Federise your Business for Ultimate Success

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.

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.

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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

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?

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