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?
About Me
- Daniel Watson
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Born in the mid 1950's and raised in a very small country town situated in Northern Victoria. Resident of Melbourne since 1980 and happy to stay living in one of the world's most liveable cities. You can view my professional profile at http://www.linkedin/in/danielwatson
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Good Questions Equal Great Business Strategy
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?
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?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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?
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?
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