 I moved from working in my business to working on my business!
Jim White, Founder Savor Dallas http://www.savordallas.com |
 I found a community of business leaders who make being in business a lot more fun and less lonely.
Jeannine Sandstrom, CEO CoachWorks International, Inc. http://www.coachworks.com |
 I now have a place to be open about my business success and future challenges.
Debbie Mrazek, CEO The Sales Company Author The Field Guide to Sales http://www.the-sales-company.com |
Posts Tagged ‘business owner’
Written by Michael E. Gerber,
Chairman and Founder E-Myth Worldwide
Yes, believe it or not, there is such a plan.
A business plan that always works.
And believe it or not, you’re going to learn how to create such a plan, your plan, in the next few moments.
Now for those of you who believe deep down in the recesses of your cynically- disposed hearts that there can’t possibly be anything that always works–- especially a plan–the following is going to be a bit of a stretch for you. But hang in with me here. The Business Plan That Always Works is so devilishly simple and straightforward, you’ll wonder why you didn’t see it before.
You see, that’s the beauty of it, this Business Plan That Always Works. It’s so very simple. And that’s probably the primary reason it always works. The Business Plan That Always Works is so simple that anyone who understands it can do it…which is to say, that if you can’t do a plan easily, there’s no point in planning. Despite what you’ve learned over the years, planning is only hard when it’s done the wrong way. And to do a plan easily requires that you approach the whole subject of planning in a completely different way than you’re accustomed to. But I’m getting ahead of my story.
The Business Plan That Always Works is built upon one Fundamental Principle that all the plans that never work fail to understand.
(When I say "all the plans that never work," I’m referring to the kind of planning you’re accustomed to doing–if you do any planning at all– the kind of planning that doesn’t work, has never worked, will never work, the kind of planning every single professional you know who’s trying to plan is attempting to do even as we speak despite the little-discussed-and-depressing fact that not one of their best laid plans will ever make one difference in their lives at all other than to unnecessarily frustrate, infuriate and intimidate them, while keeping them busy– uselessly and unproductively– for hours upon end!) You know the kind of plans I’m talking about here. The kind of plans that create gobs of guilt because you don’t keep them? The kind of plans that create enormous bouts of self-loathing because you never fulfill them? The kind of plans you make with great effort and tedium, only to find yourself later on doing something completely different than you had planned to do and wondering how you got there from where you began?
But let’s get back to that one Fundamental Principle I’m talking about that differentiates The Business Plan That Always Works from every other plan that doesn’t.
I call this Fundamental Principle, the Heart-Centered Principle of Planning.
(Now, bear with me here. I know this could begin to test your hidebound impatience. You’re an entrepreneur after all. World-wise and world-weary. You’ve seen everything, done everything, been beaten up by everything. You know with every close-to-cynical breath you breathe that language used capriciously can be a dangerous thing. After all, don’t you do that for a living: use language to produce results? Well, of course you do. Don’t we all? And it can get us all into serious trouble. But despite that, bear with me anyway. This path I’m leading us down is a path no one has ever taken you down before. And it’s not capricious. It’s deadly earnest. And because of that it can get a little sticky in moments. It can test your patience in moments. It can put me into question in your mind in moments. Despite all that, and despite your natural reservations, let’s proceed a few steps further and I believe you’ll truly begin to relish this thing we’re going to do together, this thing I call The Business Plan That Always Works.)
The Heart-Centered Plan is so distinctly different from its opposite, The Head- Centered Plan, that it’s important to define the distinctions carefully.
There are Seven Essential Rules of Heart-Centered Planning, of creating The Business Plan That Always Works for you.
These seven rules are:
Rule One
The first rule says that Heart-Centered Planning begins and ends with a feeling, while Head-Centered Planning begins and ends with a thought. To understand this rule, it is critical that you know the difference between a thought and a feeling. Most people don’t. (Don’t laugh, they really don’t.) Most people often confuse their thoughts with their feelings and their feelings with their thoughts. How do you know the difference between a thought and a feeling? A feeling resides inside your body; a thought resides inside your head. Let me say that again so that it sinks in. A feeling resides inside your body, while a thought resides inside your head. Most of what you’re doing right now as you read this article is a thought which is going to turn into a feeling, rather than a feeling which is going to turn into a thought. Heart-Centered Planning starts with a feeling, turns into a thought, and ends with a feeling. Head-Centered Planning begins with a thought, turns into a feeling, and ends with a thought. The rule here is that any plan that ends up in your head is a thought, and, because of that, won’t work. The Business Plan That Always Works is dominated by your feelings, not by your thoughts. And because of that, it is propelled forward because you want it to work, as the expression says, with all your heart. The point I’m making here is that despite everything you’ve been taught to the contrary, cerebral motivation has no momentum of its own. Thoughts die cold and lonely. A plan which describes the future, with no heart, is a plan destined to fail. The Business Plan That Always Works therefore, is a plan which begins and ends in your heart…which means it’s a living plan, not a dead one. Which means that it possesses an enormous amount of energy, which people describe as passion. And we all know what passion can do when it’s poured into a personal cause. That’s what The Business Plan That Always Works is, after all, a personal cause filled with passion.
Rule Two
Because Heart-Centered Planning begins and ends in your heart, rule number two says that The Business Plan That Always Works must be your plan and no one else’s. It must begin with you and end with you. It must be your plan. Any plan created by someone else on your behalf will absolutely never work because it simply isn’t your plan. And no matter how hard you try to implement someone else’s plan, no matter how hard you work at it, even if you succeed at fulfilling its objectives, you will ultimately feel like you failed. Winning with someone else’s plan is always "felt" as losing. In short, The Business Plan That Always Works is always the product of the person who is following the plan, original to him or her, personal to the max, born in the heart, and because of that, very, very private. Rule Number Two says, "Don’t go outside of yourself for your plan because you can’t find it there."
Rule Three
The way to know what your heart wants is stop thinking about it. To discover your plan, stop thinking about it. Pursue something else. Spend a day, two days, a week, it doesn’t matter how long, only that it accomplishes this objective, that you spend free time doing something you truly love to do, that you don’t ordinarily do because you can’t afford the time or the money to do it. Skiing. Boating. Fishing. Dreaming. Hiking. Running. It doesn’t matter what it is; for every one of us it’s different, but it does matter that you know what it is. The truth is we, all of us, spend very little time truly loving
what we do or doing what we love. We spend most of our time instead wishing that what we are doing could be more fulfilling. The reason for this is that we are mostly disconnected from our hearts, and spend the preponderance of our time instead actively pursuing thoughts about what we would be doing if we were happy, than experiencing what it means to be joyful in our hearts in the moment. So, to create The Business Plan That Always Works calls for us to experience, as fully as possible, the end product of an exciting plan which is the experience of joy which your plan must create for you in order for it to work for you. And to experience that joy requires that we spend more time before we create our plan, tasting the emotional fruits of it.
Rule Four
Most people think of a business plan as a series of benchmarks, or objectives. There is that kind of plan, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. A series of benchmarks or objectives delineate actions to be taken in a progressively completed process, but they fail to provide the inner motivation essential for a plan to become a realization. While the steps must be identified before anything can be done purposively, the essence of The Business Plan That Always Works is always able to be summarized in a brief, declarative statement which always beings with "I Want…," and always ends with an experience of having moved forward from where you are…and can be demonstrated by your new ability to do something you love to do more often than you’re able to do it now. For example, "I want to be able to spend eight days white water rafting in Montana on the…, etc., etc." Note that the objective here is not something to have, but something to experience. To feel yourself experiencing something you love before you actually experience it is tantamount to experiencing it. Experiencing the experience is core to the successful realization of The Business Plan That Always Works because it distracts you from your head where thoughts reside and puts you squarely in your body where feelings reside. Put another way, the experience at the beginning of the plan, tied to the experience at the end of the plan creates an emotional bridge for you to cross. Without that emotional bridge, most of us find ourselves sweating around among the stones, boulders and mud beneath the bridge, completely oblivious to the fact that the bridge even exists!
Rule Five
Having created an emotionally exciting picture of what you want, it is critical that you create a series of Frames of Reference within which you achieve it over a specific amount of time. A Frame of Reference is like a landing reached on your way up a mountain. It enables you to taste the climb, while resting with a look back and a look forward. Anyone who has ever done this (and we all have to some degree or another) knows the personal inner joy that comes from resting on the way forward, while getting a clear sense of where we’ve come from and a new picture of where we’re going. As a boy, I used to go to Yosemite with my parents, and we would climb for a few hours at a time up the long, sloping trail of one mountain or another, where we would stop from time to time and sit on granite boulders by the side of the trail, look out over the valley, taste the cool fresh air, and listen to the waterfalls off in the distance. There has been very little I’ve experienced in my life that is permeated by such sweetness as those experiences…those climbs and stops. Those moments of looking back and looking forward. Those sweet, lazy moments in which our plan was in the process of being realized while being realized, all at the very same moment. The Business Plan That Always Works must allow for those precious, sweet moments, those continuous Frames of Reference, because without them there is just the incessant climbing, the reaching for the top, the obsession that comes from an impatient thought, the drive to reach a conclusion. Most plans are like that. They drive us, but they don’t renew us. They compel us, but they don’t reward us. Such plans may move us forward, but every part of our body ends up resisting the movement even while obeying its dictate. This is the planning of "you should," and "you’d better," rather than the planning which comes from an inner desire, a taste of freedom, a wish for renewal.
Rule Six
Rule number six says that the plans we create reflect the life we live rather than the life we want to live. This may seem like the opposite of everything I’ve been saying up to now, but in fact it is not. The truth is that one cannot plan to be someone one isn’t. One cannot create a plan one is unable to implement. One cannot imagine becoming someone one isn’t. One cannot love what one cannot experience loving. And so rule number six states that in order to create The Business Plan That Always Works, we must be passionately interested in who we really are and what it is that really moves us. To do this then, we must every day ask ourselves this question, "Who am I?–and then answer it! The fascinating thing about creating The Business Plan That Always Works is that it calls for us to go inside more deeply than outside as we would imagine. This planning has to do more with who we are than who we are going to become. The fact is that anyone who has done this work, that is, pursued their inner reality with a passion, has discovered that in the process of becoming more who we truly are, we discover what we want. And in that discovery, our plan becomes self-evident. "Oh, so that’s what I want," this experience says. Or, put another way, "Oh, so that’s who I really am." Rule number six says that we must do this thing over and over and over again until it’s a permanent fixture in our lives. Only then will the Business Plan That Always Works become self-evident.
Rule Seven
Rule number seven says that until we are able to do rules number one through six with ease, anything we do which closely resembles them is better than anything which doesn’t. In short, rule number seven is a mantra which says, "Follow your heart, or your head will destroy you." The most productive business planning is not thinking about ends; it’s about experiencing means. It’s not about the objective; it’s about the process. It’s not about getting things; it’s about becoming more human. It’s not about winning or losing; it’s about sitting on the edge of the mountain on the way up, neither going forward nor going backward, to savor the intensely sweet joy of the moment. It’s not about pushing yourself, but about experiencing yourself. And, as a business owner, this is as true for your clients as it is for you. Which is to say that if you are unable to understand this truth I’m sharing with you, you will be equally unable to differentiate yourself in the heart of your clients from all those other pushing, striving, dying-to-get-there competitors all around you. And isn’t that what The Business Plan That Always Works for an entrepreneur is essentially all about? To put you into a truer, more meaningful relationship with your clients? And to do that, can you see that you must first be in a true relationship with yourself? The Business Plan That Always Works will put you there every single time. Who could ask for anything else?
Michael Gerber is chairman and founder of E-Myth Worldwide. He reminds you that the opportunity is to go to work ON your life not IN it, and in the process to experience the sweet, radiant, extraordinary joy of the fully-lived moment. His Web site is www.emyth.com.
Over the years of working with Fortune 500 companies and small businesses I have seen it all when it comes to websites. I have seen corporations spend thousands sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars more for a company website than they should. I have seen sites that don’t match brand, take forever to load, SEO that doesn’t matter ("I am number one on Marketing Strategy Experts Who Work On Venus"), and even navigation issues that you would think don’t exist this day and age. As a business owner or person in charge of buying a company website; If you remember these 7 mistakes you will save money, be more profitable, and have happier customers.
The TOP 7 Mistakes Businesses Make When Buying A Website
- Have no idea about the technology - This particular mistake drives me crazy as someone who has bridged the gap between technology and business for almost 20 years. Typically technology companies target the marketing or communications department of an organization and not the information technology department when selling website and design services. This gives the company an advantage because normally business oriented departments have no idea about asp, html, java script, flash etc. Even more troubling is they have no idea about how long it takes to write an application or what it would cost in real dollars. I sat in one meeting where the Marketing group actually cared more about the person’s shoes than the technical part of the presentation. Now, I can appreciate shoes, but in the end not paying attention and not including the Information technology department in the buying decision meant they spent 500 thousand dollars on a site that should have cost 10 thousand.
- No consensus on what the website is for – Some people think a website is a digital brochure. Or, some want to ‘sell stuff’ on the site while others want to put up a site for people to call in so they can then ‘sell stuff.’ The website can be used for both, but to be truly effective, you need to have a goal in mind. What do you want your customer to do? What is it there for? This is important because if you don’t know, you can bet that a vendor or other supplier will come along and decide for you. This may or may not work to your best benefit.
- Don’t know your place in the market – BestBuy and Walmart have been caught using location specific pricing, so why would you think web developers and designers are any different. Your place and status in the market determine what companies charge you for their services. If you are at the top of the market don’t expect too many people offering bargain web development and design services to you. At one company the prices they were quoted were 30-40% higher than another company of less stature and profit. A typical way they do this is by pricing the services separately (coding, visual design, meta data, and SEO strategy). You need to do the price research outside of your company structure. Be sure not to send requests from name@millionaire.com for example.
- Forget to shop around – You would never buy a car without shopping around? Right? Time and time again companies buy from someone they heard on the radio, or a referral from someone, or my favorite, from who their competitor used. I have heard things like "Their site looks pretty good. Who did they use?" Just because someone used a company does not mean they are a value for what you need. Maybe the company the referral came from for example paid way to much as well. If you take anything away from this point please get several quotes and stay anonymous otherwise you have to go back and read mistake number 3.
- Get stuck on Form VS Function – Say it isn’t so! People buy based on looks just like they pick their mates. Well, some do and some don’t. Always remember who your company is and who your customers are when building a site. Be careful to not have your preference override your customers. If you are a fashion magazine then it may be important that your site be beautiful, but if it does not function as well you will loose customers to sites that do. You need to always balance speed, function, and design for typical websites. It is worth mentioning that the more complex your form and function the more your site will cost.
- Don’t ask the hard questions – The more questions you ask, the better your understanding of what you are getting will be and for what costs. If you are new to technology make the vendor explain in detail anything you do not understand until you do. Be sure you ask several times what is included in the proposal and what is professional services or extra. You would never spend thousands of dollars of your own money without some detail and clarification. Right?
- Don’t ask for working client sites – I have seen this one more times that I care to mention. Typically it looks like this. A vendor comes in to propose developing your website and shows you all these beautiful sites. You sit there totally amazed not knowing that they are just mock-ups made by expert designers and not actual working sites. Always ask for sites that you can look at and see on your own from the Internet. If it is an intranet site ask to visit at least one of their client sites. If they offer their intranet site, press again for a client site and let the vendor know this is a requirement for the project.
If you remember these 7 mistakes and take action to address them, you can easily save thousands of dollars on your next company website. If you have more specific questions or want to know more issues that come up in web design send us an email.
P.S. We have had several people ask questions about site developers that we can recommend and what our site runs. If you need a quote on a site let us know and we can forward your email and introduce you to some great developers. To answer the second question, Our site is a base Revolution template by Brian Gardner that has been heavily modified by US for SEO and readability. It is 100% WordPress driven and published through windows live writer. Plug-ins we use are sharthis, sphere related content, askimet spam, Google analytics, Google sitemaps, wpseo (modified by us), Post Plug-in Library, Similar Posts, wordbook, WordPress automatic upgrade ,and IPHONE Auto Formatter.
How do most businesses begin? Small. Sometimes they are an idea born from a hobby, a passion, or a skill…and then they progress and grow. Bill Gates’ behemoth of a global corporation, Microsoft, started in his garage! Your own business could go the way of Microsoft, or it could thrive and sustain itself from your home or within your neighborhood. What do Microsoft and the 20-years-and-still-counting neighborhood vacuum repair shop have in common? Each started as an idea — a dream — and progressed to an initial business plan modeled from the original vision or idea into a working, profit-making, viable and enduring business.
When established businesses invite innovations, the process is similar to that of setting up a business to begin with. The success rate of your business innovation (you know, stuff like progressive profits and the future growth potential of your business) is all about your ability and willingness as a business owner to understand business operations and make decisions that most decisively and positively benefit your business. Good business planning entails developing and maintaining a vision of the future while also concurrently recognizing present resources and financial realities. Your business innovation plan should also take into strong consideration myriad foreseeable changes within and outside the business that will affect growth and future viability.
After a few years in business, you may feel like the basics are old hat; you have more important things to do! However, the basics are what take you to where you most want to go. Akin to eating well and health, the basics ensure you a healthy bottom line.
Before moving onto your next big innovation, take a moment to assess all the known facts and possible contingencies of moving in this direction, and know without question all that is involved. This checklist will be invaluable in helping you with your initial planning.
- Identify the advantages and disadvantages of making this change in your business.
- Be absolutely honest and unwavering in assessing your company’s current skills and the skills needed to move into this new area.
- Be as forthright and truthful in assessing your business skills. Consider your experiences and your qualifications for completing marketing, financing, planning and management functions. Think about outside partners who can advise you.
- Do whatever level of market research it takes to identify the market for product(s) or service(s) of the type of product or service you are expecting to sell and/or provide your customer base.
- Give your new service or product a name and, if appropriate, a logo that is descriptive, appropriate, catchy, even hip, and certainly memorable.
- Establish a system that fits this new product or service. What accountability needs to be put into place? How will you accomplish this?
- Design an advertising and promotion program that stays within your budget and effectively delivers your sales message to your target audience. Utilize an outside marketing consultant if your budget allows and you feel their expertise will achieve your sales delivery goals.
This is a start. You and your partners may also come up with other items to add along the way. The bottom line is to know exactly where you are going, have realistic goals and a workable plan, and maintain your focus every step of the way.
For a strategic view of your new plans, give us a call. We can offer a third-party, objective view that may help uncover issues you haven’t considered.
Several years ago, I got a call from a guy who saw my success story in the Dallas Morning News. He called because he had a dream to create a marketing agency and since I had one and one that was successful enough to be written up in the paper he thought I might be a good place to start.
What he didn’t know was that I established a strong working relationship with a reporter responsible for those stories and many of my clients appeared on a regular basis because I was willing to write good stories and pass them on to her. On deadline day, my client still had not approved ‘who’ the spotlight professional would be so I was forced to figure out a solution. Voila! I did one for myself.
Back to the guy who called me. I love to help people realize their dreams and he seemed earnest enough so I met with him. I shared as much as I could, gave him referrals to other people who might be a fit (he wanted to create a sports marketing agency), and encouraged him to ‘go for it.’ I said good-bye to him and didn’t have one thought more about anything else happening.
About a week later I received a call from another guy. This guy referenced the first guy and said that his friend thought I might be able to help. A few days later we were having lunch at a great local Thai restaurant (where he only goes on business lunches because his wife doesn’t like Thai food). As we ate, he shared his story about why he was a new business owner, how his last firm was a huge success but he had kids and his former partners spent mad amounts of cash on marketing, and how he had dreams for the future of being like the local hardware store where people know you and trust you. I told him to hold that vision and if he ever felt lost to come back to it and he would know just what to do in his business. I listened intently to what he had to share and reminded him of all the success he had experienced and encouraged him to never change who he is.
We walked out of the restaurant and he thanked me, and then said… "Do I owe you something? I feel like I got so much from our conversation." I responded that in all of my years in business that I have always shown up where I am directed and things have taken care of themselves. I added as I walked away, "If there’s ever an opportunity for you to tell someone else about me, you’ll know. I said good-bye to him and didn’t have one thought about anything else happening.
About a week after that I was with a client and the subject of a huge project came up. I mean a HUGE job – one that would be many hundreds of thousands of dollars. I just happened to be standing in the hallway when the conversation was taking place. My client and I both knew one other firm, but I also knew this new fellow I met just the week before. What did I have in my mind? Logic? No… I had a guy’s heart in my mind. A guy who wanted to be like the hardware shop – where people could come to him and trust that the job would be done right.
I told my client all about this guy and how successful his previous firm had been and how he was a guy you could really count on. Plus, he was local (the other firm was halfway across the U.S.) and with the size of his company could also be flexible. I gave my client that guy’s card and left. I didn’t have one thought more about anything else happening.
About a week after that, I got a call from the guy I referred to my client. He was ecstatic… this job was the biggest in the firm’s history… as big as many other firms 10 times their size… and they just won the bid. He was calling to thank me. And he wanted me to share in the success. He planned to give me a referral bonus. Since I didn’t refer him to make money, I felt fine with this because the referral was given with the best intention and the bonus was given after I referred who I thought was best to the company.
What was the ‘referral’ bonus? A check for nearly 10 grand from a nice guy I met through another nice guy who didn’t know me from Adam until he saw me in the newspaper.
So, how does relationship marketing work?
- Give first and don’t expect anything. I’ve found over the years that there are people who give first, people who give nothing away, and those who think they give freely but really expect something in return. I recommend going where you feel pulled to go. I don’t meet with every person who calls me, there’s just not enough time in the day to do that. But, when my heart is pulled, I go. When I am there, I give all I am to the moment and share as much as I can. I feel like as long as I’m there I might as well be useful.
- Get to know good people. Birds of a feather flock together. Good people know other good people. When people I know, like and trust suggest I meet someone they know, I go. I don’t ask a lot of questions or question why, I just go. The only way to get to know more like-minded people is to get to know and connect other like-minded people. Be a connector yourself and you will find that others will be happy to reciprocate the kindness.
- Be ready to receive. Too many people complain about not getting enough sales or referrals or business they love and at the same time they just aren’t open to receiving what is available. If you are focused on what you don’t have then your mind can’t be open to seeing what is coming to you. Stay open to opportunities that will enhance your business as well as others. When people only think of themselves then they don’t have room to think of others. Receiving is all about being ready.
Relationships form when you aren’t working hard to make a connection. Give and help others get to where they are going and others will help you get to where you are going. Be sure you know where you are going!
Being in business for yourself has its perks…and its own set of issues to be aware of and to keep abreast of. One to be sure to take into strong consideration is office space — if you do not have the good fortune of owning your own space, you will more than likely be looking into leasing office space. Leasing is not a bad way to go for the burgeoning business, however, keep these five tips (maybe, more aptly think of these as your “leasing bible”) in mind and you will come out just fine…and business will go on as usual.
1. Profit from another’s misfortune. God forbid you might have to adopt this awareness…just do it…you and the space you utilize for your business matter to you after all… and your competitor is thinking this same way too…gotta do what’s best for you and your business survival. It’s the age of downsizing and rightsizing — and that means empty office space. If you are exponentially lucky, you can save as much as 25 to 35% on lease space. Even if the downsizing craze passes, subletting is always one of the best sources of discount space.
2. Let yourself be lured. Many communities offer incentives to relocating businesses, and some have economic-development zones, where the city provides tax abatements, low-interest loans, and other amenities to attract businesses. So many of today’s large suburban and evolving cities are aggressively developing their downtown and otherwise declining neighborhoods and are willing to make just about any reasonably presented deal to attract clients and tenants into these resurging development areas. This could prove to be extremely profitable to you and your business — space location-wise and potential client base in direct relation to business growth potential — check this option out.
3. Share. Roommates aren’t just for twenty-somethings and for the general public. “Rooming” with another business partner is a fabulous idea — financially the benefits are limitless, and reciprocal business referral-wise as well — talk about a super-duper win-win situation all around! You can get into a bigger space for perhaps less cash outlay monthly than you would have had going on your own with a smaller, more confining space, and you can share and trade clients back and forth the live long day while co-existing in a wonderfully oversized space that more than accommodates your business and that of your roomie.
4. Strike a deal. Don’t be shy. Speak right up. Don’t ask…won’t know. If you are looking for brand new space or renewing existing space, make a deal that works for everyone — you and the landlord. It’s great to find an ideal locale so your business can effectively and consistently market your product to your existing and growing customer base, and any landlord worth his or her salt would love nothing better than to have a long-term, reliable paying tenant. Deals can always be made…keep in mind the prevailing market rates for spaces your size, do a little number crunching and offer the landlord a workable deal that benefits the landlord’s monetary considerations and your least-amount-dollar-to-space-ratio monetary outlay…and get to that business of yours!
5. Do without. Of course, the thought of paying any rent could make you want to ditch the corporate office altogether. Homeward bound. This could be the way to go if you can deal with perhaps having your workforce telecommuting from their homes and you don’t mind converting your dining room or guest bedroom into your office headquarters. The cost savings is certainly at the top of the benefits list when thinking of chucking that office space lease. Additionally, if you have openly communicative relationships with your staff, chances are, given the opportunity to become telecommuters while retaining their jobs and be essentially their own bosses with appropriate input from you will be an idea instantly embraced.
Keep the above in mind. Sidebar: each business owner’s situation is unique and never like another’s. Think long and hard on your needs, your risk factors, and think about your workforce, the impact making a decision one way or another will have on you, your family, your employees, their families…then sleep on it, wake up and go with your gut…go with the decision you are most comfortable with while using these tips as your bible or friendly reminder voice. You’ll do fine…after all…you’ve gotten your business off the ground and up and running…you can do this too…really.
A couple of days ago, during a conversation with a client, Donny Deutsch’s show, The Big Idea, came up. She said, “Have you seen it lately?” I told her that not only do we check it out every night, but I even blogged it. Then she said something that got my attention. She said, “Talk about someone that didn’t know who his audience was when he started out. He was all over the map.” I commented that it was that exact thing that I blogged about. The show in the beginning was, in her words, “all over the place.” Today, though, she loves the show since it is aimed right to our hearts – passionate entrepreneurs.
So what can we learn from mega-millionaire advertising guru Donny Deutsch? It’s this. No matter who you are you can sometimes go off the road when it comes to identifying your ideal client. All kidding aside with Donny – it was probably the lack of format that made it hard to choose a target (he obviously knows what he is doing with his $2.3 billion dollar sale of the Deutsch agency). Still, you might be struggling with the same things. It can happen to the best of us.
I believe creating a persona can really make your ideal client profile sing. When you take your ideal client profile and create a persona it allows everyone in your company and other referrals sources know exactly who you are looking for in a client. A persona creates a snapshot – a character picture (cartoon or otherwise) of your best client. But, just like Donny, you need to begin with a clear snapshot of that special something you have to offer your ideal client. The two go hand in hand.
Create a Persona (do this for each target market you have in your business)
Think of your best clients. Choose three, and begin to look at how they are similar. Everyone is different, yet your best clients are the same in very similar ways. Your job is to discover those ways.
Start by covering the demographics. Age, size of company, number of employees, and any other physical characteristics you can think of. Take note that if you are choosing clients only by the demographic level, it’s likely you have a lot of room to choose from the cream of the crop of clients!
Next move to psychographics and characteristics of your ideal client. What do they want? What do they think? How do they think? What motivates them? What problems do they have that you can solve? The more in-depth you can make this the better.
Finally, we get to the unseen level. I call it the feeling level of who the client is. Your best clients feel a certain way. You act a certain way around them. You know how you act. Put into words a description that allows you to share this with others. It’s easier than it sounds. People relate to each other on this level every day, they just don’t talk about it, and they aren’t aware of it. This level will keep you safe when it comes to bypassing the clients that aren’t a fit, a.k.a. misfits.
After you have all three levels complete, take these and create a persona that looks something like this:
Bob is a 50-something, progressive-thinking business owner. He has children in college, he’s been divorced twice. He takes a great deal of pride in his business. He’s driven and has high standards. That works well with us because we have high standards too. We are driven to be the best in our industry, too. Bob isn’t too concerned about brand names, and he drives an American made car, just like many of the other self-made millionaires. His measure of excellence is a can-do attitude. He doesn’t like mistakes, but he is forgiving. When I’m around him, I feel like I’m being pushed to be better. It’s a fatherly feeling where I know he likes me, but he keeps me on my toes.
The more detailed you can make your persona, the easier it is to do market research, to identify magazines “Bob” may read, to ask others if they know a “Bob” and to actually attract and spot a Bob. With this information in your mind about Bob and aligned with why Bob likes doing business with you, it is much easier to speak about this in a way that gets your message across while helping Bog identify himself as a good client.
This one technique has literally increased many clients’ revenue very quickly. That’s the gift of clarity and the gift of being able to pass on that clarity. This week, commit to creating a persona that will help you say bye to struggle and hello ease.
You can do the same with a client that was a train wreck too. It can help you deconstruct what worked and what didn’t and where the engagement went off the tracks. Have the courage to be honest about the part you played and you’ll be able to better bypass the next one.
Next week, we’ll talk about how to leverage misfits for more profit and reciprocity. There’s a way to send people away that actually will get you more clients. Imagine that!
Here at the True You Marketing, we also work with personas. This is our female entrepreneur persona.
Sally is passionate about leaving the world a better place than when she found it. She is a successful expert in her chosen field, and is an influencer of others. People say she is generous, kind and compassionate, but she’s no pushover. She’s a courageous, talented entrepreneur who is fueled by her intense commitment to serve others. She believes in doing her best each and every day, and encourages others to do their best; always looking for the best in others. She is an energizing force for others and her passion is contagious. She knows who she is or is evolving into it. She believes in something greater than she is, and believes that when we serve the whole, all the parts benefit. Sally is a responsible and intentional person who sets goals for herself on many levels, and she realizes she isn’t perfect nor does she try to be. She is involved in her community. She reads a lot – self development books, business books, O Magazine, and tunes into influencer blogs online. She may be single or married, and she enjoys the good things in life that have come to her materially and otherwise. Sally realizes that having an outside perspective can make her even more successful and chooses to work with a like-minded company such as the one80 group. In the end, Sally understands life is about living. She strives to balance life and work in a way that honors who she is.
From billion-dollar corporations to small businesses, open book management (OBM) delivers results that take companies that are struggling or merely surviving … to thriving. In theory, OBM sounds like a business owner’s worst nightmare because the thought of sharing the financials can leave them feeling a little, well, exposed. Beyond vulnerability, however, is a road populated with incredible numbers of courageous companies who opened the details of the company to employees.
Perhaps the most well-known OBM success story is Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation (SRC), a division of Navistar. Before OBM, the company was a long-standing, money-losing division. After the OBM injection, company revenues exploded to $100 million. Small companies reap the rewards, too. Accounting firms report increases of 60 percent or more the year following OBM implementation. Some staffing firms have shown a sales gain of almost 80 percent in just one year. In short, OBM works.
But how does it work?
Simply stated, open book management places the responsibility of the company’s success on every person in the organization. From the janitor to the president, all are focused on increasing profits. The company’s goals become each employee’s goals, who realize that building a better system, maximizing productivity, reducing defects, cutting costs and increasing efficiency not only is good for business, but also good for them.
The basics of OBM include:
Financial literacy – If employees don’t understand the way their behaviors affect the bottom line, they can’t make smarter choices for the company. The first step to OBM is to “open the books” to all employees. Some companies choose to post scoreboards in the break room, others post financial information on the company intranet, and both meet at “all-hands” meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Accountability – OBM makes every employee accountable for the company’s success. Whether an employee is a forklift operator, administrative assistant or CEO, each person is expected to first be a business person looking out for the financial well-being of the company. Owners and executives build in accountability by teaching employees how they can increase the bottom line.
Incentive – The ‘What’s in it for me factor?’ is strong in most business settings, but in OBM it is a critical element of success. Employees learn very quickly they get a piece of the pie when the company meets or exceeds set goals. More often than not, OBM offers higher-than-expected results. Company owners are only too happy to share the increased profits.
Paradigm Shift
Skilled business performance consultants realize it is not enough to show people how OBM works. The key to lasting success is developing the desire to make it work. Employee motivation comes from understanding that each person has a chance to make a difference. It’s a shift to empowerment instead of management. Owners and managers move from telling employees what not to do or how to do a task, to actually sharing with employees what they want the outcome to be. This empowers employees to be part of the solution. And all too often, those working closest to the process offer insights that lead to greater efficiency, increased cost savings and/or profitability.
Sign Me Up
So, you want to try OBM? You may be wondering how to actually implement open book management. There are four major steps:
Share Company Information – This goes back to unveiling the critical data needed to improve the bottom line. For a manufacturer, you may want to take a look at pieces manufactured per hour and explain how a small increase impacts the bottom line. If you are in a business where your returns are higher than industry average, discuss the reason with employees. Remember: it’s not enough to simply say what needs to be improved, and ask employees to do it or find ways to do it. Employees need to understand how their division or group’s numbers impact the company’s profitability. The more they understand their personal contribution, the more likely they will stick with the program.
Business 101 – Entrepreneurs seem to be born with a business gene. They tend to have a knack for company basics. On the other hand, most employees have no idea how the business operates or what matters affect profits. Today, many college graduates don’t understand how a business works. What if you could teach every employee to think like an owner? You can. Teaching employees the “game” of business brings company issues to life, and ignites the entrepreneurial spark inherent in all of us. Employees go from thinking the owner is taking home all the dough, to questioning wasteful practices and implementing efficient systems.
E-M-P-O-W-E-R Your People – If you think business owners squirm at the thought of turning over the financials, they get equally as nervous at the idea of turning over power to employees. Many management philosophies went the way of the dinosaur because they didn’t work when applied. OBM isn’t lip service. Company leaders must enable people to make decisions that affect their group or department, and be willing to accept the consequences of those employees’ decisions. Experience shows us that people learn quickly and often make smart decisions. To do otherwise would adversely affect their personal pocketbook. Now who would do that?
Make it Personal – Profit sharing plans have been around for years, but they aren’t like true open book management since employees know very little about how their actual actions impacted the bottom line. Just like any astute business owner, employees start the year with a goal or target. They can monitor their group’s or department’s success – or failure – on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual basis, and know right where they stand at any given moment. Knowing the bonus ahead of time has an incredible effect on motivation. If employees know their share of the pie is 10 percent of profits and they can see profits steadily increasing all year, they know the payoff is worth the extra effort.
OBM makes your business your employees’ business. The results can be awe inspiring, but it takes courage to try something new. Those who have done it say it has transformed their businesses. Those who haven’t don’t know what they are missing.
It’s often said that McDonald’s isn’t successful because they offer the best hamburger on the market, but rather because they offer a consistent product time after time. Whether you are in Paris France or Paris, Texas, your Big Mac is likely to taste exactly the same. This scenario illustrates just one of the many benefits systems bring to a business.
While consistency, such as at McDonald’s, is a great benefit, there are many others that can truly transform the way business owners view and work in their businesses. Within a company, almost every function that has replicated actions can be improved through systems. Once you start looking at your business with a systems eye, you will never be the same again.
Increased Productivity and Efficiency
A growing real estate company found that its realtors were spending a great deal more time than needed on paperwork. The solution was to develop a paper flow system that enabled realtors to touch the paperwork fewer times and that resulted in more complete files for the support staff. The solution also provided much-needed forms that realtors had been developing on their own and in many different formats. This system increased the time realtors had to be productive and the efficiency of the whole sales process and support staff.
Improved Customer Service and Quality Control
A local carpet retailer wanted to corner the market by offering incredible customer service while keeping costs competitive. The company developed a system that detailed every client interaction from the order to the follow-up survey. Nothing was left to chance. Every department uses a detailed guide that outlines the department’s part of the client service system. The salespeople have a system to follow that allows them to focus on the customer – not on paperwork. The order fulfillment group has a system that enables them to contain defects to less than one percent. Within a very short time, the company earned a strong reputation and a corner on a major metropolitan carpet market. The bonus for the company came when the owners decided to open a new store in another city. The systems transferred easily and aided new staff training. The store opened in a record 30 days, and enjoyed the same success the original store did.
Cost Savings and Self-managed Employees
Systems also offer structure to a business and its employees. Employees require less supervision, and can manage themselves while increasing productivity. Waste from mistakes often decreases, defects from an error in judgment decline and consistent work quality ensures clients receive what they want – the first time. Companies like CIGNA have put systems to work and cut costs by over $100 million dollars in a five-year period.
Improved Business Performance and Experience
Ask any business owner and s(he) will tell you that s(he) spends too much time answering questions and attending to details that do not add to the bottom line. Implementing systems can give a business owner his/her life back. Systems eradicate the need to reinvent the wheel and alleviate repeated questions by staff. Systems allow you to improve a gap in performance quickly and proactively. Most importantly, systems empower an owner to work on the business instead of in it. Owners who spend more time strategically planning and systematizing the key activities around the business will improve their business’s performance. Those that move away from a systemless, reactive environment often cite improved quality of life and increased enjoyment in their business.
There are many other ways systems benefit a business. We’ve highlighted some of the most potent advantages of implementing systematic processes. From a three-person flower shop to a Fortune 50 manufacturer to the local movie theater, all businesses can benefit from designing and implementing systems. If you are a business owner who is too busy to make an appointment to learn how you can improve your business and your life, chances are, systems implementation is for you.
As a business owner, how often do you have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with other owners or executives about ideas? Many small- and medium-sized company owners and executives frequently feel they are working in a vacuum because they rarely have the opportunity to exchange ideas with peers and other professionals. Business roundtables enable owners to cash in on the roundtable’s pool of experience and the expertise of skilled facilitators.
Roundtables typically are comprised of business owners and CEOs who come together to share ideas, discuss challenges or concerns, and to learn new ways to approach old problems. They are different than advisory boards that bring a group of professionals representing different areas of business together to assist one company in making decisions and to offer advice in steering the business into the future. Executive roundtables are proactive and interactive.
Most business roundtables group similar companies together so business owners interface with others dealing with challenges and issues within their businesses. For example, small and medium companies are grouped together because they share commonality in size, while larger companies meet separately.
Some roundtables even take this process a step further, and group companies by industry — service companies, for example, would be grouped separately from manufacturers or other product-oriented companies. Nevertheless, good facilitators possess the experience to avoid grouping companies competing in the same industries in order to spur discussion on critical business issues.
Concepts and ideas are introduced at monthly meetings where members follow a 12-month curriculum. Homework also is assigned to roundtable participants who are asked to complete it by the next meeting, along with any questions for discussion. Since adult learners must use new information for it to “stick,” homework assignments are critical for the adult mind to retain new concepts.
Nothing about the way a business roundtable is conducted is left to chance. Members attend meetings offsite to hold distractions to a minimum. Each meeting follows an agenda so time is used productively and wisely. Each member is asked to commit to the group and make every attempt to attend each meeting. The presence of all members is key to the synergy that commonly accompanies business roundtables. Many owners even keep in touch long after the roundtable is over – a sign that these relationships offer much more than camaraderie.
Since there are many members to share the fee, the cost to members is a fraction of the cost that a one-on-one business performance consultant would charge. At the suggested $1,000 to $4,000 per advisory board member per meeting fee, business roundtables look like a steal at between $400 and $600 per month.
And that’s only one of the many benefits owners and CEOs find they have a safe haven to discuss issues that weigh heavily on their minds. They soon discover and learn, from others who have experienced similar issues that they are not alone in their quest for top talent, increased productivity and decreased costs. Besides being an objective sounding board for members’ ideas, the group also can be an accountability factor. If an owner says he/she intends to implement systems within his/her sales force, it is almost certain that the rest of the group will ask the next time they meet how his/her systems are coming along.
The results roundtables elicit can be spectacular! Some members have reported double-digit profit increases since implementing ideas that they always intended to put into practice, but had not done so until joining the roundtable. Others note that personal productivity has increased as a result of a more focused approach.
Family businesses have found a unique use for business roundtables. Before handing over the reins to the family business, junior members attend the one-year course to learn how a business operates. This head-start gives these soon-to-be business owners the leg up on other new entrepreneurs. According to one family business owner, “It’s hard to place a value on experience.”