Okay, so we’ve looked at where you’re at, we’ve looked at where you want to be. Now let’s look at perhaps the most crucial point – why are you doing it? The question that lays the cornerstone of our foundations is “why am I doing this? What do I really want to achieve?”

Business Basics

So, to start off with then, to begin our journey forward we’re going to go backwards! Yes! We cannot simply forget ahead if we haven’t at first taken stock. I believe that many others may advise you purely to focus on what is ahead and indeed I will be talking with you later about focus and planning ahead, however truthfully it is perhaps a little too simplistic to merely look ahead. What if some core essential elements with your current scenario are potential weaknesses for the imagined future? What if one of the keys to success in the future is the ability to look closely and take stock so as to plan a course of action in order for the course of action to be the dream opportunity it may be framed as…the ability to stop first and examine exactly where you are before racing ahead…this might be a skill that is needed but one that you have never refined in your rush to get going. Well I am on your side enough to gently hold back the reigns…I will help you race ahead when I know it is safe to do so! In the meantime, let’s look at where you are now. Let us examine together, you and I, where exactly your business is, lets learn to dig and expose some thoughts- uncomfortable perhaps, and let us start our journey on the right track for I promise you this…many business owners simply storm ahead very ‘bull in a china shop’ style and that is very definitely where there downfall starts. As we will look at a lot later preparation and planning are key elements so right here at the beginning let us learn some disciplines and I ask that we start first by taking stock. You’ve got to find out where you are now and understand that first. Then ask yourself some searching questions and only then can you look forward from there to where you want to be.

Time Management Scrutiny First and absolutely foremost our task is to efficiently use and spend the precious time that we have. Time is the one commodity that you can never replace. Money can be lost and regained and people can be lost and replaced but time cannot be re spent if you discover later that it was ineffective. Where you spend it, on what and with whom are supreme questions when the pressure is on to perform at a slightly higher level. You MUST question why you are doing what you are about to do and ensure that it fits all of the immediate needs. If there is a tightening of people’s belts and a slowing down in spending, it may well mean that you and your business need to meet with more people before the required amount of them say Yes…and so fitting more people in takes more time which needs to be ‘made’. Thus when it might previously have been good enough to not question your activity, right now it is vital. Also ask questions that direct your thoughts toward achieving an immediate return. Yes, some strategic activity must be included in any ‘correct use of time’ overview, but right now when the pressure is on try looking a little more immediate. Tackle strategic, but tackle the strategic that is likely to also carry some immediate advantage. So, for example, where you might have scheduled a meeting to discuss the new computer system or the new website make-over maybe you might schedule instead a call to 5 of your top clients to see if there might be add-on sales just begging to be picked up. Or you might deliberately schedule some time on the telephone making telephone calls to all of those people who you have met when networking and promised to ring but then never got around to…and this time is taken from time that was merely set to one side as ‘time in the office’. As a possible ‘slow down effects the market confidence, and as this reduced confidence leads some to reduce their spending, it might well be that you feel ‘the pinch’ and the ripple effect is likely to impact your business significantly – thus making those extra calls and deliberately using the time in a much more ‘direct sales approach’ way becomes the difference between survival and death. Asking really tough questions where you might not even like the answer is a powerful skill. Question yourself: Is this going to generate me income now? If I don’t do this, what will happen? If I could guarantee income, what might I do? Who could I contact right now that might lead to immediate (this month) business? What might I produce or create that attracts business in now? Where might be really useful to go so that I might ‘bump into’ warm leads or hot prospects? A really terrific idea as an exercise for you to do right now is to look at next weeks diary (the next 5 working days from today) and simply question each and every diarised activity. And then to look harshly at the space between diarised activity!! (This is usually where the largest improvements can be found.) The time between diarised activities is where the gap is, and this is the gap that swallows whole many businesses. Along the same lines as this discipline, I strongly suggest enforcing a more rigid accountability for the time that you have spent or are planning to spend by using a clear diary system. If you currently hardly use a diary because most of your time is spent in one location, then I simply promise that using a diary will have a profound improvement on your time consciousness and thus usage of time.. Even when you are in the office and ‘doing the things that need to be done’ try making an appointment with yourself to separate tasks into time frames and then allocate time in a block for a certain task. Keep the task to that time as if it were actually physically a meeting. This might at first sound a little crazy and be a little challenging…but I assure you it is a most powerful habit. Accounting for your time makes you feel responsible for it…and you will not like the feeling when you can clearly see to yourself that you are wasting time and no one else is to blame for your position - especially when at the end of the month your haven’t got the cash that you need! Indeed to help you still further try making appointments with someone else to call you at the time when you have agreed with yourself to finish. Ask a colleague to call you and drag you out to another activity to keep the pressure on you whilst on your appointment with yourself. I.E if you have allotted time for some organisation internally and allowed yourself 2 hours between 1pm and 3pm then ask a colleague to call you at 3.30pm and you will have to have been finished by that time. Viewing time as simply the most precious commodity ever will also help you look at the time spent when on the phone and in the car. Very, very often we see time consumed over the telephone when frankly much of the call was just chat. Now I’m not saying be miserable and never talk to friends or clients about anything other than work, but I am saying that a discipline not to be distracted will help. Try saying things to yourself and the person who you are calling such as “I can only speak for a few moments as I have a lot to do and indeed I am sure that time too is challenging for you…so I’d like to talk with you about xyz…”. This type of approach will make certain that your call is brief and to the point and your client feels appreciative that you also didn’t waste his time. As with so many things, the simple stuff is the most profound. Like, for example, when people come into your office and ask if you have a minute! Never ever is it simply 1 minute long when they then download their problem or ask your advice on something. So, try immediately telling them that “I do not believe you!!! One Minute is never all that you want! If you have a challenge that you’d like my input on, please firstly go away and consider what you might do to overcome this challenge and then come back to me with two of your best solutions”. This type of management approach is not new but rarely adopted. Sending the enquirer away to figure out for themselves the challenge is the only way to break the time drain in future months. The employee will most likely already have a good idea as to what to do so when they tell you the two solutions you merely say “and which one do you think is the best?” Again probably they will have a favourite and indeed usually they will in fact have sorted out the challenge and come up with the best solution. You can listen and quickly then confirm that they have made the right choice…but this listening took a moment – probably actually the minute they first asked for…and the employee has learned that they can find answers for themselves. This type of technique is professional management and this type of discipline makes you feel like you have more time…and as we‘ve said, more time to make more money is what is needed when less people are buying. Finally on the time consumption subject look carefully at your drive time. Today’s traffic challenges are legendary! Even the simplest of journeys can become a hurdle and any city based journey ridiculously draining. Personally I do not drive into a city unless there really is no other choice or that the meeting is absolutely vital ‘face to face’. My challenge to you is to challenge yourself along the same lines. Just because you have always gone to a meeting and it is a comfortable habit to say “I’ll pop over and we can talk it through” question whether that is in fat the best possible option. I might suggest that much of what you can talk through can in fact can be talked through…and a telephone is all that is needed to talk things through with! You might even recognise that technology is amazing these days and visual telephone calls using such wonders as Skype and a web cam are not only possible but excellent and really do help you still make contact without the huge traffic drain. Honestly, most of the time we are our own worst enemies as we stick rigidly to the ‘way we have always done it’, the way we have always operated – it’s us that we don’t want to move forward. Many, many times a Skype or similar video call can be actioned and no impact lost. So, consider please the resource of time and how it’s usage might be impacting our potential for business success. The No1 habit to be refined and focussed upon is managing you and your time. Along with this, the habit of skilful questioning to ascertain quickly the exact situation and then based on the correct information make a more informed choice as to what to do... these will help you get more done in less or similar time frames. Especially when the going gets a little tougher this will save your commercial life.

Today I am moved by many things not least the wonderful joy of being a dad! Yes, it is flipping tough at times as every parent knows when you are just really wanting them to go to sleep and they insist on pushing barriers – or when they are over excited and play wildly when they have been told to quieten down...and a million other scenarios where they challenge your patience and sanity...but then they simply wow you with awesome moments and your heart over flows with indescribable love...like this morning for me. My son was poorly these last few days...(swine flu possibly?)...but amidst a very high temperature and sickness and crying - as a parent your heart goes out and the feeling of virtual powerlessness is horrible...but then they wake up recovered and ‘shining’ like children can...and in those moments the world glows! The world radiates everything that is fine and perfect with the human race. In those moments your heart swells and you know that you would die for them and change the world if you could... And so in one of these moments I say why can’t we change the world? Out of love, why cannot we all group together and make small but significant ‘tweaks’? Out of love what could we do that is seemingly small but when compounded and done by millions of us it has huge positive impact? I know that you love...you love your family dearly especially the children and parents. You love your friends and never want harm to come to them. You love children and probably animals...and so today let’s for one tiny moment exercise some love for the planet or love for our ‘family’ in poorer countries of the world...or even for those less fortunate here. Often a voice is all it needs...like voting with our feet to encourage governments to impact pollution or actually do something about poor countries and corruption and loans etc. Like making a deliberate effort to get involved in projects that just need critical mass to become more effective such as contributing to rescue organisations that try to save endangered species or threatened forests. Think about this for a second: do we want to show our grandchildren Elephants, Tigers and Orang-utans out of coloured books because they are extinct? Do we want to share stories with loved one’s about how we used to be able to eat such things as Cod and Tuna but sadly they died out through over fishing? Do we want to tell stories about magical rain forests but regret that they too were cut down when the world didn’t act? Worst, do we want to lament when the earth has changed climate that we didn’t decide to act until it was too late and too much damage was done? This isn’t politics this is love. This isn’t politics this is thinking just a little above ‘me’. This isn’t politics this is common sense – it just needs commonly to be applied. So, for today I am swathed in those wonderful pictures my mind captured as I hugged my young son...pure wonderful love...and because of that I am going to make some small changes and hope that the compound effect of small changes with all of us means out of love for my son his world isn’t reduced because of our impact. Have an awesome day.

“I’m looking at the man in the mirror...if we want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself and make a change”. We have all heard the words in this last week as the sad death of a true star Michael Jackson rocked the world. It is true that he was possibly a little strange...it is true that he maybe had idiosyncrasies that are common amongst the very rich and the very famous...because massive wealth and the power it brings and massive fame and the constant media pressure that it brings often impact lives of those concerned....But MJ was a star. He was incredibly talented and he was a fabulous entertainer. It is also true he was caring and loving and despite the twist that world media put on it he loved and cared for the next generation especially children – obviously telling the world that he was not properly loved as a child. And what do we know about him? Our own thoughts and conclusions – on what have they been drawn? Only what sells newspapers and TV slots...and frankly at best that is probably less than half a truth. We will probably never know the man...and even some closer documentaries we have seen still tried to sensationalise twist and expose areas that were probably as stupidly innocent and naive as the sad and hurt child that was never allowed to play or grow up slowly inside of Michael. For my part though I salute a fantastic entertainer...I remember with a special glow many moments in my growing up that his music left a mark on (not least that wonderful song about a pet rat!) and I shall reflect sadly at a great loss to the world of music.... AND if we think for a small second that he was a bit weird..then let us reflect that a child star very, very often doesn’t come out unscathed...there are too many examples to even argue otherwise...and so when we have a talented child or see children encouraged and pushed into star finder shows...let us stop it now and allow the child to be a child and become an entertainer when they are more mature...lest we all are culpable in creating another confused ‘Micheal’.

So, here is the world as I see it today...bloomin mad! I love life and the challenge of work and all of that, but I sometimes hate the crap that goes with human nature. Employing people that just don’t do what you ideally like... I know that we are all different but I am prone to moaning about a poor attitude. I sadly just believe that it is about attitude...a keenness to work, a desire to just do everything you can to get the job done...a desire to do your very best and if in doubt ask for help or guidance...I mean just simple things!!! But it isn’t common. It is more common for employee mentality fuelled by this pathetic government driven culture of apportioning blame somewhere else...and working to a rule...and working as though you are always on the defensive against ‘tyranny’ of employer abuse.... Anyway by the same token I love life and love people and know that some days I am a pain in the proverbial! I know that at times in my past I was possibly a cause of challenge for my employer....and I know that what goes around comes around...so its just a little moan! Rising to the challenge of life, winning when it feels like you shouldn’t...that is why I get up everyday with bounce and look forward to the day...as I am today. Bring it on Life!

Wow! Sunshine...isn’t it fabulous! And doesn’t it spread such a fantastic vibe.... Good old UK is pretty gloomy weather wise most of the time and so I guess we hanker after sun more than most – but it really does make you feel better doesn’t it? Today I have had the pleasure of actually being out in the glorious weather instead of admiring from a desk and the mood is high...and so I believe that transmutes into improved performance...because mood and performance are so closely linked...and that made me think...are hotter climates richer because of this feeling better making production higher? Does Spanish sunshine make Spain more productive and wealthy? If France is bathed in more rays, then are they graced too with more wealth? But then how come African continents and South America and then again most of the ‘developing world’ is actually bathed in sunshine and poorer!! How does that happen?!! Maybe then we in England work harder because the weather is so pants every time! Maybe the rain and the cold drive us indoors and drive us to work and so maybe we are better off?? And frankly I am now so confused I am going to drink a hot British tea and sit in my cool air conditioned car and ponder the impact of climate change on the chances of motorcycling in the dry more often actually being a benefit!!

Business Booster Foundations

The Business Booster Franchise is expanding. Paul and Graham are just about to finish their training as a Business Booster Coach. Paul will be covering the Solihull area and Graham the Lincoln area. They both have a huge amount of experience in helping businesses grow through sales & marketing.