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I was watching a doco the other night called “The Secrets of the Crystal Cave”.  It was about a cave that was discovered which has these huge telegraph pole sized crystals hidden away for half a million years. 

They had two teams of people investigating.  One bunch was a group of scientists (propeller heads); the other was a team of cavers (adrenalin junkies).  Both were exploring different areas but eventually they pulled both teams together to investigate to go deep to find another cave.
The scientists had warned the cavers that the temperature was 45c with 90% humidity and that they would die within 5 minutes without environmental suits on. Needless to say, the gnarly adventure junkie cavers ignored them and nearly died.
 However once they got the message, they got further than last time & further than the scientists with suits. When the two totally different points of view came together (the careful preparation of the scientists & the fearless devil may care attitude of the cavers) they got further than any one of them could alone. So what was the secret of the cave?

The secret of the cave was this … it takes all kinds.

In business, when you’re employing team members, there’s a tendency to find people that fit your own mold.  If you’re methodical & organized, that’s what you’ll employ.  If you’re a people person, that’s what you’ll look for. 
Make sure that when you stack the deck, you mix the cards first. Diversity of approach allows for a stronger team and better results. It takes all kinds.

Are you employing (or trying to employ) carbon copies of yourself?

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Remember this …

The media was in a frenzy about how the evil petrol companies were damaging your vehicle because they were putting ethanol in it. They were watering down YOUR petrol with cheap substitute that would make your car wear out sooner. All around signs sprung up in Petrol stations across the land “NO ETHANOL”.

Fast forward a couple of short years >> you can’t go to the petrol station without being offered ethanol blended fuel. It’s even cheaper. 
                                                                  Why aren’t you still jumping up and down?

How about this … You would go to the bank, then they told you don’t come into the teller because it costs us money for staff (we will charge you fees)  … use the ATM because it’s free.
Fast Forward >> The ATM infrastructure costs us money to run (we will charge you fees) … use the Internet for your banking because it’s free.
Now >> the internet infrastructure costs us money to run, pay your fees.
Now this isn’t about big bank or petrol company bashing but just this …
                                                                  Consumer buying habits are always changing

If your business isn’t built to handle it, then … you better start.
See this time it’s not the companies driving the agenda, it’s the consumer.
Online reputation damage, consumer advoocacy sites, online ordering, overseas ordering, “View offline, buy online behaviour”, Social media buying groups, online service providers, overseas service outsourcing … the list goes on.
The good ol’days are over. Stop designing your business for the stone age and look at what is happening in your industry right now.

Write down the top 2 trends in your industry regarding consumer behaviour.
Write down 3 ideas of what you need to do to adapt to the new consumer.

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If you know me well, you’d know that I really enjoy             
reading and learning about history.  Just last night, I       
was watching a doco about Napoleon.  I’ve got to           
admit, I actually knew next to nothing about him up until I watched this show, but learned something quite remarkable.
This guy single handedly controlled Europe through his strategic brilliance on the battle field.  So what was really interesting was, how he really did it.  It wasn’t amazing tactics, it wasn’t revolutionary weapons, he just did one thing better than anyone else….
                                                                   He Moved Fast

His troops would move twice as fast as anyone else.  And so as a result, he would run rings around his opposition and win again and again.
What’s this gotta do with you?  Well, if you hadn’t noticed lately, business is changing.  Whether it’s changing economic environment (GFC), whether it’s changing technology (Social Media), or just how your customers, clients and prospects now buy or think differently to how they did 5 to 10 years ago (Less Loyalty).
See it’s one thing to have great ideas but it’s another thing to execute and implement them fast.  If you’re operating on long cycle plans, 12 months plus, or haven’t even got a plan, I suggest this to you … Drop your planning horizon just down to the next 90 days.
What can you achieve in the next 12 weeks?  That’s the biggest question, and then implement rigorously, in fact, ruthlessly.

What can you achieve in the next 90 days? 
What are those small things that will make big breakthrough in your business? 
List them down and act on them.

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I Tolerate…
Your Standards = Your Results

What do you tolerate? 

Oh c’mon, both you and I know you tolerate some low grade stuff in your business. Hey, it’s not the way you want it, but what can you do huh?

Whether it’s a:
- not enough sales from your sale people
- team members that just don’t seem to pull their weight
- shoddy service levels (you hear how your team speaks to them)
- late turnaround (products, service, even quotes)
- poorer quality than you would like to admit to people.

You tried to change it but …
- you weren’t able to pull it off.
- You noticed that other guys are suffering from it as well.
- It’s an industry thing. “Well, that’s how it is in my industry”. 
- I’m tired of banging on about it with my team (feels like your nagging)

So you’ve let it slide, after all, “Everyone Else Does It”. Write it down. What are you putting up with?
I tolerate … (don’t worry, no one else will be reading it)

                                                                     And I won’t tolerate it anymore !

What you tolerate stays in your business for better or worse.

If you’re tired of tolerating less than what you want for your business, keep an eye out the next couple of weeks, I’ve got something that’s going to help you.

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 The Secret Beliefs That Limit The Growth of Your Business
The one most common complaint by most business owners if summarized in one word – “I don’t have enough TIME”.

The impact the clock puts on how much you can get done in your business, how big your business grows and how much profit you make, is massive.  But what most people in business don’t realize is, that is limiting beliefs about themselves and how they utilize their time, can have large long term effects on the future of their business. Let’s examine some of these…

“I Work Hard”
There is nothing wrong with working hard, but there is something wrong with working hard and ineffectively.
Unfortunately, sometimes people substitute poor strategies, poor approaches, with just plain old elbow grease, and the truth is, it’s a poor substitute.  Poor choices, uninformed strategies, may leave you working way harder than you need to.  And as much as there’s emotional glory in being a martyr, and in telling other people how hard you work, the unfortunate thing is, eventually, they’ll get worn out listening to it and eventually, your body gets worn out doing it.

Some of the questions you should be asking yourself can be:
“How can I get somebody else to do this?”
“Do I have to do this?”
“Is there a better way to do this?”
“How can I set this up so I never have to do this again?” 

For example, I have a client that does video editing as part of his marketing.  He feels that it’s a very specialized field, but once he started asking the questions “How can I set this up so I never have to do this again?”  He spent time with his team to create systems and procedures which allowed his personal assistant to be able to edit it in the quality that he was happy with.

“I’m The Only One That Can Do This”
This one is the biggest crock I’ve ever heard in my life. 
People tell me that they are the only ones that can do quotes in their business, the only one that can understand what the client needs, the only one who can do work the quality it needs to be done.  But the truth is, you need to give up the fact that you’re so perfect and focus on developing other people to do it. 
As an exercise, go find your birth certificate, pull it out.  I’m sure it’s got both of your parents’ occupation on it, but does it have yours already marked on it? No. In the first 6 months of your life, were you showing amazing promises that your current chosen business?  No.  You’ve been trained, you have learned through experience how to do it.  Anything that can be taught through experience can be written, can be systemized, and can be trained.  If the US military can train a 22 year old to fly a jet fighter worth $60 million off an aircraft carrier rolling seas, then what’s your excuse in not being able to get someone to do something which is inherently less risky?

Some good questions to ask yourself …
“If I was to bust this up so other people could do parts of it, what parts could I get them to do?”
“If I had to create a step by step sequence to show someone how to do this, what order would I take it in?”

“It’s Just Quicker If I Do It Myself”
A lot of the times you are right, but the problem is, what you do is you underestimate how many times you actually do the thing and how many times a year you do it. 
Imagine for a moment that you’re doing something that only takes you 10 minutes.  Let’s just imagine then that you only do it for 10 minutes but it happens everyday. 

So let’s add that up:
10 minutes x 5 days x 52 weeks = 43 hours a year.

Good question you’ve got to ask is:
“How many 10 minute tasks are you doing today?”
“What do I keep saying it is just quick if I do it myself?”

Get Moving:

Stop and write a list. What are the 3 tops things that you could do to improve and grow your business in the next 90 days, if you just started using your time more effectively?
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I’ve been helping a couple of clients in the last few weeks with their personal effectiveness. Now I’m NOT talking here about some sort of “Taylorist time and motion studies”, working out how much time it takes to drink their coffee using a stopwatch. Rather, we have been working on how to get more out of their work week by getting better use of the team and resources they already have at hand. Just a smarter use of what they already have got.

A lot of business owners are trapped in still doing repetitive, routine work that others in their business can do with appropriate systems and training. That can include quoting, purchasing and other sacred “holy cow” areas (anywhere were you say “I am the only one who can do that”).
As they say…

“A Chain Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link”

If you are that weakest link, THAT CHOKEPOINT, because all the work is funnelling through you, it will show because you will have no time to be:
- Building relationships with new or current customers, clients or suppliers.
- Working on projects that make your business run more profitably by reducing costs or getting things working more efficiently.
- Developing and training your key people.
What if for the next 90 days you were FREE from the day to day constraints of what you HAVE to do … and were free to do what you wanted to do to get your business working the way you want?
How would that look to you? A higher bank balance, a week where you are on top of it rather than behind again, or just a smooth week in your business.
Write a list of the projects that you would finish if for the next 90 days you were free from doing the work and focused on building a better business.

Feel free to email me your list if you would like some quick pointers.

PS: I am working on something
to get you that 90 days of free time!

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In the last couple of weeks I’ve had 2 really tragic things come up about SMS. You know, on your phone, Short Message Service, Texting.

One was a business owner that I was speaking to. He was talking about how hard it is to keep good staff.  They train people to a high degree (better than anyone else in their industry) and as soon as they get trained, they end up jumping out into the market to work for someone else and earn a living elsewhere.  They tried a lot of strategies to keep people loyal. He even had one team member resign via SMS. No phone call, no nothing.

Fast forward to just last week, and there was an article in the morning’s papers about the reverse.  A hairdresser decided to sack a staff member via SMS.  Supposedly that had tried to contact her before with no luck. So he sent her an SMS telling her she was no longer required.

How can you end the relationship between you and your team with 160 characters?

And at what stage did we start to replace real human interaction with technology to hide behind difficult conversations?

This is really about the depths of commitment and loyalty in between employer and employee. It almost sounds like there’s a breakdown in the contract.

What Do I Mean By The Contract?

By contract, I mean the unwritten agreement. You do your best work and I’ll reward you well, has always been part of the agreement. But that is just the economic part of the contract.

It’s not enough to just cater for the hygiene factors of looking after your team. Making sure they’re paid, making sure that they have all the tools to do the job. 

You’ve got a new generation, a younger generation that expects to be engaged in what they are doing.  More are seeking meaning through their work.

Now I’m not saying it’s your responsibility to bring happiness and joy into each of your team member’s lives through work everyday. Don’t start installing Air Hockey tables and go abseiling together every week … BUT it is your responsibility to create an environment where they feel actively involved in contributing to the success of your business, beyond their day to day work.

You can create a workplace where they have a level of control in their environment and are actively improving it. Or at least an environment where your team feel they are getting somewhere either personally or as part of the team. (I mean hey if someone like Gordon Ramsay can verbally abuse his team yet still have people competing to work with him, what are you doing wrong?)

By creating a challenging environment that allows good people to have something to aspire to, you are creating fertile ground for a strong team.  As Donald Trump once expressed, “Don’t kid yourself, nobody wants to work for a loser. Everyone wants to work for a winner.”

Get Moving: What sort of environment are you creating for your team?

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What puts you off when it comes to service?

With the ongoing spread of social media, you should be aware of something. BAD NEWS TRAVELS FAST. I have spoken with a number of businesses lately that have received scathing reviews online regarding service. It doesn’t look good when the first mention of your business is on complaints.com.au

They say that people are 10 times more likely to tell someone that your service is bad rather than saying your service is great. The fast pace of everything drives our expectations higher and higher. So what can you do?

Go back to the fundamentals. Because that is what is missing. With service it’s about managing our individual mental state in a split second before we speak with someone. Have you recieved calls when you’re in the middle of something? You hurrump on the phone instead of saying Hi positively? It’s too easy to do.

So here are what I see as the top 5 customer service gripes:

     1. Lack of Eye Contact – this is a personal unfavourite of mine. Walk into a retail shop or a reception desk, they’re helping someone else, and there is no acknowledgement that you even exist on the face of the planet.  Now I understand people get busy, and they’re trying to juggle multiple situations at once.  Whether it’s sitting behind the receptionist’s desk or a service counter, a simple look at the person with eye contact to acknowledge that you know they’re there can make all the difference.
     2. A Positive Hello – It’s nothing worth than having that feeling that you’re interrupting “Mr. Grumpy” on his bad day.  To be recognized and also appreciated is a foundation of good customer service. I met a business owner the other week that has his simple but elegant solution. He calls it his “2 Step Approach”.  You can’t get 2 steps inside his door before he’ll scream out “Hey, how are you doing?”  even if he is in the middle of something else.
     3. No Hustle – Our tolerance to how much time things take is getting less and less but, interestingly enough, I don’t believe it is that we are time poor. I believe it is because we have come to measure our importance based upon how quickly things respond to us. We are often more likely to be tolerant of someone helping us if they are obviously busy BUT also helpful as well. There is no worse feeling than someone with no sense of the importance of your time helping you. You need to hustle more.
     4. Trying to Win the Argument – OK, we are all adults here. We know not everything works perfectly in business, but how problems are handled can be the difference between a satisfied customer and your sworn online enemy. When things go wrong too many businesses try to win the argument, but end up loosing the customer. You don’t have to bend over backwards to apologise for everything but at the very least you should be focusing on keeping your customer, rather than winning your fight for your “just cause”.
     5. Failure to Listen – “What we have here is a failure to communicate”. Sometimes the commoditization of service means that we have canned responses to everything. It can be too easy to jump to the solution before the customer has even finished telling you what is going on. Take the time to hear someone out, to really listen to what the real concern is before just jumping in to solve it.
Have you experienced any of these problems? Or maybe you have found some gripes of your own. If so I would like to hear about what happened. Just email me back.

Get Moving: Today, stop for long enough to listen how your team are talking and treating your clients and customers.

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I often come across people in business who seem to know a lot about their competition.  In fact, it goes beyond knowing a lot, it almost seems an obsession about their competition.  It’s like they’ve got a personal grudge match against them. 

Now it’s one thing to know about your competitors and what they’re up to, but it’s another thing to focus on them so much that you define your own business in relation to them.  I mean if you think of the Olympics, you couldn’t imagine someone running a sprint while constantly looking over their shoulder to see where their competitors are.  They would loose.  Business is no different.
When you take your eye off your own game, that’s when performance drops.  See, as humans we tend toward comparison and categorization of others.  We see what their doing, where they’re advertising, what their pricing at, how well they’re doing or not doing, and use that as the yardstick for our business. 
But the funny thing is, the last thing that your customers want is not a comparable company.  They want an exceptional company, they want something that stands out beyond your competitors. That requires you not to copy and emulate but to innovate, to be different, to stand out. 

So next time you’re becoming obsessed with what your competitors are up to, step back for a second and think about what YOU should be doing. 
Have you got a clear picture of YOUR businesses strengths and directions?
If you don’t make sure this is part of your business plan.

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