First stop hiring yourself by continually working "in"
your business. Don't be an employee of your company, reserve
the choice to be the president of your company. Secondly,
stop hiring yourself through your employees. Business owners
tend to hire people like themselves instead of people that
have the strengths they require for that position. You tend
to forgive their weakness in that area because you also
have the weakness. Here is a formula to use in delegating
to the right people, when you don't have to manage, monitor
or motivate your employees you are truly delegating. For
example one of my clients had to fire his manager. His manager
was in charge of the computer operations. He decided to
promote someone from within the company to take his place.
He hired a computer consultant to train the new employee. The problem with this is the person
he was training lacked knowledge about computers. This was
a very expensive way to replace his original manager. He
realized he had hired himself. He also lacks knowledge of
computers and had too much empathy for his new manager.
He remembered when he was younger and wanted to give his
new manager a chance to advance. That empathy was costing
him in time, money, productivity and the computer consultants
hefty bills. I suggested he hire someone with computer experience
and stop the suffering. He agreed and within two week his
business was back on track. He was too close to the situation
to see this clearly.
Learn from Your Past
Just like a kid has to fall a couple of times when learning
to ride a bike, so do entrepreneurs fail as they learn how
to be successful. Learn from the past and set up systems
and structures so that whatever occurred can never happen
again. Solve problems for a lifetime not just a quick fix.
Don't run your business like a fireman, run your business
like an architect. Build a sustainable future instead of
putting out daily fires.
Set Yourself and Your Company Up For Maximum Productivity.
Give everyone the computers and other tools they need to
process information immediately. Automate the reporting
of, access to, and flow of information so no human help
is required. Develop a culture where any blocks to productivity
are removed by your staff instead of you. Focus everyone
on profits and growth. Grow your people as much as your
company is growing. If you company is growing 50% annually,
then your staff needs to grow at least that much. Hire people
based more on attitude and behavior versus experience. Create
a culture of hiring within based exclusively on performance
not tenure. Get a Web Site. The web is growing in leaps
and bounds. The expense of operating a business today can
get in the way of offering your future customers efficient
products and services. Your future customer's will not want
to pay for your overhead. The web offers you the potential
to market your business to millions of people all over the
world. Have a profitability and financial plan. Also a budget
and a measurement process to keep track of how you are doing
monthly. If you don't know where you stand financially and
have no short term and long term financial goals, then you
are just letting fate dictate your success and we know those
odds aren't too good. Control your own destiny!
Develop Relationships
The success of your business is in direct relation to the
quality of the relationships in your life. Define the key
people that can help you grow your business and commit to
spend time to develop your relationship with them. Spend
one day a week with your best customers listening, collaborating,
suggesting, understanding. Have a relationship between you
and your customers; not just a selling relationship. What
you will be offering or selling to customers in five years
may change in form or substance to what you're offering
now. Learn from your clients instead of just selling to
them. Clients really appreciate sharing their views and
needs with companies will listen. Let the customer create
the questions on a survey instead of just giving their answers.
A coach can help you to develop a system of learning from
their customers and develop relationships.
Maintain a Healthy Balance
Your free time is the largest ingredient in recharging your
batteries to think more clearly and create solutions for
a solid future. Maintain a balance between work, play and
family. This is critical for long term success. We all put
in crazy hours on a short term basis to get a hot project
done or the product out the door, but if you do this on
a long term, regular basis it is a dangerous sign that you
are losing perspective. You need to be able to step away
on a regular basis and get your batteries recharged. Have
time for your family because if they suffer it is almost a sure bet your
business will suffer too. Plan your free time for the next
three months. This is usually the first thing that people
eliminate. After you schedule your free time in your planner,
get out your scissors and cut the time out of your planner
to resist the temptation of erasing, crossing out or whiting
out your scheduled free time.
Be a Role Model of Excellence and Encourage the Same
in Your Employees.
Entrepreneurs want to grow their business. In order for
your business to grow, you must grow personally. Your efforts
are best spent developing you. If you don't give your all
or let an inferior produced product go out the door to a
client, you are sending a message to your employees that
you do not respect your clients or your work. Your employees
will adopt that view as well. Set the example of giving
the extra effort, pitching in when needed, caring about
people, be the best in your particular business, continue
your growth curve, and take care of your employees. Encourage
innovation and creation. Give your employees a stake in
the future. Once a month, have a meeting where the employees
make suggestions on how to improve your product, service, efficiency, or bottom line. Get your employees
involved in the productivity game. One of my clients decided
to play the productivity game with his employees. The game
is; the employees get to share in the profits of the money
saved in one year. Within a week they asked him to relieve
the cleaning company of their duties. They took turns cleaning
the office on their time to lower the operating costs. My client
was thrilled. Give monetary rewards when the ideas produce
increases to the bottom line and positive encouragement
for the process. Create an atmosphere where employees are
willing and able to talk with you. The two best sources
of information on how your business is doing and how to
improve it are your employees and your customers. Pay attention to both.
Don't rest on your laurels.
Always be prepared to change. Look for things to do more
efficiently or how to improve your service or product. Identify
and remove as many consequences and risks as possible. Insure
yourself where you are most vulnerable in your business.
Handle all legal issues. Errors in judgment and changing
trends can have a negative impact on your business.
Minimize all your Risks.
A coach will help you identify all of the events, people,
trends, etc. that may adversely affect your business. Where
are you most vulnerable in your business? Accounts receivable,
employees, suppliers etc. Constantly evaluate your competition
and benchmark yourself against them. The minute you think
you don't need to improve anything is the exact moment you
are blinding yourself and can be easily affected by your competition's
growth.
End the Lone Ranger Mentality
A Lone Ranger is the entrepreneur who says things like:
"No, that is ok, I can handle it alone." "I'll
do it myself, because no one can do it as well as I can
do it." The Lone Ranger entrepreneur needs a coach
to help teach the skill of both involving and leaning on
others. This skill is important to learn because the synergy
that comes from working together is what ends up being a
key competitive advantage. Without it, your business will
slow down. Plus it's a lot more fun to be supported with
great people, than to have to push or rely only on yourself.
Run your Business with Integrity.
It takes courage and commitment to live by your inner truth.
There is great honor in living with integrity. It is telling
your truth no matter what the consequences. It's being candid
when it might be dangerous. It's going ahead and doing it
or saying it even if it's uncomfortable. Inner truth communicates
through faint whispers, thoughts, pictures and feelings
buried within you. You can't passively wait for your inner truth;
respectfully send for it. Continually turn inward, quietly,
politely asking the right questions so that the subtle signals
become clearer. Integrity is something only you can define.
No one can say you're out of integrity,. When you're feeling
stressed it's a real indication that you need to restore
your integrity. With integrity in place you are complete
free.
Are You a Coaching Candidate?
Do you spend your day putting out fires?
Do you have any concerns about your business running
at maximum profitability?
Do you run your business on the edge?
Do the same problems continually resurface?
Do you have difficulty finding someone you trust who
can give you an objective viewpoint and bounce ideas off
of?
Is your business running you ?
Do you find that you are unable to make the most of all
the opportunities in your life?
Do you experience roller coaster highs and lows in your
business?
Do you have a lone ranger lifestyle?
Do you allow your goals and purpose to get sidetracked?
Do you lack having a clear, measurable action plan to
fulfill your goals?
Do you lack structure?
Do you lack inner fulfillment?
Do you spend most of your day working "in"
your business instead of "on" it?
Are you a workaholic?
Are you experiencing a lack of balance in your life and
business?
Are you committed to growing yourself and your company?
Are you coachable? (Are you willing to hear and act on
another's person's viewpoint?)
Do you lack a clear financial plan for your future?
Are you willing to be truthful and restore your integrity?
* If you answered yes to more than three of these questions
you can benefit from a coach.
Questions a Coach May Ask You:
What five opportunities are you leaving on the table?
How might you sabotage our professional relationship?
How have you been motivated in the past to reach difficult
goals or make difficult decisions? How can we best utilize
that motivation now?
How would you do this differently if you were willing
to let it be easy?
What would happen if you showed up ten times more bolder
this week in every aspect of your life?
What are the 10 things you are tolerating or putting
up with that are preventing you from performing at your
best?
Nancy M. Powers is a professional success coach, writer,
and captivating keynote speaker who leads seminars on personal
development and communications. She specializes in coaching
CEO's, Entrepreneurs and small business owners to achieve
tangible results. Nancy provides the tools, structure, accountability
and support you'll need every step of the way towards your
success. Drawing on her experience and dedication to research,
she responds with training that produces solid, quantifiable,
bottom-line results. Some of her firm's clients include, Allstate, New York Life, IDS American
Express, Prudential Real Estate, Prudential Securities, Paine
Webber, etc. Discover for yourself how you can have a coach
with a money back guarantee (305) 653-8833. http://www.NancyPowers.com
- Or you can E-mail her at: [email protected]
