Ideas for Your Business
- Big Hairy Audacious Goals
- The Importance of Being Focused
- Actions Speak Louder Than Words
- Two Heads Are Better Than One
- Leadership begins with you
- Do you need a Business Loan?
- Are you looking for new ideas?
- Make smarter decisions
Big Hairy Audacious Goals
Perhaps it's the fear of failure, on the other hand it could be a tendency towards conservatism - either way the common practice of setting weak and wishy-washy goals can undermine the ability of any business to fulfil its true potential.
Are you guilty of setting targets well below what you know you should be able to achieve? If you are, then it is very possible that the way that you view the targets you set, is holding your business back.
Imagine you've just carried out some detailed analysis and concluded that you could reasonably achieve 5% sales growth over the next financial year. So, at what level should you set your sales target? Why not consider setting a BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL! Does this sound a little scary?
Let's say, for the sake of talking, that you really go for it and set a sales growth target of 25%. For most businesses hitting sales targets are crucial not just for long-term growth but also for short-term survival. By setting such bold targets for crucial areas like this, you grab and focus the attention of all your people on achieving your target.
What's the downside if you fail? If you only achieve (say) 10%; isn't this a massive improvement on your more conservative target of 5% growth.
It's also worth considering what you could have achieved had you aimed for the, far more conservative, 5% growth target. Is it likely that you would have significantly exceeded this? Not really. Psychologically, people view targets as upper limits - if it is exceeded then that excess is likely to be no more than marginal.
If you want to stretch your team and indeed yourself then you will need to set real challenges in order to get people to truly explore how they can improve performance and innovate for the benefit of the business as a whole and all those who have a stake in it.
The Importance of Being Focused
Busy business owners often ask me how they can better organise their time. Certainly, it can be extremely frustrating when you are under pressure to get things done and find yourself running around like a headless chicken.
As you only have one brain and one pair of hands, it stands to reason, that you can only do one thing at a time and do it well. So begin by accepting this principle and quit trying to do too many things at the same time.
So, principal 1 is: give the job in hand your 100% attention and see it all the way through to the end, in so far as it is possible.
Once you have accepted this, all you need to worry about now is ensuring that you are doing the right tasks in the right order. The two key criteria for this are importance and urgency. Let's face it, if the task isn't important, then you need to be asking yourself why you're doing it at all.
So, principal 2 is: prioritise in accordance with both importance and urgency. Tasks which are both important and urgent clearly need to be dealt with first - that's a "no-brainer", you may say. Interestingly however, many business owners and managers fail to follow this obvious principle. We are all guilty, at least occasionally, of putting off unpleasant tasks or prioritising less important ones we enjoy doing. So, if you're going to make effective use of your time you may need to be a little tougher on yourself.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Small-business owners are constantly being reminded of the need to have clear business goals. I certainly wouldn't argue with that view: as Ken Blanchard once famously said "If you don't know where you're going, just about any road will take you there ".
Goals are all very well however, but unless you know how to put them into action, you may as well not have bothered in the first place. Frustratingly the need for a carefully considered implementation process is something so often overlooked.
If you have set clear goals for your business - and I sincerely hope that you have - then you will need to set specific targets both for your business as a whole and for those individuals responsible for helping you to achieve those goals.
To work effectively, any individual within your business (and that includes you) will need to be clear on precisely what needs to be achieved and what standards of performance are expected. The setting of specific targets for individuals not only provides everyone with a greater sense of purpose, they provide a crucial link between business goals and individual actions.
Thus, when setting goals, convert them into real action by setting specific targets for your business and then allocate responsibility for achieving these by setting targets for those individuals responsible for contributing towards attaining those goals.
Two Heads Are Better Than One
It is extremely difficult for any one individual to cover every angle when making business decisions. We all have our own particular way of looking at things and indeed looking at life in general.
That's why it's especially useful, when making business decisions, to bounce ideas off other people in order to get someone else's perspective.
When it comes to weighing up choices or even generating new ideas, obtaining the honest opinion of other people is an extremely powerful technique for improving the quality of the decisions you make and the ideas you generate.
Why not consider building your own strategic team to help you with all your major business decisions. As indicated above, two heads are better than one. I would go one further and say three heads are better than two and further still by arguing that four heads can be better than three. I wouldn't go too much further than this though, discussions can become unwieldy if too many participants are involved.
If you're operating as a sole trader, why not ask your spouse, one (or more) of your employees or, perhaps, a trusted friend to help you. This process can be particularly useful if you can bring together a mix of people with complimentary skills and experience.
It's important not to lose sight of the fact that such a "strategic team" is there to support the decision-making process and should not be viewed as a "committee" vested with the authority to make decisions on your behalf. You are the owner of the business and the buck stops with you.
Leadership begins with you
It's true that some people are just natural leaders but, contrary to popular opinion, leadership skills can be learned and applied. Believe it or not: we can all become effective leaders.
However, before you start trying to develop some direction for your business; why not, in the first instance, begin by working on yourself. If you haven't sorted yourself out, how you can possibly hope to sort out your business?
Many business owners and managers struggle to organise their time and the knee-jerk response is to concentrate on time-management techniques, which help them to process their workloads more efficiently. There is nothing wrong, of course, with increased efficiency but Personal Leadership is about firstly being effective.
So here's a tip to get you started - as a matter of routine, before you begin any task, ask yourself these key questions; Does this task really need to be done? Is it relevant to my needs and what I'm aiming to achieve? If the answer is "No", can you really justify wasting your time on this task at all? Even the highest level of efficiency cannot save you from the folly of wasting your time completely.
A crucial element of Personal Leadership is clarity. If you have a clear sense of purpose and know, very specifically, what you wish to achieve, your decisions will be far easier to make and much more consistent. What's more, you will have taken an important first step to providing your life and your business with a real sense of direction.
Do you need a Business Loan?
Many businesses find it difficult to get a loan and obtaining finance has become even more difficult with the severe problems banks are experiencing as a result of the Credit-Crunch.
In spite of the difficulties banks are having, loan finance is still available – but lenders are now being far more cautious (About time! some may argue) with much tougher criteria being applied to decide whether finance should be granted or not.
So, how do you get your Bank Manager to say "Yes"?
Just for a moment look at this from the lenders viewpoint. He (or she) will need to know:
- How much do you need to borrow?
- How have you worked this figure out?
- Do you have the earning capacity to repay it all?
- What will you use the borrowed money for?
- Do you have other loan commitments?
- What "charges" currently exist on your assets?
- What can you offer as security?
- How risky is to lend money to you?
Also, looking at it from a lenders point of view, it doesn't look good if you turn up to ask for a loan without having prepared answers to at least some of these questions. Better still, if you're fully prepared, the process will flow much more smoothly
So if you're looking for a loan for your business, make sure you've prepared a detailed cash-flow forecast; that your loan request is based upon it and that you have prepared a clear explanation of how the money will be used. Also, be ready to supply details of any property you can offer as security and any charges that may already be in place. Finally, why not check your credit-rating – you can be sure the lender will do so.
If you need help with obtaining finance, or developing a business plan why not call or email Ian (01268 459200) ian@macrays.co.uk
Are you looking for new ideas?
Whether you're looking to find new ways of growing your business or solving knotty problems: to be successful, you'll need to generate a constant flow of new ideas.
A number of clients have complained to me that they have great difficulty in thinking creatively and, particularly when faced with a serious problem, they have no idea where to start. So where do you start?
Before you can begin thinking creatively you need to be relaxed. So if the thought of doing this stuff gives you a feeling of tension, take a few minutes to "chill-out", giving no direct thought to the problem in hand. Now your right-brain (the creative side) is better prepared to do what it does best.
A great visual tool for generating ideas, and particularly lateral thought, is the Mind Map. Never heard of one of these? Made famous by Tony Buzan, Mind Maps provide a visual representation of thoughts and ideas, using branches that radiate outward from a central theme. This is one of the most commonly used items in my business development tool-kit!
Two heads are better than one as the saying goes, so if it's possible, get your business partner, co-director or just a friend to look at the problem with you. You can always benefit from someone who's looking at the problem from a different perspective. Tesco started the process of seeking other people's opinion by asking all their thousands of staff what they thought their customers wanted. One junior member of staff asked: "Why don't you ask your customers?" That new perspective completely changed Tesco's approach to marketing.
Ideally I like to have three or four people sitting round a table giving their opinions and throwing their ideas into the pot. This is a great way to generate new ideas and what's more, it can be great fun.
If you'd like to learn about more tools and techniques for solving problems and growing your business why not call Ian on 01268 459200 or alternatively follow this link for information on how to grow your business:
Make smarter decisions
If you think about it, your current situation, in terms of your quality of life; your family relationships; your finances and the type of business you are in, are all largely the result of the sum total of the decisions you've made throughout your life.
If, over the years, you could have made better quality decisions, where would you be now? More importantly, if you could make better decisions from now on, how much better would your future be? So how can you improve the quality of your business decisions?
Firstly, you need to be clear and completely focused upon what it is you're trying to achieve – this should absolutely always be your starting point! This may sound obvious and yet, particularly if we are emotionally involved, so many of us lose that crucial sense of purpose and make a choice we later regret.
Before you commit, ask yourself; Have I really thought this through fully? If you're in any doubt, stand back and try to think your position through more thoroughly. If you have time to do so, defer your decision and then make an appointment, with yourself, to carefully think through your options – and then be decisive. Try to avoid deferring a decision a second time – procrastination is a dangerous habit.
