Are You a Slave to your Business?

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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Don’t Blow it Next Time

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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Business Planning Benefits Explained

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?

Get Personally Organised for Business Success

Successful business owners have the ability to efficiently multi-task, an ability which they most likely developed through focused action on improving their level of of personal organisation.

This week's article offers advice on how to develop a higher level of personal organisation so that you can better handle the variety of tasks, problems, issues, professional and personal responsibilities, and the day to day challenges, you face in growing your business.

The keys to developing a high level of personal organisation include the following elements;

• Have a plan which outlines what you want to achieve and more importantly - why you want to achieve it.
• Set your priorities on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.
• Be totally focused - concentrate on only one thing at a time.
• De-clutter, get organised, know where everything you need is, and make sure it is readily accessible.
• Don't allow any distractions into your work time.
• If you are no longer passionate about a particular role find someone else to do it.
• Have set routines for your regular activities.
• Organise your own work space to be as efficient as it possibly can be given your particular environment.
• Learn and practice how to say NO and then do it more frequently.
• Don't say YES to anything unless you mean it.
• Don't make commitments you can't guarantee you will be able to keep.
• Learn to respect and value your own time.
• There is a time to work and a time to play. Don't mix these two up.
• Use technology simply as a business tool not as a crutch to hide from the world.
• Create an environment in which you can work surrounded by the things which make you the most productive person you can be.
• Pack more into your day - Get up earlier and go to bed later.
• When you find yourself procrastinating ask yourself WHY?
• Before you venture out into the world have a list of everything you can possibly do whilst you are out, and which can be done along either the route to or from your destination.
• Have access to one or two trusted mentors to give you an injection of support when times are tough or the challenges appear too great.

The above is not an exhaustive list, but if you quickly and critically assess your own level of personal organisation against each element, you may discover one or two areas where, with a little effort, you can improve your own skills and help your business on its path to greater success.

Focus is Everything in Business

A long time ago, at the rear of an old and well established business that I was visiting, I found nailed on the back of the only toilet door, a story titled something along the lines of "My Busy Day".

It had obviously been there for sometime, as it was faded and torn around the edges, but the fact it was still there, indicated that it was probably worth reading as I went about my business.

I was very glad I did, as the message it contained has stayed with me to this day, and it is a message that I have been forever grateful to have received.

In essence it told the story of one person's day from the moment they arose until they lay down in their bed at the end of the day and reflected on what they had achieved during the day.

It went something like this;

Today I am going to plant a vegetable garden; I get up, get dressed, have breakfast and start heading out the door to go to the tool shed to get everything I need to start building the vegetable garden.

Just as I step out the door, the dog runs up to me carrying a stick in its mouth. I throw the stick for the dog to fetch and then notice that my bicycle has a flat tyre. I decide I had better fix the tyre because I might need the bicycle tomorrow.

I head back into the house to pick up my puncture kit from the laundry, and as I step into the laundry, I see that there is a load of washing that needs to be hung out to dry. As I carry the basket out to the washing line, I notice that someone has left the garden tap running, so I put down the washing and go over and turn the tap off.

As I head back to the washing line, I spot my gumboots that I have been looking for for a few days, lying under the wheel barrow. I walk over and pick them up and take them back into the laundry where they are normally live.

As I do this, I see through the laundry door that the kitchen window is wide open and I walk across the kitchen to shut it. On the way, I see yesterday's mail still sitting on the kitchen table so I stop and pick it up.

Knowing that several of the letters contain bills, I put them on my office desk and head to the bedroom to get my cheque book from my coat pocket. On the way to the bedroom, I pass the bathroom and see that the rubbish bin is full. I pick it up and head off to empty it.

On the way, I decide that I am thirsty, so I put the rubbish bin down beside the back door and head into the kitchen to get a glass of water. While pouring the glass of water, I notice that the fridge is desperately in need of a clean. I quickly drink the water and go out to the shed to get a cool box into which to unload the contents of the fridge.

I come back with the box, and as I open the fridge to get started I see some chocolate bars. As I now feel hungry, I grab a chocolate bar and decide to have a break. I go outside and sit on the bench on our front porch, whilst I eat it.

Admiring the view as I ate my chocolate bar, I tried to remember what it was that I had first set out to do today. Before I could remember, I saw the local policeman put a leaflet in my neighbour's letterbox and walk away. This reminded me that I had not returned a bowl I had borrowed from that neighbour, so I headed back into the house to get it.

As I walked down the hall, I kicked one of the kids toys which had been left lying on the floor. I picked that up and walked further down the hall and threw it in the child's bedroom and as I did I noticed they had not made their bed. I decided I should make the bed, but before I got to the bed, I saw that their was a pile of dirty washing on the floor, so I picked that up and started heading off to the laundry to wash it.

Going through the kitchen, I remembered I still hadn't shut the kitchen window, so I put the dirty laundry on the kitchen chair and walked over and shut the window. I then turned around and headed out to the laundry still trying to figure out what it was that I had set out to do today.

The rest of the day continued in a similar vein;

At the end of the day the vegetable garden did not get built, the bicycle still had a flat tyre, the washing had not been hung out, the bills had not been paid, the rubbish bin was still full, the fridge was still filthy, the neighbours bowl had not been returned, the kids bed was still unmade, the dirty washing was still dirty, and the dog was still sitting on the porch with a stick in its mouth.

Lying in bed that night, the person reflected upon their day and could not understand why absolutely nothing was achieved that day given that they were frantically busy all day.

Does this ring a bell with you? Do you regularly fail to achieve what you start the day out hoping to achieve? Are your business goals proving elusive?

The crime here is lack of focus, a key killer of any chance of real success in the business world.

As a business owner, you only have so many hours in the day, and you need to maximise your effectiveness in using each of those hours to be successful.

Learn the discipline of preparing a to do list for tomorrow as the last task you complete each day and make this list the first thing you look at each morning.

Make sure the first three items on this list are must do items, and then ensure that these are the major focus of your day. Don't go home until you have ticked off on each of these three must do items.

If you do this you will sleep far better at night and the results will be self evident very quickly.