Blogging is Tough Going for Business Owners

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

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

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?

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.

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Are you missing out in the new business race?

The question really should be; what is it that you are not doing, that if you did it, you would see a dramatic upswing in the fortunes of your business through the regular acquisition of new customers or clients?

Whether you like it or not, if you own a business of any kind, you are primarily in the sales business and despite the array of social media tools available today, the greatest and most effective tool anyone in the sales business has at their disposal, is still the telephone.

In the right hands, the telephone is the cheapest and most time effective means of introducing any offering to a target market and making appointments to present directly to the key decision maker.

To succeed in virtually any business, you need to have a consistent flow of appointments, to get appointments you need to talk to decision makers or their gatekeepers, to do this effectively you need to master the telephone and use it frequently to contact potential prospects who you want to become your customers or clients.

You can engineer a dramatic upswing in the fortunes of your business if you master the telephone, and make a minimum of twelve (12) calls to targeted business owners each and every business day, without fail.

After doing so for a few weeks, refining your pitch as you go along, you will find that at a minimum you should be converting at least 5 to 10 percent of the 60 weekly calls to appointments, where you will have the opportunity to make a sale. Covert a reasonable percentage of these appointments into new customers or clients, and you will be well rewarded.

The trick to succeeding in this endeavour is to set aside a minimum of 45 minutes each day, find a place where you can work free of any distractions, and do nothing in this time but make the calls. It works even better if you assign the same block of time each day to this activity.

Any business owner who adopts this discipline, sticks to it religiously on a permanent basis and at the same time works assiduously at refining and improving their pitch to the targets involved, cannot help  being successful at the key task of getting in front of as many prospects as possible, in the time they have available.

To maximise the effectiveness of this simple solution, business owners need to learn the art of the three minute telephone call. Buy an egg timer and if you see the sand has run out, and you have not arranged an appointment, terminate the conversation and move on to the next prospect.

It also helps if you keep daily records of the number of calls made, the number of appointments gained, the conversion rate of calls to appointments, and then track this ratio on an ongoing basis as you develop your skills in this area.

Who to call? You call anyone that you wish to make a customer or client within the niche you wish to create for yourself. The best sources of business leads for cold telemarketing have always been the yellow pages, local business directories, local newspaper advertisements, businesses letter drops in your local area, your local government authority, and the local chamber of commerce.

What to say? Prepare a very well crafted mini sales pitch for your product or service which will quickly grab the attention of the prospect you call, which focuses on the benefits for the customer or client, and which allows you to quickly uncover whether or not the prospect has a need for your offering.

Overcome your reluctance to pick up the telephone and then commit to simply making 12 calls each and every day to make appointments with prospective customers or clients, and before long, you will see the results and your business will be more successful.

Remember, that to make this a habitual activity and to ensure that you refine your sales pitch until it works brilliantly, you need to commit to this discipline for a minimum of 21 business days.

Is your business acquiring as many customers or clients that your product or service deserves?

Do you have a disciplined approach to telephone prospecting?

Will you devote a minimum of 5 hours per week to producing an upswing in the fortunes of your business?

Are You Fishing with Blunt Hooks?

An extremely important component of growing any business to the point where it becomes self sustaining is prospecting for suitable clients or customers. As a business owner, you need to set the lead for others to follow if you want to elevate the importance of prospecting for future business to its rightful place as a key component of your business plan.

All business owners have to prospect, and some are far better at it than others. If you, and those you employ, avoid the seven common mistakes that others frequently make when prospecting, you will become very good at it, and your business will grow quickly.

The first and most common mistake in prospecting is simply not doing enough of it. As a business owner, you must understand that the work you do today, in uncovering suitable prospects, represents your income for weeks or months down the track. The absence of constant prospecting activity equals no constant income in the future, and creates the real and dangerous potential for cash flow problems to develop in your business.

The second mistake is prospecting with the wrong attitude towards the job. When you prospect with a positive attitude towards the work which needs to be done, and you expect that work to generate good business leads, you will usually prove yourself to be absolutely right.

The third mistake is not having a good system in place to ensure that all leads generated are followed through with, and all income potential is maximised. Without systems, too much falls through the cracks and unproductive activity will prevail. Before you commence any prospecting activity make sure that your business has a CRM package in place, and that all involved in the prospecting activities are familiar with it, and understand the importance of recording all activity and outcomes.

The fourth mistake is prospecting the wrong people in the first place. Are your potential prospects going to deliver your business a high enough return on the investment made, are they geographically positioned to make servicing them a cost effective option, do they actually want what or need what you are offering, are you face to face with the decision maker or a key advisor to the decision maker?

The fifth, and a killer of a mistake, is not asking the prospects you do get in front of, for referrals. It is vital for all business owners to remember that when you are prospecting, you are not only prospecting the prospect, but anyone else they know, who may have a need for your offering. Always remember, if you don’t ask – you don’t get.

The sixth mistake in prospecting is a reluctance to invest in direct mailing to potential prospects that you have on any database you own or control. Mail them monthly at a minimum, and the frequency of touches will eventually deliver a regular stream of people wanting to take up what you are offering, and who will also be willing to give you referrals.

The final, and an all too common mistake made by business owners, is to stop regular and consistent heavy prospecting just because they have a few good weeks or months flowing on from previous prospecting activities. Never forget, that a drop off in prospecting will inevitably result in a drop off in income for your business in the coming months.

How does your business measure up in terms of the returns from your prospecting activities?

Does your business have a program of activities which constitute a constant and effective prospecting machine?

Do you need to sharpen your hooks?

Momentum - The Best Business Fertiliser

Without momentum in your business, everything just grinds to a halt, and all effort is effectively wasted. With momentum, anything is achievable. If you want to be successful as a business owner nothing could have more relevance, or should assume greater importance, than the building and maintaining of momentum in your business.

In this context, and as a business owner, you need to clearly understand what momentum is, and how to make sure it is happening in your business. To begin, you must have a business plan, you must work that plan, and you must be willing and able to grow with your business and to overcome the challenges which will arise as your business grows.

Business momentum can be simply described as the outcome of your own level of productive effort multiplied by the degree of persistence you consistently provide to working your business plan. You know you have momentum when your business is continually busy and the evidence establishes that it in being busy it is accomplishing everything laid out in your business plan.

Building up momentum, in order to establish a manageable and productive funnel of opportunities which deliver regular and growing income, takes considerable time and effort. The following four suggestions, if implemented in your business, should assist you get to the point where you can effectively see and feel the required momentum.

The first suggestion is to know where you are going with your business, why you want to go in that direction, and then attaching basic numbers to what the business must achieve on a daily basis, in order to be successful. This clarity will assist you to work on your business, rather than just working in it without giving much thought for the future.

The second suggestion is to walk to the end of the cliff and jump off, fully knowing that unless you immediately attract customers or clients, it is all over for your business. There is nothing like having no fall-back position to focus your mind, all of your energy, and absolute commitment to the taking immediate actions required to get your desired outcomes. Remember that the desperate and hungry dog will always beat the pampered pooch to any available rewards, and that is the mindset you need to have when looking to develop momentum in your business.

The third suggestion is to step right out of all of your comfort zones and embark on the emotional roller coaster that is directly aligned to successful business ownership. Learn how not to be discouraged by the inevitable setbacks, how to avoid making excuses for not succeeding, and how to immediately kill any thoughts of giving up now or in the future.

The fourth suggestion is to develop a healthy support mechanism so that when times get tough along your journey to success you have somewhere to turn to provide you with the support you need to pick yourself up and continue to persevere with your plan of attack in accordance with your business plan. Don’t try to achieve it all alone, a journey shared with someone who can contribute support when you most need it is one that once you achieve success, you will look back upon with greater pleasure than any solo trip you might take.

Does your business currently have sufficient momentum so that work is self generating?

As the business owner are you helping or hindering the development of momentum in your business?

Are your employees aware of the concept of building momentum?

Is it time to fertilise your business?

Rapidly Improve Lead to Customer Conversion Rates

As a business owner, you need to clearly understand and ensure that all charged with converting your hard to generate sales leads into valuable customers for your business, clearly understand and apply a set of sequential steps which, if followed religiously, will generate far more sales and make each member of your sales team more productive.

These 7 steps address standard buyer behaviour, and it is important that each step be used and that the next step is not tackled until the potential customer is clearly ready to move up to the next step.

The first step is to establish if there is actually a real need for whatever you are offering. If you can’t get the customer to agree that they have a real need for what you are offering, don’t waste any further time trying to sell them. Simply get their details and agreement to be added to your mailing list, and move on to another prospect.

The second step is to get them to acknowledge the effect that meeting their need will have on them personally. As you have already established the potential customer has a need for your offering, you must determine what it will mean for them personally if this need is able to be satisfied by your offering.

The third step is to instil a fear of the situation continuing to worsen over time. In this step you simply up the ante on the last step, and reinforce how it will continue to affect them personally, if they don’t immediately meet the need they have identified for your offering, and then get them to agree that this will be the case.

The fourth step is to help the potential customer realise that they have a compelling need for change. Having laid the ground work in the previous two steps, this step should be easy for any accomplished salesperson. Simply put, the potential customer needs to be led to the point where they acknowledge that it makes no sense to continue to put up with their current situation.

The fifth step is to lead the potential customer to the point where there is now a clear demand for an improvement in their situation. At this step, the potential customer needs to be helped to paint a picture in their mind, of how their situation will look when they implement the change that your offering will bring to their world.


The sixth step is to give them hope for a better future by suggesting that there are a range of solutions for the burden that they presently carry. This is where you outline the possibilities they might embrace in order to get relief from the pressing need they now have to improve their worsening situation and also determine the level of investment they are willing to make to resolve their situation.

The seventh and final step is to show them how you can deliver the solution for your customer now that you know they have a genuine need for your offering, are ready to take action to satisfy the need, and have indicated how much they are willing to spend to get the relief from the burden they have been carrying. Then you can confidently and quickly close the sale, and move on to the next potential customer.

Are you clear on the importance of each of these 7 steps and why they must be sequential and why you should not move off any step until the potential customer has clearly indicated that they are at the position where you can move them on without losing them?

In your business, are these 7 steps rigorously practiced with all new leads that come into your business?

How much more revenue could your business be generating if these 7 steps were competently practiced on every occasion by well drilled sales staff?

Two Magic Pills for Business Success

To be successful as a business owner, regardless of the type of business you operate, you need to insulate yourself from the negative aspects of selling yourself, your business, and your product or service, and at the same time, fully commit yourself to the ongoing development of the vital skills you need to have, in order to be truly successful.

This can be easier said than done, but with the right approach, you can achieving realistic outcomes in financial terms, from your investment of capital and time, in your business. This approach does, however, requires you to pop a pill or two for the overall good of your business.

The pills you need to swallow are the Two Magic Pills for Business Success. These Magic Pills are the tonic required to ensure a healthy future for your business. Taken daily, these Magic Pills will make a significant difference to the outcomes that you are able to achieve in your business. life.

As with all such magic remedies, there is a trick involved. The trick here is to develop the habit of taking these Magic Pills daily, for as long as you are in business. If you do, over time they will reduce or completely obviate, your need to call on others to help you to be successful.

The first Magic Pill is to take whatever steps that are necessary to develop and continually reinforce your faith in yourself. That is, you need to cultivate and feed a very strong self image. This is vitally important, as without one, you will find life as a business owner extremely tough.

A Google search on Self Image reveals in excess of 6,000,000 references, so there is no shortage of information available on this subject, and the sheer volume of references indicates the importance of the subject matter to all aspects of life, not only business.

This first Magic Pill needs to be accompanied by both the determination to never quit regardless of how tough the road to success may become, and having enough faith in yourself to repeat the right disciplines and actions until they become ingrained, and continue them for as long as it takes for you to eventually achieve success.

The second Magic Pill is to develop a strong ability to focus, that is, to become extremely efficient in your use of the time available to you, to conduct your business each day.

Focus is the most powerful tool a business owner can possess, so it is imperative that you develop your skills in this area. Focus allows you to accomplish more in less time by staying in the moment, and being completely attuned to the task at hand. See prevous posting titled Focus is everything in Business to see if you may be guilty of lack of focus.

A quick Google search for "ability to focus" will take you to a wealth of resources that you can tap into to improve your performance in this area. Find what works for you and put it into practice, and persist practicing until lack of focus is no longer an issue for you.

If your business is not doing as well as you had anticipated, ask yourself the following questions; Do you have stong faith in yourself and your abilities? Is your self image as strong as it must be if you want to succeed in the tough world that is today's business environment? Are you as focussed on the success of your business as you need to be? Is your focus in the right area?

Take these Two Magic Pills for Business Success everyday for an extended period, and you can virtually guarantee yourself, that your business will improve out of sight.

Will your Business Survive and Prosper?

As a business owner, you have chosen to invest both your capital and your valuable time into an enterprise that operates in an environment which is highly competitive, very personally demanding, and constantly changing.

Quite rightly, one of your highest priorities should be to protect your investment and nurture it for long enough to build, from the proceeds of your ongoing business endeavours, a strong asset base to support your future plans.

In order to protect your investment, you need to develop a fundamental understanding as to why SME businesses often fail to meet their owner's initial expectations, and why many businesses actually fail.

The list of reasons for failure is long, but the more significant factors include;

• lack of a cohesive strategy for continuous improvement and innovation
• lack of systems for business accounting and control of business expenses
• lack of understanding of working capital needs and cash flow management
• lack of general business acumen and core business management skills
• lack of understanding of the market demand for the product or service offered
• lack of understanding of the value of family and other support mechanisms
• lack of well developed negotiation, influencing and sales skills
• lack of understanding of the importance of choice of location to the business
• lack of ability to handle the challenges of growing the business
• lack of focus, energy and persistence in the face of all types of challenges and
• lack of acceptance of personal responsibility for the success of the business.

Looking at this somewhat truncated list, it is easy to see that running and operating a successful business requires a lot of skill and effort, and it is not for the faint of heart.

Another key stepping stone on the road to protecting your investment of capital and time into your business is to learn to work on your business, as much, if not more than working in the business.

To this end, the ability to focus your mind and your best energy, on the areas where they will have the greatest effect, is extremely important.

Many business owners try to do everything themselves and are reluctant to rely on others, be they employees, contractors, outsourced service providers, or other business professionals such as accountants, lawyers, and business consultants, to perform roles for which these people are far better qualified.

Do you have a clear picture of where your strengths lie? If not, perhaps it is time for the good of your business, to explore who you are, and in doing so, develop a clear understanding of your major strengths and identify the areas in which you face strong challenges.

People often say that business is not rocket science, however what they generally neglect to say, is that all businesses require someone powered by rocket fuel, in order to get lift off, move into orbit, and stay afloat for long enough to enjoy the ride and the view, from on high.

As a business owner, that person needs to be you. Are you up to the challenge?

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.

Core Skills required for Revenue Generation

As a business owner, and whether you like it or not, you are in the business of selling.

It is therefore important, that you have a clear and complete understanding of the core competencies required of any person responsible for revenue generation in your business, including yourself.

It goes without saying that understanding alone is not enough, you also need to ensure your own and your employee's skills, are developed to the level necessary for sales success, and then you need to diligently apply those skills, and sure others are applying them as diligently as yourself.

The key skills required in any sales role are; presentation skills, influencing skills, negotiation skills, communication skills, problem solving skills, marketing skills, personal management skills and critically in this day and age, information technology skills.

If your sales are not at the level where they need to be, a good solution is to firstly put in place structured plans for yourself and key employees to become more competent in every one of these skills, with a priority being placed on the skill sets that are most lacking, in those engaged in selling for your business.

These skills alone will not necessarily guarantee success in revenue generation, as a clear understanding of the key attributes that the individuals concerned also need to possess, and their ability to persistently apply these attributes, is the second part of the solution.

These key attributes include; the need and the will to succeed, ability to think and act quickly, ability to focus on goals, a strong belief in the products and services offered, high energy levels, high self esteem, the ability to act independently, an optimistic outlook on life, the ability to see the bigger picture, a willingness to accept responsibility for personal outcomes, and an ability to empathise with others.

As you can see, a revenue generating role is not for the untrained or marginally competent; selling is actually a profession, and a professional approach is needed by anyone who has a responsibility for revenue generation.

You must also remember that a poorly trained and far from competent salesperson, can do more damage to your business in a short time, than almost any other role not performed to its optimal level, in your business.

Unless you develop your own and your employees sales skills to an optimum level, revenue generation will always be harder for your business than it needs to be, and in tough times your cash flow may be severely challenged.

How do you and your key employees measure up in terms of sales skills and personal attributes that support effective revenue generation?

Do all relevant personnel have personal development plans specifically tailored to improve the level of revenue generation in your business?

Have you led by example in demonstrating your own commitment to upgrading your selling skills?

Have you allowed adequate funds in your budget to support the development of all of the necessary skills in your employees?

Do you ensure that you select the right people with the necessary attributes to succeeed in sales, to participate in your sales training programs, and eventually in revenue generating activities for your business?

If you answer all of these questions truthfully, and reflect on what the answers mean for your future revenue, it may pave the way for you to make the changes you possibly need to make, to give your business a good shot in the arm.

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.

Four Critical Business Roles

It never ceases to amaze me that people continue to establish new businesses or struggle on in established businesses, without a clear understanding that there are four critical business roles which must be performed at an optimum level in any business if it is to grow and be successful in the longer term.

Too many business people are not aware that there are very distinct roles which must be performed daily and consistently in any business, and that each of these distinct roles requires people with differing personalities operating in each respective role to ensure that optimal outcomes are achieved for the business.

It is also not well recognised that very few people are actually suited to effectively, and more importantly consistently over time, perform all of the required roles. Many will do their best when assigned one of the four critical roles but inevitably they will eventually drift away from the elements of any role that they personally get limited or no satisfaction from, and focus attention elsewhere to the detriment of the overall business.

Often the limitations of one or two people trying to perform all of the critical roles do not become apparent until the business starts to expand as a result of unplanned for organic growth or external pressures being brought to bear on the business.

In my experience the four critical and quite distinct roles (role groupings) required to be effectively performed in any business aspiring to be successful and sustainable are;

• leadership, strategy development, and new customer/client acquisition,
• budget management, cash flow management, competitor/market research management, business plan management, and demand management,
• customer relationship management/customer retention management/up selling and cross selling to existing customers, and
• administration, sales support and operations management.

In my view each of these critical roles (role groupings) are best suited to people from different personality types, and care taken in matching a particular person with the critical role (role group) which best suits their particular personality, will pay high dividends to the businesses who take this approach.

My own experience indicates that a high level of passion for performing any particular role comes from that role being closely aligned to the type of work activities a person prefers to regularly perform, those preferences generally being aligned to their individual personality type.

Initially, when first establishing a business, it may not be possible to create and fill four separate roles however, if any business is to grow and have long term success, each of these roles will need to be performed by individuals, or groups of individuals, with the specific aptitude and real passion for performing the distinctly different types of daily activities which need to be performed effectively, and consistently for a business to prosper.

If your business has reached the stage of its business cycle where you are ready to grow your business, have a very close look to see if you have all the bases covered in ensuring that each of these critical roles, or role groupings, are effectively covered and the full-time attention of at least one passionate individual, is being applied in each area.

Should you not be satisfied that this is the case, I would suggest that you put any growth plans on hold until you are satisfied, as this will avoid the inevitable problems that will potentially implode your plans, and set your business back for as long as it takes to right the situation.

It may be that your business has stagnated and appears to be going nowhere at present, and if that is the case, have a good look at these critical roles to see if you have them all covered. If not action to rectify this situation may be the change you need to make to get your business firing again.

If you have all bases covered, look closely at the people performing the roles to determine if they are passionate about the type of work involved in the relevant role, and if not place them elsewhere in your business where their passion may be re-ignited, and find the right person for the relevant role.

For those operating smaller businesses with less people than the number of critical roles which need to be covered, I would suggest that each roles is as important as any other and time needs to be applied each day to the performance of all these four critical roles.

In this less than ideal situation it is critical that each of those involved has some affinity with the nature of the work involved in whichever role(s) they are required to perform, and some form of ongoing accountability is introduced to ensure equal treatment of all roles assigned is occurring.

Understanding of these four critical roles and the linkages between them is a vital skill for all business owners to develop. A lack of understanding of same is usually clearly evident to a consultant called in to address issues standing in the way of any business growing to achieve its full potential.

The Six Critical Elements to Building a Successful Business

Creating a business is one thing, but building a successful business that attains a level of profit which represents a satisfactory return on the time and capital invested by the owners and also proves to be sustainable over many years, is a challenge that many business owners fail to overcome.

I believe that six critical elements (the Six S's) must all be effectively in play before any business can realistically become a successful business.

If one or more of these elements is not operating at an optimal level within your business you have some work to do if you want success to eventually come your way.

The Six S's are Synergy, Strategy, Structure, Systems, Substance and Sustainability.

Synergy refers to the alignment between yourself, your role as a business owner, your psychological suitability to the roles you chose to perform within the business, and the actual nature of the business you choose to be involved in.

Strategy refers to the key decisions you make now, as to the future directions you wish your business to take, to get to where you want to be, at a certain point in the future. It is the foundation of all that follows. It also needs to be reviewed and adjusted as circumstances change.

Structure refers to the framework around which you will build your business. It provides the bones around which you will add meat as your business grows. A sound structure holds everything together, and is greater than the sum of its parts.

Systems refer to standardised operations designed to guide the way, light the path, simplify complexity, provide leverage, and ensure consist application of procedures and processes throughout the business. Good systems prevent systemic failure and reduce the overall costs of doing business, hence increasing profitability.

Substance refers to the quality of physical assets, the level of intellectual property present, the working capital available, and the capability of the human resources deployed, or available, to service the growth needs of the business.

Sustainability refers to the longer term ability of the business to continually re-invent itself, remain relevant to its markets, remain profitable, and continuously improve its reputation as a good corporate citizen.

How does your business stack up? Could you be more successful? What more do you need to do?

Opportunity for meeting SME Online needs.

This blog is based on personal experience over the last three weeks. It may provide an eye opener for those who are technically savy and can't for the life of themselves understand why any SME business would resist fully embracing the internet age.

Having taken my own business online over the last three weeks, I now understand more clearly why many SME businesses do not fully embrace the internet and take advantage of all that it offers to them as business owners.

I found that the work involved for anyone who wants to do it themselves is quite considerable, and that is only what is necessary to establish a low level base for a future bells and whistles platform, once sufficient experience in the online business environment is obtained and the funds are available to go down that path.

The work included, but was not limited to, purchasing a domain name, building a complete website, setting up e-mail accounts in the new domain, constructing a comprehensive profile on LinkedIn, signing up for Skype and configuring that system to operate in a personal computing environment, incorporating all Skype add-ons, signing up for a blogging service and setting it up to operate in conjunction with the website, taking and incorporating digital photographs into the website, Skype and LinkedIn, sourcing an online design company to design a company logo for the website and for other electronic forums and then incorporating same where required, selecting and configuring an on-line CRM package, selecting and configuring an e-mail marketing package, and creating a newletter template.

The hours allocated to the tasks listed exceeded three full working weeks and there are still a few small corrections and tweeks which need to be made to finalise the first stage of getting our consultancy business online.

The $ cost involved was minimal, less than $500.00 all up, but without 20 years of computing experience, and significant exposure to online business through other activities, it would not have been possible without calling in specialists to do most if not all of the work.

I would hazard a guess that the cost for a SME business owner to outsource all of the necessary work would see a cost of at least 10 times and up to 20 times what I incurred being charged for all of the work involved.

Having to project managing the exercise would also cause a lot of hassle for the business owner and it would be unlikely that the same result could be achieved within three weeks from first deciding to take a business online if most of the work was outsourced.

Understanding just how busy most business owners are on a daily basis, and how tight cash flow can be especially in difficult economic conditions, I now have a clear understanding of why so many SME businesses have not embraced technologies which we all know they should be embracing.

Perhaps their exists a great opportunity for an IT company to put all of the required elements in one box, include clear instructions, and get it out into the market at a price which would encourage a high volume uptake of the offering.