention whether or not the demands are solicited or unsolicited. You are also the owner of “the buck stops here” label, so you probably also feel the burden of responsibility for staying on top of all relevant knowledge and other readily available information, so that your business can remain competitive with your immediate, as well as emerging, competitors.

As hard as it is to do, it is imperative for the ongoing success of your business, for you to remain totally focused on the main game, and not get distracted or sidelined by unsolicited demands for your time, or through allocating far too much of your limited available time, to attempting to know and understand everything you believe you need to know and understand, in order to stay in front of your competitors.

One problem commonly experienced by business owners is that they have never really decided what their main game is, and as a consequence, they devote far too much of their time and energies to activities for which they never see an adequate financial return, one commensurate with the time and energy devoted to those activities.

If you fall into this category, it is beholden upon yourself for the sake of your business and your own peace of mind, to review your current business activities, make a clear decision as to what in future will be the main game of the business, and then focus as much energy as you can on preparing a strategic plan for the future of the business, and then to developing a clearly focussed business plan that will facilitate the eventual success of the chosen business strategy.

Should you already be perfectly clear on the main game of your business, but the business is not living up to its potential, then it is highly likely that a lack of focus on this main game due to the constant demands on your time from others as well as the need for you to be the resource and information gatherer for your business, is a key reason for the under-performance of the business.

The following are a few suggestions that you might consider implementing in your business to ensure that, at all times, your major focus is on your main game, and not on participation in all of the sideshows to that main game.

• Implement a policy of only conducting face to face meetings by appointment, and limit these appointments to only people who can clearly be seen to have a real and positive contribution to make, in assisting you to win at your main game.

• Hire a “bulldog” as a gatekeeper to ensure that those attempting to circumvent the appointment process, only ever attempt this tactic once, and without success.

• Let everyone you deal with know the actual nature of your main game, and ensure that they are clear on where you would welcome their input, but equally clear that outside these boundaries their input will not be entertained.

• Learn to accept that you cannot possibly, regardless of the industry you operate in, personally ever acquire all the knowledge needed to run a successful business, and be prepared to import expertise, as and only when actually needed, and then only for specific well defined tasks.

• Realise that the vast majority of information that circulates and is always at your fingertips if you want to seek it, or is constantly being pushed and marketed to you incessantly even if you are not seeking it, is in the main stuff you already know, just repackaged, relabelled, pushed through new mediums or by new gurus, and really adds little value to your business.

• Use a media monitoring service to deliver to you a weekly tailored package of information published about topics specific to the information needs of your business, and allocate no more than an hour or two each week to digesting the information provided.

• Have someone else open your incoming mail and make sure they clearly understand that the only thing you want to see in your in tray is real business mail, and only then, if that mail is clearly and directly related to the activities of your main game.

In making sure that your deliberate focus is on your main game, and you are not wasting time and effort participating in sideshows, you will not only make a far better personal contribution to the success of your business, but you will also send a clear message to others, as to where they should be paying the most attention.

Are you as focused as you should be on your main game?

Do you have strategies in place to help you stay focused on your main game?

Is everyone associated with your business aware of what the main game is and where they need to put their focus?

Time for an End of Year Tidy Up

2009-12-09T17:37:00.000+11:00

As the end of 2009 fast approaches, a common activity for a lot of small business owners is to try and finalise as much business as possible, before taking a well earned rest over the festive season.

Unfortunately, what subsequently tends to occur as a consequence of all of this end of year “busyness” is that the opportunity to refresh the working environment for the coming year tends to be overlooked, and the potential for significant productivity improvement in the following year, are missed.

Often, the perceived need to finalise as much business as possible before the festive season kicks in is not driven by client/customer expectations, but more from business owners wanting to keep their staff productive, right up until the holiday break.

I would suggest that any internal capacity not directly needed to be applied to finalising business where commitments have been given or expectations raised, should at the tail end of the year, be devoted to an internal clean up of the working environment, in preparation for a clean start to 2010.

A range of tasks including;
a) Removal and disposal of all unused, obsolete, surplus to needs, damaged or otherwise unnecessary items from the work place environment,
b) Re-organising, remodelling, streamlining, and any other actions to improve physical filing and storage systems for physical documents and office supplies,
c) Reviewing existing office, work station, furniture and equipment layouts which have been in place for some time, to determine if the layouts remain optimal for the work currently being performed,
d) A thorough clean of all of the areas that cleaners never get to because of furniture and equipment placement, height limitations of their equipment, and difficult access or access restrictions,
e) Attending to finalising all database updates, queries, revisions, deletions, annual calendar year report production, and other such actions to ensure pristine database records and improved functionality, for the start of the coming year.
f) Identifying areas where touch up painting, minor repairs, lighting upgrades, carpet/tile replacement and the like can be quickly attended to before the festive season,
g) Replacing all half dead, or well past their used by date, indoor plants with better and more suitable indoor plants, to help improve internal air quality and general workplace ambience,
h) Ensuring that all IT equipment, related backup systems, and virus protection programs are fully functional, and actually meet all current needs in terms of ongoing suitability and reliability, and
i) Checking that all fire protection systems, security systems, disaster recovery systems and the like are performing as expected, and as appropriate, for the holiday season and that the listed contact people and their contact details are actually current,
will ensure that staff are productively active, and effectively contributing towards a clean start in 2010, during what is traditionally regarded as the end of year wind down period.

If such a range of end of year activities is not part of your normal business operations, you stand a very good chance of being pleasantly surprised, as to how much more productive than normal, January/February 2010 will be for your business if you follow the above suggestions.

When was the last time your business conducted such a comprehensive list of end of year activities?

How often have you during the holiday break, been unable to relax and wind down, because of concerns that arise in your head after you have shut down the business for the break?

What effect do you think a tired work environment has on the productivity of your staff?

Are you asking the right questions?

2009-12-01T17:04:00.000+11:00

Business owners are busy people, and in their perpetual state of “busyness”, they often don't take the necessary time to carefully think about the right question to ask another party, in order to gain the correct information they need, to enhance the quality of their decisions.

Business owners are regularly faced with the need to make important decisions about matters in which they lack expertise, or sometimes even a basic understanding of the subject matter, and in these circumstances, asking weak questions, or the wrong questions, and then acting on the answers provided, can prove to be extremely costly.

Key business decisions, are often made on the run by business owners, without any more than the asking of cursory questions more aligned to reassurance than probing to ensure clear understanding and elicitation of quality information. It is decisions, made on the basis of such poor answers, that business owners often live to regret.

The right question should indicate to the other party that the issue is important in the context of a decision to be made, should inform them of the need to provide accurate and concise information, and should convey a sense of urgency in respect to the applicable decision time frames.

The right question is usually the best possible, simple question, that can be asked in the context of the overall objective that the actual decision needing to be made is aligned to in terms of supporting that objective, or successfully achieving it. The best, simple question, should lead the other party to ask themselves a range of more detailed questions, before they can provide the requested answer.

Whilst, determining the right question to ask, is a critical component in gathering information to assist in decision making, of equal importance is making sure that you are directing the right question to the right party. In other words, you need to be sure that the other party is actually qualified to provide the answer, and has the experience necessary to put the answer into a context relevant to you, and your business requirements.

Asking the right question of the right party has an additional element which needs to be taken into consideration. That element is ensuring that you ask the right question of the right party at the right time. There will be times when it is inappropriate to seek information if you want the best possible response, so the desire for instant gratification, may occasionally need to be tempered, until the timing is right.

The right question asked of the right party at the right time can be incredibly empowering for a business owner, and their business, especially if the answer elicited, provides more information than expected, and leads to a decision which is far superior to any decision that would otherwise have been taken.

How often do you give any consideration to the quality of the questions you ask others when requiring information to assist in your decision processes?

How do you determine who is the right party to ask the right question?

Can you temper your need for immediate gratification to ensure that the right question is asked of the right party at the right time?

You Can’t do Everything.

2009-11-24T17:25:00.000+11:00

The role of a business owner gets more complex by the day, and it is little wonder that many business owners find that by spreading themselves so thinly across all of the activities they need to accomplish each day, nothing ever gets done properly, or as quickly as is optimal for their business.

Many owners fall for the trap of trying to do everything themselves to keep costs down, but in reality, the cost to the business of the inefficiencies inherent in this approach, and the lack of necessary attention to the detail in any business which inevitably results, will generally outweigh any savings expected by the business owner, in adopting this "one man band" approach.

In working with a client recently, I identified that as the business owner he was trying to perform at least 16 clearly identifiable key roles, many of which were measurably not the best use of his available time, and some were critical roles for which he was not all that well qualified, to perform.

In the best interests of the business, an owner should step back from attempting to be the jack of all trades and the master of none, and look at where specifically in the business their skill set and personality can be utilised to greatest advantage and for the greatest return, and delegate or outsource the remaining roles to others, or another entity, that can do what is required in far less time, more effectively, and at relatively lower cost, than the cost of the owners time in completing the particular role(s) themselves.

The issue of control and inability to delegate raises its ugly head time and time again when examining why, small business owners in particular, continue to beat their heads against a brick wall in trying to accomplish everything themselves, but at considerable cost to themselves, their families and their businesses.

In an earlier article, “Four Critical Business Roles”, I explored and discussed my view that it is a very rare individual who is capable of effectively performing all of the critical roles required to be performed in a SME business, and that one’s personality will to a high degree dictate the roles one can effectively perform, and which will positively contribute, to the expected outcomes for the business.

Where the business owner’s personality is not suited to one or more of the four critical roles which need to be performed on a daily basis, then the business will be facing an uphill battle to achieve any real level of success, and the business owner will constantly frustrated with his/her inability to achieve the outcomes desired, in the time frame available.

The answer is to recognise that “one man bands” generally run out of steam long before the businesses they operate grow to a level where they can be regarded as successful, sustainable businesses that are no longer reliant on the input of just one person, and take action now to make the most effective and productive use of your time, and pay others to perform the roles for which the business is paying a higher than necessary cost for you to perform.

Why do you continue to try to do everything yourself?

Do you have an inability to let go and an aversion to delegating or outsourcing?

Do you now understand that the cost of doing everything yourself is the future level of success of your business?

Rewards; Gold Mine or Minefield?

2009-11-18T00:27:00.000+11:00

Rewards, to facilitate ongoing performance or to effect change in the company’s culture, are not generally used effectively, or often enough, by many otherwise astute, business owners.

Too often, consultants observe the wrong behaviours being rewarded by business owners, resulting in unintended consequences which can, and often do, derail well thought out business plans and lead to serious financial issues.

In business, rewards are generally allocated for the purposes of developing people and influencing changes in their behaviour to prepare them for alternative or higher level roles, or for effecting required organisational changes and improving overall company financial performance.

At an individual level, rewards encourage people to learn, prompt the taking of necessary steps for personal growth, facilitate the desire to make greater contributions to the company’s well being, entice the desire to lead others and leverage off their success, and flame the passion in those who aspire to top leadership roles.

At a company level, rewards encourage the development of the required company culture, promote teamwork throughout the company, shift the performance focus to the achievement of specific financial outcomes, and display how serious the company is in respect to compliance with ethical and governance norms.

Rewards can take many forms, some which are familiar to most business owners, and many which may not be so familiar for one reason or another. Common rewards include;

a) a simple thank you
b) quiet words of encouragement
c) transfer to chosen area or location
d) promotion to a new position
e) better shift or roster allocation
f) paid day(s) off
g) preferred holiday dates
h) tickets to special events
i) discounts on company products/services
j) cash bonuses
k) trips at company expense
l) company shares or options
m) company expense account
n) child care/education allowances
o) company car

Used well, and with careful attention to ensuring that any reward offered is actually rewarding the right behaviour(s) to deliver the specific outcome the business wishes to achieve, rewards can turn any business into a veritable gold mine.

Used unwisely, not nearly often enough, or only in favoured parts of the business, rewards can create a minefield for the unsuspecting business owner. Whilst it is beyond the scope of this article to provide the level of guidance needed to step a business owner through the minefield that reward systems can become, the following tips may prevent a little pain;

a) ensure that you reward only behaviours that clearly support and reinforce company culture,
b) ensure that rewards to encourage high performance in all areas of the business are spread throughout all operational and support areas,
c) ensure that everyone, without exception, receives a reward of some kind when key elements of the business strategy are delivered on time and on budget,
d) ensure that evidenced behaviour supporting required cultural change is immediately rewarded and crucially,
e) ensure that any reward offered, especially at an individual level, is of a value to the recipient equal to, or exceeding, the cost of the reward to the company.

How well do you understand how rewards motivate or demotivate?

Do you use appropriate rewards to encourage peak performance and staff retention?

When did you last reward yourself?

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Are You a Slave to your Business?

2009-11-11T10:11:00.001+11:00

One of the perceived, toughest tasks for any business owner, is to find enough hours in the day to achieve even half of what needs to be done every day, to ensure that their business survives and grows to a point where they see a good return on the time, effort, and money invested.

I disagree with this common perception as I find that, as a general rule, if a business it is going to achieve success in the long run, it is more likely to do so if the owner does not personally put in any more than 50 to 55 hours per week on a continual basis, once the initial business startup phase is over.

In my considered opinion, consistently working more hours than this per week, especially with the pressures that most business owners work under, will not only lead to reduced personal effectiveness, but will more than likely also have adverse effects on the health, general wellbeing, and most importantly, the personal relationships of the business owner.

Often, much of the time a business owner spends working in or on their business, becomes unproductive time for a whole host of reasons, but a key one being the old adage that the more time available, the longer required tasks will take to complete.

The key to striking the right balance between the time allocated to the business and time allocated to ensuring that physically, intellectually, and emotionally you are as fit as possible to be super productive when working, is to first set a limit on the average number of hours per week, you will devote to your business, over any given period in the future.

Once you have determined the maximum number of hours per week you will allocate to working in and on the business, you need work out how you will then complete all the tasks you usually need to complete each week, in the reduced time frame.

There is a real art in determining the amount of time you should allocate to each specific task, but if you start by looking at how long it currently takes you, and halving that due to the fact that you will be more focussed, more energetic and more determined to complete it in a specific time, you will have a good starting point.

The next step is a simple one, but requires a good self knowledge as to your own capabilities at various times of the day, and on different days of the week. What you need to do is break the week up into the number of timeslots necessary, which may be of different durations, to complete all of the tasks you need to complete for the week.

A couple of good tips are firstly, to set aside either one or two timeslots each day to deal with incoming e-mails and other correspondence and leave them alone at all other times, and secondly, when dealing with the key tasks requiring the most concentration have a “do not disturb under pain of death policy” to stop phone calls, staff, visitors and anything other than dire emergencies, from stopping the flow of your concentration.

The final thing you should do as part of this process, is identify whether or not some of the tasks you are allocating to yourself, are really the best use of your time, and/or could be better performed by someone else, with a lower skill set than your own.

If you are serious about assisting your business to become a long term success, take action now to reduce your hours, and you and your business will reap the long term benefits. The simple process above, if implemented effectively, should shave a minimum of 15 hours per week off the time you currently put into your business, without any negative effect whatsoever.

Do you want to continue to be a time slave to your business?

Would you achieve more in less time if you were more focused, more energetic and more determined?

How will you celebrate seeing the light and limiting your time input to no more than 50 to 55 hours per week?

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Slash New Business Acquisition Costs

2009-11-03T11:46:00.001+11:00

Most business owners understand that the cost of acquisition of customers/clients is one of the major drains on the overall profitability of their particular business enterprise. Unfortunately, a far fewer number, approach the task of ensuring that a high proportion of their new business comes from prospects referred to them via their customers/clients and business associates.

The downside of not treating the obtaining of consistent referral business as a real business strategy, and thereby devoting time and necessary resources to affect the required outcomes, is firstly, a higher cost of acquisition of new business and secondly, detrimental fluctuations in the monthly revenue generated from new business.

Realistically, as a business owner you cannot afford not to be doing everything you can to ensure that your business receives a consistent flow of referrals from satisfied customers/clients, and that the other businesses that you do business with, reciprocate by referring business to you.

The only way I know to consistent get referrals of potential new business from your own customers/clients is to set up a formal referral system, as part of the overall customer acquisition strategy of your business.

The key component of any referral system should be as follows;

a) a process for asking for referrals from customers/clients,
b) a process for acknowledging all referrals received,
c) a process for recording and monitoring progress of all referrals,
d) a process for rewarding referrals which result in new business,
e) a program of targeted training to ensure all staff understand both the importance of all referrals and the workings of the system you put in place to obtain same, and
f) a mechanism for rewarding staff for supporting the referral system.

The other major source of referrals of new business is through your own business associates, and this avenue should also be carefully considered, when establishing your referral system.

The key elements here are similar to those outlined for obtaining referral from customers/clients, but with business associates, you need to add the additional task of informing them fully of the types of new business you are specifically seeking, what your ideal new customer/client looks like, and what you intend doing for them as a reciprocal approach.

Without an overall customer acquisition strategy, which includes a formal referral process that is supported throughout the business, referrals of new business to you as a business owner, will always be inconsistent, and the level thereof always well below what it should be for a well run business.

What percentage of your new business comes from direct referral from existing customers/clients?

Do you have a formal customer acquisition strategy and does this include a referral strategy?

Do you currently devote sufficient time and other resources to ensuring that your business maximises its opportunities to become more profitable through generating the bulk of its new business via direct referrals?

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Sell like a Pre-Schooler

2009-10-27T16:45:00.001+11:00

Pre-schoolers never stop asking until they get what they need but unfortunately, most people tend to lose that ability to ask for what they need as they grow up and subsequently conform to external pressures from parents, teachers, early employers, social peers, and the general community in which they live.

As a business owner, the loss of this skill, to ask for what you need from those who control what you require, can have a highly detrimental effect on your businesses’ ability to increase its sales revenue.

Your business will therefore reap the benefits if you relearn the ability to ask for what you need in order to grow your business. So how do you start relearning what you once did intuitively as a pre-schooler?

Until you ask someone specifically to take an action, exchange something for something else, or subscribe to a different point of view, you might be selling hard, but you are not gaining any real ground. Therefore, if you have lost the ability to ask for specific outcomes that help you to advance your own agenda, you need to reprogram your brain back to that of a pre-schooler.

In a nutshell, you need to practice, and practice again, the art of asking for the outrageous, until you can do it without cracking up, flinching, sweating, or shaking uncontrollably, and can do it with utter conviction.

Try practicing to ask a prospect to pay $50,000.00 for the privilege of buying a clapped out second hand car, until you can do it in the expectation that you might just be able to pull it off one day.

When you can do this, you are ready to effectively ask for the small things you need your prospects to do in order for you to help them, and at the same time significantly increase the number of sales you make for your business, in any given time frame.

It may surprise you, but most people are happy to give you what you need if you ask in the right way at the right moment. Unfortunately, business owners struggling with making sufficient sales tend to telegraph that they are squeamish about asking for what they need, and as a consequence, their prospects feel the same way about giving and the sales never get booked.

Once you have determined exactly what it is that you and your business need your prospects to do for you, and you have a compelling reason (the future of your business) to ask for what you need, you should then be able to successfully apply what you have relearned, and you should then be rewarded by seeing a significant increase in your sales revenue.

When was the last time you really asked for exactly what you needed from your sales prospects?

A better question perhaps is, when was the last time you asked yourself what you want?

What will you now do differently?

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Learn to Sell with Your Ears

2009-10-20T09:48:00.000+11:00

One of the key roles of a business owner is to be the chief salesperson for the business itself, and in many instances this role also includes being the chief salesperson to the largest and most important customers.

Some business owners are very competent in one or both of these sales roles, but for many who do not have sales or marketing backgrounds, and even some who do, the necessity for them to perform these roles can often be quite challenging, and they often find that the efforts that they do put in, deliver less than optimal results.

Regardless of their backgrounds, all business owners can improve their sales performance if they remember the old adage “God gave you two ears and only one mouth, use them in that proportion, if you wish to be successful”.

When you are in front of a prospective customer or client for the first time, how much air time do you give to them? If the ration is not at least 70% of the time you spend with them, you are more than likely talking yourself out of a lot of new business.

How often do you interrupt your prospective customer or client during an average first interaction? Any interruption is a bad mistake. Apart from being seen as rude behaviour, the chances are high that you will not discover a key piece of information, which could help you win the business.

If a prospective customer or client says something you disagree with strongly, are you able to hold off countering with an argument before they have fully expressed their views? If you can't, you will establish the climate for multiple objections to your offering, as well as perhaps missing a hot button or two that you could later push to win the business.

Do you constantly intersperse your presentations with personal stories? Whilst personalising your presentation and building rapport in the initial phase of the first meeting is good form, constant story telling throughout a presentation wastes time, and can easily divert the dialogue away from the business at hand.

Are you a great finisher of other people's sentences? If you are, you will frustrate your prospective customer or client who will see you as a rude, unlikeable person with whom they will not want to do business on a long term basis. You will also be more often wrong than right in your assumptions, as to what they were about to say.

Do you clearly convey to your prospective customer or client your impatience for them to finish speaking so that you can make your point? This is a deadly habit as your prospect knows you are not listening to anything they are saying to you while you are rehearsing in your mind your response to what they said at an earlier point in their dialogue.

Whilst not regularly acknowledged, your eyes are also a tool to enhance communication and you need to be careful that yours don’t bore into your prospective customer or clients eyes like laser beams on full and continuous power. It is easy to overdo eye contact, and this will create tension in the person being subjected to such scrutiny, and this tension will usually block effective communication.

If you improve your listening skills in each of the above areas you will remove a significant barrier between yourself and your potential customers or clients thereby allowing you to more easily establish constructive relationships, which in turn will lead to far more successful business outcomes.

How many of these common listening mistakes are you currently making by force of habit?

When did you last do any training to improve your listening skills?

If you were to remove these listening mistakes completely from your sales presentations, what effect would that have on your closing ratios for new business, and what would this mean in terms of additional revenue for your business?

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Don’t Blow it Next Time

2009-10-13T15:09:00.000+11:00

As a business owner, you will most likely have walked away from at least one past business meeting or presentation with a sinking feeling in your stomach, usually providing you with very clear evidence that you had blown the opportunity, to get the business you were pursuing.

It is also likely, that whilst you suspected that you knew where you may have gone wrong, you were never quite sure whether it was a single factor, or a combination of many factors, that led to the less than desirable outcome.

The reality is that there are many key factors that a potential customer or client may take into consideration during their decision making process, and even if you present a compelling case, you do not have to go wrong on very many of these key factors, to effectively blow your hard won opportunity.

Your audience expect, and want a lot, from the person making the presentation to them, and the key factors they will take into account in exercising their judgement include;

• Are you a user of the specific the product or service you are pitching
• Are you displaying any signs of deception or game playing with them
• Are you wasting time their time by straying from the relevant factual information
• Do you share stories of other people using the product / service you offer
• Is your product/service a good deal with clear value at the lowest price possible
• Are you listening to them far more than you talk yourself
• Can you establish the market competitiveness of your pricing policy
• Do you remain positive and upbeat with no hint of negativity of any kind
• Do you convey and maintain sincerity along with showing a strong smiling face
• Do you refrain from inferring that bad decisions may have been made previously
• Are you demonstrating that you really like them as individuals and as a group
• Can you establish confidence that they will definitely get what they pay for
• Will you assist them to actually make and justify the purchase decision
• Are you able to show them exactly how you will support them after they buy
• Are you likely to pressure or harass them to make early decisions
• Did you treat them as adult decision makers
• Did you make them feel as they are special and important to your business
• Were you able to provide clear proof and valid evidence of all claims you made

The real secret to not blowing it in future, is to do whatever you have to do in terms of preparing for, delivering, and closing your pitch, with the utmost care, thereby ensuring that the potential customer or client ticks off on the vast majority, if not all, of these key factors, as your presentation progresses and concludes.

Think back to your last pitch for a piece of significant business where you feel that you really blew it, and you will most likely find that even from your own viewpoint you will be able to highlight one or two of the key factors, where you probably failed in the eyes of the prospect(s).

For your next important pitch for business, use this list of key factors as a checklist to help you prepare for both the presentation itself, and for carefully tailoring the content, to ensure you get as many ticks as possible from the potential customer / client.

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8 Tips to Prevent Negative First Impressions

2009-10-06T22:26:00.000+11:00

It is unfortunate, but nothing conveys nervousness or a lack of confidence more than negative body language, and given that we live in a very visual society, you will generally be judged on your body language alone, usually well before you have even had the chance to open your mouth.

As a business owner, you fortunately get to choose whether you are going to be your own best visual aid. The eight tips below can be used as a guide to assist you to demonstrate the body language required to create that critical positive first impression in all of your business interactions.

1) Be properly prepared for the particular activity in which you are to engage.
2) Ensure your posture is erect and conveys alertness.
3) Make a relaxed and confident approach towards those you will be engaging.
4) Make eye contact before you begin to speak.
5) Dress comfortably and appropriately to the environment you are entering.
6) Be conscious of what your hands are doing, or not doing.
7) Smile often.
8) If you wear glasses don't hide behind them, or use them as a crutch.

You also need to understand, that your gestures and mannerisms can help you achieve strong rapport and create a climate of trust, but if your gestures are not aligned to your message or your mannerisms annoy, they can also make people uncomfortable, or even antagonistic, towards you.

It is wise, if you do not already know, to learn quickly what mannerisms and gestures are used by people to convey defensiveness, reflection, suspicion, openness and co-operation, insecurity, and nervousness and ensure that you train yourself to recognise these, and use as appropriate to the situation you find yourself in.

If you can support a strong verbal message with positive and powerful body language, you will appear to your customers/clients as confident, creditable, and caring and in control; the end result of which will undoubtedly be, an increase in business for your enterprise.

Are you conscious of the message your body language conveys to others before you engage with them?

How well do you read the body language of others?

Have you ever filmed yourself doing presentations or conducting business meetings?

Good Questions Equal Great Business Strategy

2009-09-29T19:48:00.000+10:00

Reviewing your existing business strategy, or creating a business strategy for a new business venture, should not be seen as a complex and difficult task by any business owner or business manager. In fact, the process itself can be invigorating and exciting, and if done well, will certainly make your business and personal life somewhat easier, over the next twelve months.

Unfortunately, most readily accessible literature on this subject is focused on the development of business strategies by large corporate entities or similar sized public enterprises, and what little guidance is around for the SME business owner is still overly theoretical, and in my view far more complex than it needs to be, or the simplicity of suggested methodologies is far from adequate in being able to make a real difference to business outcomes.

In reality, the process of reviewing an existing business strategy, or creating one for a new business, can be distilled into an easy three part process. Firstly, asking and answering the right questions in respect of your business, secondly, collating all of the answers and grouping them into a small number of specific strategies, and thirdly, identifying all of the tasks which need to be performed to successfully implement each strategy.

So what are the right questions that you firstly need to answer? I suggest that the following nine questions should always be asked, and answered in a comprehensive manner, as the first part of the process of developing a new business strategy.

1) What business arena are we really operating in, and is this the business arena we want to operate in?
2) What market(s) do we want to serve with this business and which particular customers/clients?
3) What outcomes do we want to achieve in the next 3, 6, 9, &12 months, and by year 2, year 3 etc?
4) What resources will we need to progressively apply in the business to achieve these specific outcomes?
5) What actions need to be taken and by whom to gather these resources so they are available as needed?
6) What management and support structures will we need to initially have, and progressively upgrade?
7) What tools will we need to put in place to measure and report progress?
8) What external reporting requirements will we need to comply with, and how important are each of these?
9) What don’t we know, that we need to know, to manage known and unknown future risks?

Robust analysis of the answers that flow forth from the above process, and the grouping of these into relevant subject headings, will allow the second phase of the development of your business strategy to be finalised.

Ideally, the information so gathered, will allow you to quickly prepare a range of specific tasks for each of the following strategic areas;

1) Customer/Client Acquisition and Retention Strategies
2) People Acquisition and People Management Strategies
3) Resource Acquisition and Resource Management Strategies
4) Organisation Capability and Organisation Structure Strategies
5) Financial and Capital Management Strategies
6) Legal and Regulatory Compliance Strategies
7) Public Relations and Stakeholder Communication Strategies.

Once the full range of tasks has been identified for each of the strategic areas it is an easy matter to complete the third of the processes involved. That is the placing of timelines, costs or budgets, and responsibility for completion of each task to an individual or a team, against each specific task.

When this is completed your new business strategy is ready to be pulled together, documented, disseminated and put into action.

Do you have a strategic plan for your business?

If so, is it time you reviewed it and looked at it from a new angle?

If not, will this article provide you with the impetus to create one and run your business within its structured boundaries?

Business Planning Benefits Explained

2009-09-22T10:44:00.000+10:00

The discipline involved in preparing a formal written business plan will stand any business owner in good stead as their business grows, whereas anyone proceeding with a business venture of any kind without one, is generally at short odds not to fully capitalise on the opportunity, that they seek to exploit for profit.

Preparing a formal business plan can be an eye opener for someone without a business degree or previous exposure to formal business planning processes. Business owners, who engage consultants to help them in this process, quickly become aware that there can be a lot more strategic and operational matters to be considered than they expected, and they often acknowledge that their limited understanding of the importance that these matters assume as a business grows, would most likely have cost them dearly if they had proceeded without a plan.

A business owner contemplating creating a formal business plan should consult others (which should at a minimum include legal, accounting and business advisors) who will question their assumptions, their projections, the substance of their offering to the market, and even their competence to successfully translate their ideas into a viable and sustainable business. The investment made in engaging these advisors is generally money well spent, providing of course, that the advisors are chosen carefully.

I would suggest that a business plan will never be passé, and I am confident in saying that anyone who prepares a comprehensive plan before embarking on the launch of any business venture, will give themselves a far greater chance of succeeding, than if they proceeded without one.

The most obvious benefits that a business owner will gain from the process of preparing a comprehensive business plan include the following;

a) It will force a move down from the big picture solution to the level where the detail becomes critical to the overall success of the business, and the planning required to co-ordinate all activities effectively and efficiently, becomes self-evident.

b) It will allow an early determination as to the feasibility of the proposed business activities relative to the human and financial resources definitely available to commence operations.

c) It will assist in setting the business owner’s vision in concrete, and from there allow the formulation of realistic goals, and appropriate schedules for the completion of these goals.

d) It will provide a framework for the guidance of those charged with implementing various components of the plan as to where their activities fit in relative to the achievement of the overall business objectives.

e) It will allow for financial control in the form of the allocation of budgets for each of the tasks which need to be undertaken in building the business to become a viable concern.

f) It will provide a scorecard of sorts, against which progress can be measured, necessary adjustments made, and final outcomes evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the actual planning process in the delivery of the results expected.

g) It will provide a certain level of confidence in that the planning process will have taken into account all of the known variables, thereby reducing the risk of the unknown by a significant degree and as a consequence, providing a more solid platform upon which to grow the business.

h) It will ensure that all statutory and regulatory factors are known, the necessary compliance structures are established from day one, and all necessary training requirements are scheduled and managed.

i) It will instill the discipline of the planning process for the future years that the business will be operating, and the lessons learned from evaluating the effectiveness of each year’s process, can be utilised in making the following year’s planning more robust.

The preparation of the initial formal business plan does not have to be a laborious or expensive process, although the more time taken and the degree of expert input involved, may mean the difference between an average plan with average outcomes versus a dynamic well structured plan designed to maximise the profit opportunity for which it has been prepared to exploit.

The old adage, those that don’t plan are actually planning to fail, holds as true today in business as it always did. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to plan for the success of your business, and the extent that you embrace this responsibility, will determine the future profitability of your business.

Are you planning to succeed through embracing a formal business planning process?

If you are not familiar with such a process, are you willing to learn the process or engage those who can assist you develop a realistic plan for your business?

Can you see that an investment of time and capital into ensuring your business has a formal business plan as the framework for its future growth, will return great dividends to you, as the business owner?