by Julia Felton | Jun 28, 2017
With the first six months of the year very nearly completed, are you on track to achieve all your goals for 2017? If not maybe its time for a productivity review to assess what you are really doing every day. Are you spending time on high value income producing activities everyday, or are you getting distracted by the loads of important and urgent tasks that come across your desk, and into your email box each day.
I’ve spent the first half of the year honing my productivity skills with a mentor and it has been time well invested. I now have a new approach to how I block and tackle my days. I’m now achieving more and also having more fun doing it. So here are some tips to get you back on track.
- Take stock of where you are. You need to know where you are right now and where you want to get to in order that you can figure out the next step. Just think about it. If you are in Paris and you have no idea of where you want to visit, it doesn’t matter what directions you are given, they won’t get you to where you wnat to go. However, if you are in Paris and know you want to visit the Eiffel Tower then with some good help and advice someone can show you where you are the range of options to get there. A mentor can do just the same for you in your business, showing the plan to help you achieve your results based on where you are right now.
- Keep track of your most important commitment—the one you make to yourself. Productivity guru David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, contends that commitments to yourself are qualitatively different than those you make to others because your conscious mind can essentially “lose track” of them. While your boss will remind you of your commitments to her, your mind doesn’t know your email address. What Allen calls your “mental RAM” will continue to expect those commitments to be fulfilled, but you may have forgotten about them amidst the clamour of your work life. The result is the worst kind of stress, because you feel the pressure but you can’t quite figure out where it’s coming from. In his most recent book, Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life, Allen offers several effective tips for capturing these “open loops” and closing them, either by completing, canceling or renegotiating them.
- Practice saying “No.” Do you find that your work has bled almost seamlessly into your personal life? One of the answers to this problem is often the word, “No.” You have to acquire the skill to utter that magic word in order to create some boundary around your work and create the opportunity for personal relaxation and renewal. The key is to steadfastly turn down obligations unless they further your priorities.
- Invest in your health. This goes without saying, right? Actually, for most of us, it also goes without doing. Yet, apart from the obvious benefits of better health, increasing your physical well-being can yield tremendous benefits in terms of your productivity at work. In the view of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, authors of The Power of Full Engagement, it is managing your energy—starting with your physical health, including diet, sleep and exercise—that is more important than managing time in improving your personal productivity.
- Protect your mornings. Author and motivational speaker Brian Tracy refers to the “magic hour” after you get up—a time to protect yourself from the news and other distractions and concentrate on your day: What you are going to accomplish and exactly how you are going to do it. Many experts report that most people are naturally more creative and energetic in the mornings, which is an argument for applying yourself to your most challenging tasks then and saving the routine housecleaning until later in the day, one of the notions at the heart of the Morgenstern’s Never Check Email in the Morning.
- Pick a system—any system—just pick one. How many different places do you squirrel away information? Email? Yellow pads? Daily planner? PDA? Post-it Notes stuck like a yellow halo around your computer screen? It might take a serious investment of time to sort through the options, but decide on one…and then use it. Each of the productivity experts referenced here, and the hundreds of others in the bookstore, will claim their system is the best. But most of them also acknowledge that any system that you actually use is going to be better than no system or the chaotic structure that so many of us have fallen into. As Allen puts it, in choosing an organiser, whether high-tech or a stack of 3×5 cards, go for “simplicity, speed and fun.”
- Fun? Wait, did you say “fun”? Another important tune-up is to get reconnected with what’s happening to your personal life. Maintaining your personal relationships, relaxing and—gasp!—having fun are critical to your mental health, which, in turn, affects your energy, creativity and productivity.
But the most important tip of all is to build regular review and reflection time into your calendar. There are countless ways you can improve your productivity, lower your stress and enhance your physical and emotional well-being. But they all require some focus, some thought and some energy. The key is to treat the process of personal renewal itself as a priority. To use Stephen Covey’s classic “maintenance” metaphor, think of this as “sharpening the saw.” Schedule it. Place it in the priority queue, assign time to it, and actually give it some of your attention. Your time will be well spent
by Julia Felton | Nov 6, 2016
“Without solid foundations you’ll struggle to create anything of lasting value”
Many of us are familiar with the story, from the Bible, of the two men who built houses. One built his house upon a rock and another who built his house upon sand. The house built upon a rock weathered the storm, and the builder was called wise; but the house built on the sand collapsed during the storm, and the builder was called foolish.
The meaning of this parable is quite obvious: proper foundations are necessary. With a literal house, it is unwise to build on sand, because the foundation will be unsteady and the house will eventually suffer some kind of damage. This will waste resources, and all the time and work put into building the house in the first place will have gone for nothing. In contrast, it is wise to build one’s house on a sure foundation; anchoring to bedrock makes a building withstand the test.
And so it is the same in business. Oftentimes we get so excited about starting our business that we fail to put the proper foundations in place, and the result I come across time and time again is that whilst the business is prospering there is little or no negative impact, but when the tide turns and the storm comes in, orders dry up and cash flow is tight, then the unsteady foundations of the business start cracking and in many cases the business doesn’t weather the storm. It’s so sad to see this as some well thought out structured planning at the outset could have prevented this and ensured the business would survive and thrive.
Many of you will be familiar with how I like to relate everything in business to nature and the natural world and the foundations of your business are no different. There are five natural elements found in nature and they each represent a different season of the year and provide a different business focus which is critical to creating the foundations of your business. These elements and their seasonality provide us with a foundational blueprint of how to run our businesses by keeping our people, teams and processes in flow. Each element is inter-dependent on each other and this is why we must have all these five elements aligned if we are to create solid cornerstones for our business. This can be clearly seen in the diagram below of the Five Element Business Focus Model.
Water Energy (Mission):
Water energy has a duality in that it can be fast flowing and powerful or still and peaceful. The water element is associated with the season of winter and is always asking us the question Why? The key business foundation that the water element seeks us to get clarity on is why we are in business. What is the business mission and what is the real purpose of the business. For every business it is essential to have clarity of the mission and why you are in business, as this is the fuel that keeps you going when the going gets tough. Today more than ever customers are seeking to do business with purposeful organisations. Companies that know why they are in business and the real impact they want to make in the world. And interestingly for all these companies it is not profits, although interesting all the research shows that companies that focus on their purpose and impact actually generate 10 times more profit than companies that just focus on this metric.
Wood Energy (Merchandise):
Wood energy is associated with Spring which is a time of new beginnings. It is the season in which we ask What are we doing. In business this relates to what merchandise will be selling, what innovation and products and services will we be offering. It is essential that every business has clarity on what they are offering, because without this clarity the customer doesn’t know what they can buy and so can’t make a purchasing decision. In my experience at the outset keep things simple and just focus on a few key products and services. Get known for delivering these well and then you can expand your product offering. All too often I come across companies with a plethora of diverse merchandise and this just confuses the customer.
Fire Energy (Magnetise):
Fire energy is associated with summer when there is lots of movement and connection. In business the fire element relates to Magnetise and who are the clients you are seeking to attract. Knowing who you want to serve is a key cornerstone of any business and one that often gets overlooked. All too often new business owners want to serve everyone and in the process serve no-one. Getting clarity on your ideal client and niche is of paramount importance in creating a sustainable business. The other advantage of being niched and serving a specific target audience is that you can more easily position yourself as an expert and so command higher fees. Simply by niching you distinguish yourself from the crowds and so avoid your products and services becoming commoditised and therefore competing on pricing with others.
Earth Energy (Monetise):
Earth energy is associated with late summer, a time of slowing down and also of expert timing, of knowing how long to leave the crops until they need harvesting. The earth element is always asking the questions when and where and in business this translates to knowing how to monetise our products and services. Where and when should we be selling and at what price. These are key business decisions that can impact the business success and which we must be continually striving to master. Discount a product too early and we lose valuable income, whilst leaving a discount running too long also has the same effect. The challenge here is to learn how to master the art of distribution so that you maximise the return on your assets.
Metal Energy (Mechanise):
Associated with autumn metal energy is super efficient and effective. It is always asking the question How can we make things more effective. How can we change our procedures to get a better result?. How can we Mechanise operations so they are as streamlined as possible, and so they can be automated. How can we organise things and what systems and metrics do we need in place to monitor performance?. Implementing systems is oftentimes the area that many business owners overlook – after all it is not the most sexy of activities – and yet time and time again systems can save the business time and money when created in a structured and well thought out manner.
Each of these energies and its corresponding “M” activity are key cornerstones to ensure the success of any business. Just like in nature, these cornerstones need to be aligned to keep the business in harmony and when one or more of these cornerstones is missing this is when poor performance and trouble can occur. Just like the house built on the sand when these cornerstones of Mission, Merchandise, Magnetise, Monetise and Mechanise are out of balance then when stormy conditions arrive the business is more likely to implode.
If you’d like help creating solid foundations for your business then why not book in for a Joined Up Business Strategy Consultation with me and lets see what needs to happen to get your business back on track.
by Julia Felton | Sep 7, 2016
There is a power in simplicity. The easier something is to understand, the easier it is to share it. And the easier your message is to share the more people you can impact. Wow. Although I’ve known this for a long time this statement really hit me hard this week as I begun to realize how complex I have made my business and my life.
And it’s important to realize that in the words of Steve Jobs: “Simple can be harder than complex”. Sometimes trying to articulate what we do in a simple statement can be so challenging to do. We have a natural tendency to want to tell everyone all the things that we can do to help them, and yet when we do that we make our elevator pitch (short description of what services you offer) complex and no-one understands anything. Ironically, we can then end up serving no-one as people just don’t understand what ours specialism is.
I know I run a limiting belief that if something is too easy it’s not worth doing! What’s that all about?. Why do I insist on making things complex?. Can you relate to that?. I know it comes from my parents who were all about making things complicated and yet when things are complex it is difficult to flow.
Just think about a river. It flows easiest when there are no rocks or boulders in the way. The flow of the river is effortless and no resources are wasted. Contrast that with a river full of debris and rocks. The river flows more slowly as it navigates the hazards in its way. That’s the difference between the power of simplicity and the challenge of complexity and it provides a great metaphor that is for life and business.
Now please don’t confuse simplicity with easiness. As Steve Jobs noted: “You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple”. Yes making something complex simple is really challenging. That’s a bit of a twist!. It tests us to ensure that we really understand what we are talking about and that we can distill it into understandable, manageable chunks. This is why the best courses and training create step by step systems to help you learn. They simplify the process and engage all our sensory systems in the learning process to maximize results.
I know when I am designing my training programmes I often hold the vision of could I explain this to a 5 year old. Because if I can’t then I haven’t simplified the process enough. Albert Einstein also recognized the power of simplicity when he said: “if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.
Often a great way to get to learn something is to challenge yourself to explain it to someone else. If they don’t get it you gain valuable feedback on what you need to do to make your message clearer. Networking events provide a great arena to try this out in. Draft your elevator pitch and share it with others. Do they get it great, but if other people still don’t know what you do, then you’ve got valuable feedback to work on.
I’ll never forget a story that one of my mentors shared with me. She crafted what she thought was an excellent elevator pitch yet when she went and met potential clients they didn’t understand what she did. It tuned out that whilst the sentence made sense on paper the words she used simply did not resonate with her target clients. They even thought she did something different! This awesome feedback allowed her to refine her message and craft it using different language that resonated with her audience.
So my challenge to you this week is how can you simplify your life and business so others can better understand it.? Share your ideas with us in the facebook group.
by Julia Felton | May 18, 2016
This week’s daily dose of inspiration is inspired by my pony Thistle and how she behaved this morning. Every day I take the horses breakfast and as usual the ponies – Bracken and Thistle – finished first. (Partly because they are greedy and wolf the food down but also to be fair they do get smaller portions!).
Well after Thistle had finished her breakfast this morning she approached Toby and asked him if she could share his breakfast. Toby’s initial response was NO WAY. He barred his teeth and then moved his hind quarters round and tried to kick her. However, undeterred Thistle kept asking and after some time Toby finally acquiesced and let her breakfast with him.
Watching Thistle’s persistence in asking for what she wanted got me thinking about business and how often we don’t persist in asking for what we want. How often do you ask a potential client for the sale and just because you don’t get an answer you assume that they don’t want your services? If you are like me, I know I am guilty of thinking that. And then you know I simply don’t follow up with that prospect again.
This is a foolhardy strategy and one that means that I am always out seeking new prospects. What if those clients were right there under my nose but I just hadn’t asked them enough times if they needed my services?.
One of the joys and also challenges of the times we live in is the abundance of information we have at our finger tips. This is both a blessing and a curse, as if often means we are drowning in data and information. What if that prospect actually wanted your services but had just missed your email. What a wasted opportunity for both of you.
In a previous blog post Persist as The Money is in the Follow Up I share how 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact and this reminded me of what my mentor Clinton Swaine told me: “Ask six times for exactly what you want”. Just because you get a No the first time doesn’t means that you will always get a No. Thistle demonstrated this just perfectly this morning. She knew exactly what she wanted and kept asking until she got it.
And increasingly I am finding in business that people rarely respond to a first request. In fact a know a number of people that actually won’t respond to a first request. They know that if the person is serious they will ask again, and if they fail to then they know that either that person wasn’t committed to wanting to work with them. I find that quite a sobering thought!.
So I’d love you to think about the number of times you have failed to ask for what you wanted at least six times. Make a list of all these people and situations and then reach out to these people again. They might just be waiting to hear from you. After all persistence is the key to success. So be tenacious and you might surprised at the results.
So what are you waiting for. Get into action now and let me know in the in the Facebook group how you get on.
by Julia Felton | Apr 27, 2016
The thought in this week’s Wednesday Wisdom is all the more appropriate as I’m sending this out three hours late!! And this weeks thought is all about the power of consistency, which I believe is one of the keys to business success.
Whatever you want to achieve in life, you won’t become a master unless you demonstrate consistent behaviour and keep training at that discipline. Malcolm Gladwell in the book Outliers says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. That requires some consistent behaviour and discipline to show up each and everyday and practice.
The whole concept of consistency has been coming up for me recently with regard to my running. I started the year in great form and was going out on average five days a week. Then I went to South Africa for the best part of three weeks. I didn’t run once and boy was starting again tough when I got back to the UK. And then last week I was in London for a week and yes you guessed it, I didn’t run. This week been really painful trying to get back into the groove.
So what I’ve been learning is that I need to be more disciplined in my life and business and take consistent action each and every day. Because as I have experienced every time I stop it is so much harder to get started again. Consistency helps put structure into your day which in turn actually makes you more productive and efficient. You simply know what you have to get done.
Consistency is particularly important when it comes to marketing your business. You only need about 30 mins a day but making sure you engage in some marketing activities each and everyday helps ensure you have a pipeline of clients who want to work with you. Fail to do this and then you begin suffer from the money roller-coaster, that so many business owners experience.
So I’m going to out myself and apologise to my clients as I have not been following the advice I give you and marketing consistently for 30 mins a day. However, the great news is that now I have a limited number of spaces available for clients who want to make a significant impact in the world and take their business to the next level.
Are you one of these people? If so lets have a complimentary, no obligation chat and if you like what you experience, great I’ll share with you how we can work together.
I only have a limited number of spaces so reserve your place now and let’s see what is possible for you. I look forward to connecting with you.
Have a great rest of the week and an amazing Bank Holiday weekend and don’t forget to do your 30 mins marketing a day!
by Julia Felton | Jan 2, 2016
Would you ever turn on a tap and then let the water run away and not capture it? What a waste of water that would be. And yet is what I see happening in business day in day out, however, its not water leaking but rather resources – particularly time, energy and money.
Yes, most businesses waste thousands and thousands of pounds very year because they are engaging in activities that are not joined up. In other words one activity does not lead to another because the systems are not Joined Up.
So how do you know if your systems are Joined Up? Well the best way is to ensure that you measure every aspect of the business. As Peter Drucker says “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
When you think about this quote, it should immediately become apparent how true it is. Because, if you can’t measure something, and know the results, you can’t possibly get better at it. For example, it’s nearly impossible to lose weight without stepping on a scale once in a while to measure your results – if you don’t, you have no idea if you are succeeding or not.
Now as some of you know I have recently taken up running and tracking my performance on a daily basis has become a habit. I now have a record of how far I have been running and how fast I have been going. Without this information I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to acknowledge the progress I have made.
Now, in business, Drucker’s quote is particularly true. If you can’t measure every part of your business, you can’t manage or grow it.
For example
- Do you know the number of new website visitors you received in the last 30 days?
- And do you know what percentage of them turned into new paying customers?
- And do you know how the level of satisfaction among your customers has fluctuated over time?
- And do you know the precise average lifetime value of your customers?
There are nearly 50 questions such as these that measure each aspect of your business and I list a selection of these in the resources section my book Unbridled Success.
And if you don’t know the answers, if you can’t measure them, then you can’t possibly manage or improve them and know if your systems are Joined Up. And unless you can identify where you are wasting resources you can never improve performance.
So I encourage you to look at your business and examine where you might be wasting resources. Putting in simple tracking systems (or business intelligence systems) is the best way i know to help keep you focused on what is a priority in your business. Without business metrics you might as well be driving (or riding) blind, with no visibility of what is really going on.
And if you need any help in putting business metrics in your business then please connect with me for an Unleash Your Business Potential Strategy Session, and I’ll help identify one action you can take right now to start you getting your systems Joined Up.
p 13 Chaos to Coheranec
by Julia Felton | Jul 7, 2015
“If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” Albert Einstein
Whilst some of you might argue that it represents an empty mind I would counter-argue that an empty or tidy desk represents an organised mind. One where everything has a place. And when everything is organised you can save time. Organisation gives you focus.
A recent survey by Brother International interviewed about 800 office workers and the findings estimated that 76 hours per year or nearly two work weeks per person are lost searching for items around the office or on the computer. Three out of ten people admit to losing a file folder a year and one out of four lost a mobile phone, a calculator and/or a flash memory drive.
Staggering, what a massive waste of time. Imagine what else you could do with this time instead. So how do you get started.
1) Set aside 10 mins a day for a week each and every day
2) Collect all the clutter together
3) Put all the stuff you have never looked at in boxes
4) If you’ve not looked at the stuff in months either dump it or decide what you want to do with it
5) With things you want to save (or might need again) make a decision to work through that pile over the next week.
6) Put everything else away, find a space in your office for it
7) Make all your desk area clean and then keep it that way
8) Create a system for tidying your desk each evening before you close down
9) Finally plan the next day activities so you have no opportunity for procrastination
10) Just do it and get into action
So get going now and start tidying up your desk. You’ll be amazed at the clarity you experience from having a decluttered environment.
And if you continually struggle with focus chances are you are struggling with Entrepreneurial Attention Deficit Disorder (EADD). So why not join my Facebook group and check out the 5 day masterclass I ran on STOP Faffing, START Focusing
by Julia Felton | Jun 5, 2015
Recently this great information was shared with me and it was so powerful that I wanted to share it with you too because it talks to a subject that comes up with my clients time and time again. And that topic is customer follow up.
I think these statistics will shock and surprise you. So get ready:
- 48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
This is of course shocking but not surprising. I know from my own experience how often I have expressed an interest in a product/service and then no-one has followed up with me. This is especially frustrating when I want to buy!
So why would you start a business and not follow up an incoming enquiry?????
So we continue:
- 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
- 12% of sales people make more than three contacts
and so why is this. Well it is often that little voice in your head that says:
- “I don’t want to hassle them”
- “If they want it they will buy”
Well it seems they won’t….please read on for the most surprising stats of all…
- 2% of sales are made on the first contact
- 3% of sales are made on the second contact
- 5% of sales are made on the third contact
- 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
- 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact!!!
Just look at the jump between the fourth and fifth contacts.
So my friends persistence is the key to your success. I learnt this lesson the hard way from my financial adviser. I actually wanted his services but I was just way to busy to complete the paperwork. Consistently for about 10 months Nigel called me every month. Because I knew I needed his services I never found his call annoying or aggressive. I was in fact glad that he had reached out to me and reminded me of what I needed to do.
Today we are bombarded with information. We are in information overwhelm. But that does not mean someone doesn’t want your products and services. It might be, like me, it isn’t a priority right now as they are fire fighting something else. Staying connected to your prospects is key to converting them eventually. Sometimes it might feel to you like you are annoying them but rest assured this is rarely the case. In fact many are so happy to hear from you. And if you aren’t sure well just ask your prospect. Get permission to follow up with them in x days or months. Trust me it is so much easier to make those calls when you have got permission to follow up.
So go forth and make calls because the money truly is in the follow up.
by Julia Felton | Feb 17, 2015
Just as business follows the seasons it follows that team members who are part of the business also have a rhythm. This is called this your personal rhythm. I’m sure each of you can identify certain times in the day when you are most productive. If you’re like me you might be a morning person. I do my best work first thing in the morning – that is when I’m most creative. My low point is usually around lunchtime and then I tend to get a burst of energy in the evening.
Joined Up Business Leaders appreciate that each team member has their own rhythm and so allow flexible working hours. This means that if you are a morning person you can come in early and leave early or if you are more of an evening person you simply don’t come into work until lunchtime and then you work later into the evening.
Operating a flexible work schedule like this means that there must be trust between all parties that the work will get completed. Also, good communication is required by team members to ensure that there is always sufficient coverage within the team to meet the customers’ needs. And, with business becoming more global than ever, there is a distinct business competitive advantage to having office coverage for more than just the traditional work hours, as you can then more easily service the demands of clients across borders.
In addition to the personal rhythm to your day, there is also a personal rhythm to the year. Just like nature goes through the seasons, your own body passes through the seasons – having times when your energy level is high and times when you energy level is low.
Vacations are designed to help team members unplug and rest and recuperate. They are the equivalent of the winter season on the farm. They are required so that team members can come back with more energy and focus. Yet according to a March 2012 survey of 952 employees for the job and career site Glassdoor, some 15% of U.S. employees who are entitled to paid vacation time haven’t used any of it in the past year.
Ignoring vacations is a deadly short-term tactic, harming long-term business health.A division of Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) lost 80% of its revenue, and employees, as burn-out drove people away. Unused vacation days is a simple metric of a company culture that values short-term benefits over long-term performance, and a culture that supports fear over results.
Recently, Richard Branson, founder and chairman of the Virgin Group, instigated a “non-policy” for paid time off. This decision means that all of Virgin’s team members in the company’s main offices in the U.S. and the U.K. now have open-ended access to vacation time. Branson got the idea from Netflix, another early adopter of the vacation non-policy, along with several other tech firms like Zynga, Groupon, Evernote, VMware, Eventbrite, and HubSpot.
Here are three reasons why team members actually get more done when they have open-ended access to vacation time:
- It makes team members less anxious if they have to take time off for family reasons
- It implies trust which breeds responsibility
- It makes people happier and want to work harder
I’d love to hear what policies there are in place at your workplace regarding vacation policy. As always feel free to email me or leave your comments on the facebook page.
by Julia Felton | Sep 22, 2014
Building any type of business is not easy… if it was everybody would be doing it and success would not come with the financial and spiritual rewards it brings. Pushing through the tough stuff is what makes the difference between the Entrepreneurs and the Wantrapeneurs.
So on your journey of development and growth you’ll need to look out for these potential Roadblocks…that can Stall your Sales, Plateau your Profits and Destroy your Dreams!
1. Not Knowing your IDEAL BUYING Customer – Sounds simple but so many business owners just don’t have enough clarity or detail on the identity of their ideal buyer so they waste money marketing to people who will never buy their product or service. Remember that a “buyer is a buyer and a non buyer is always a non buyer” as Dan Kennedy has said. Take time to evaluate who exactly is buying your products or services and then start looking for ways to find them in large quantities…
2. Not Investing in Scalable SYSTEMS – As I often say to my Coaching Clients if it’s not Scalable your business is not Sale-able should you wish to sell it. Under investment in IT Systems, Sales and Marketing Systems, Delivery Systems or HR & Recruitment Systems will catch up with you and cause your business growth to stop in it’s tracks. Start investing now to build Assets in Systems and Cash always follows Assets and will accelerate your growth going forward.
3. Recruiting the WRONG Talent into Your Team – Yes, as you build your business you’ll need help from other people and not hiring the right talent at the right time can be fatal to your Growth. This is why I am a big fan of Talent Dynamics as part of your recruitment systems to make sure that you attract the right people who will be in “Flow” in the role so you get the most from them and they love getting up and going to work ever day. Not getting professional help when you recruit your team is in my view a huge mistake that costs businesses more time, energy and money than they ever realise until they get it wrong and have to deal with the fall out. It starts by knowing your own Talent profile so you understand who you need around you to magnify your value
4. Lack of a Blue Ocean STRATEGY – As the saying goes “Hope is not a Strategy” and neither does it work for driving growth in your business. You need a clearly defined Strategic Plan that knows where the Blue Oceans are, how to tap into them and what to sell them. Without this your growth will stop as your market becomes more competitive, crowded and red with volume based price competition.
5. Not Developing Your Business and Leadership SKILLS – There is no way around it, as the Leader in your business it will only grow to the levels of your personal skills. As author of the book Jab Jab Jab Hook Gary Vanderbeck says, “If your company is growing 30% a year, you have to be 30% better by this time next year”. Failing to invest in YOU will lead to challenges in Focus, Finances and Future growth. People often ask me what is the key to the success of my coaching clients and it’s a matter of their mind set…they realise that the hidden key to Growth is to Keep Investing in Yourself until you reach your Growth Goals.
Not investing in YOU is a road block if ever there was one. So if you’d like my help to Jump Start Your Business to the next level then just get in touch. I’ve currently got openings for just a few new clients to help them propel their business forward. Will you be one of them? Just email me at julia@businesshorsepower.com and let’s have a chat to see if we are a great fit for each other.
