I have been reading a great book called Beyond Wealth by Alexander Green, but don’ let the title fool you. In the context of the book, Green is referring to wealth not necessarily about money, but the wealth in living a life of meaning.

Below is a list of the values he believes we should be instilling in our children. As I was reading the list though, it became very obvious to me that it applies not only to children but to all human beings. Here is his list….

1. Respect your elders.

2. Two ears, one mouth, so listen twice as much as you speak.

3. When you give your word, keep it, always.

4. Look people in the eye when you are talking to them.

5. Smile – it’s free.

6. Stand up for yourself.

7. If you don’t have time to do something right the first time, how will you find time to do it over.

8. Spend less than you earn and invest the difference.

9. Always say please and thank you.

10. Understand that the workplace is not a hierarchy, it’s a democracy.

11. If you borrow something, return it in better condition than you received it.

12. Learn to think for yourself, if you don’t know something, look it up.

13. Cigarettes don’t make you look cool, they make you look dumb.

14. Drugs deliver short-term highs and life long lows.

15. Sex is great, but unwanted pregnancies and disease are not.

16. When you need help, ask for it.

17. When others need help, give it.

18. Doing the right thing, always has its reward.

19. Anything worth having is worth working for.

20. If you mess up, apologise.

21. Do what you love and the money will follow, not enough to make you rich necessarily, but enough to live an authentic life.

22. You don’t need someone to complete you, complete yourself.

23. Successful people make a habit of doing things unsuccessful people don’t want to do.

24. Hold the door for people, men and women alike.

25. Accept responsibility for yourself.

26. If you face a difficult decision, ask how will what I decide make me feel about myself.

27. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Which areas are you strong in and where can you do better…

There is a lot of confusion around vision and mission statements, core values, culture points etc etc.

The truth is there is no right or wrong label for what your business is all about, the rule however is that it must inspire you and your team and you must be able to say it without having to look it up otherwise it is just FLUFF!

It is a very personal statement for the business owner that can take quite some time to get right, so before you go blurting it out to the world, spend some time with it to see if you want it to stick around for the rest of your business’ life.

Here is just a sample of some of the statements big and small companies use to inspire their team and their customers. Some of these you will be very familiar with, see if your experiences matches their vision.

Amazon

“Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

American Express

“We work hard every day to make American Express the world’s most respected service brand.”

Harley Davidson

“We fulfil dreams inspired by the many roads of the world by providing remarkable motorcycles and and extraordinary customer service. We fuel the passion for Freedom in our customers to express their own identity.”

Hilton Hotels

“To fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality.”

Apple

“To make a contribution to the world by making tools for

the mind that advance humankind.”

McDonalds

“To be the world’s best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.”

Telstra

“To improve the way people live and work.”

Zappo’s Shoes

“To provide the best customer service possible.”

Queensland PCYC

“Enhancing Queensland Communities through youth development.”

ActionCOACH

“World Abundance through Business Re-Education.”

What would your business be like if every customer who has ever bought from you in the past, was still buying from you today?

In studies that have now been done for decades, the results have always produced the same spread of why your customers stop buying from you, here they are….

- 1% - Death

- 3% - Move house or suburb

- 5% - Buy from a friend

- 9% - Sold to by a competitor

- 14% - Your Product or Price

- 68% - Perceived Indifference

In other words, the number one reason that your customers don’t come back is that……

They think you don’t care!

How much of your annual budget is assigned to customer retention?

Given that it costs between 4 to 7 times as much to buy a new client (see my blog next week on buying new clients) as it does to keep an existing client, what are some of the things that you can do right now, as soon as you finish reading this blog, that will let your customers know how much you really appreciate doing business with them and thus stop them from thinking that you don’t care.

As my way of saying thank you for reading this article, I would love to send you an e-book on my top 11 ways of keeping your clients, just send me a quick email to bradflynn@actioncoach.com and tell me the most memorable thank you gift you have received from one of your suppliers or someone you have done business with.

Given the costs associated with hiring the wrong people in our businesses, I thought that it would be timely to cover off what I see as the top 5 hiring mistakes I see on a regular basis with business.

1. Hiring to fast - this can be a real killer in small business. We get to a point where we are so frantic and desperate that we need someone, anybody will do! Usually we hire our cousins, neighbors dog walker because they were looking for a job. Start looking for people early, before you need them, build up a list of potential future employees so that when the time comes you have a good solid starting point.

2. Not hiring on attitude - more often than not business hires based on technical skill at the cost of people skill and attitude. If you get a person with the right attitude you can teach them all they need to know on the basis they meet the bare minimum technical requirements.

3.Poor interview questions - following on from point 1 above, being fully prepared for the interview with quality questions is imperative in getting the right person. Ask behavioral based questions on past experiences as they are the best indicator of future behavior. eg Tell me about a time when you had to handle an irate customer?

4. Poor positioning and induction - once we have found our ideal new team member, it is important to make clear right from the start what your expectations and rules of the game are. Rather than just throw them in the deep end, spend time positioning them from day, what is expected from them and how your business does things.

5. Firing to slow - if somebody does not meet the standards within the first 3 month probationary period, there is a strong chance they never will. If you have positioned and trained correctly from the start and they still are not cutting the mustard let them go. My tip here is to do it like when you rip off a band aid, as quick as possible.

So there you have it ignore these tips at your own peril.

Happy New Financial Year!

For most of the general public, the 1st of July is like most other days, but for those of us in business, its a time to reflect on the last 12 months of business and work out what went right, what went wrong and plan for the next 12 months.

So here are my top 5 tips to create your best financial year ever….

1. Know your numbers - so many business owners I talk to have no idea of the numbers for their business, the only one they do know is their bank balance, which is a bit like driving a car with just a fuel gauge. If you don’t know what numbers are most important for your business….see the next point.

2. Increase your business knowledge then apply it - If there are areas in your business that you don’t understand, then do some learning. The only place that earning comes before learning is in the dictionary. Your mantra should be “the more I learn and apply the more I earn”

3. Set Targets - What is your profit target for this financial year? How many sales do you need to get this month, this week and this day to ensure that this target is met. What does your average dollar sale need to be?

4. Stop watching or listening to the news - The doom and gloom thrust upon us by the media creates self perpetuating results. It sets us up with such a negative expectation on what our business will be like, how can we expect to achieve anything different. Try it, don’t watch or listen to the news for a month and see what happens.

5. Have Fun - at the very very least, it will make others curious about why you are so happy. But for you, what is the alternative, see point 4 as there is always something or someone to help you in your self created malaise.

So there you have it, even if you applied just one of the above principles for a full 12 months, what could you and your business be like this time next year?

How many clients do you have that are a real pain in the you know where?

Even though you really don’t enjoy doing business with them, you feel as though you are trapped by cash flow constraints and that you need to continue to service them.

One of the biggest learnings that most of my clients have had, is one of those universal life laws called the Pareto Principle. In 1906, an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto worked out that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population, he also observed that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.

From these 2 relatively simple observations came his principle, which states that 20% of causes will give 80% of effects.

So how does this apply to your business?

It means that 20% of your current clients will be providing 80% of your profits (also if you are measuring the performance of your team you may discover that 20% of your team are also providing 80% of the output). The flip side of this rule is that 80% of your clients are only providing 20% of your profits, but they are also probably consuming 80% of your time, resources and energy, as well as giving you 80% of your headaches!

Now I am not saying that you stop dealing with (sack) 80% of your clients…..at least not straight away, but more importantly we need to find out who your top 20% are and confirm for yourself that they are providing the majority of the profit to your business. Once we are clear on who they are, we now need to make sure that we are giving them exactly what they need in terms of our products and service.

Once we know who those top 20% are, we need to study and understand them, to the point that we can construct a profile of what our ideal client looks like. Are they male or female, what is the size of their business/personal income, what publications do they read, what other organisations are they are part of. In other words, where do our 20% hang out in the greatest concentration. Then we are able to target our marketing and advertising in those areas. Not to mention finding the most effective way of generating referrals from our 20%, because the chances are they associate with people just like them.

Where else in your life and business can you see and take advantage of the 80/20 rule?

What compelling reason do you give your prospects to actually contact you?

Most of the advertising we see for small business is pretty much the same, company name at the top, years in business next, best customer service, address and phone number. Any medium size newspaper or the yellow pages are full of these “tombstone adverts” (seriously that is what they are called!)

When prospects are looking at the myriad of different adverts and messages to try and make a decision on who to call, we need to make sure that we give them a compelling reason to actually pick up the phone or walk through our doors.

Most offers we see are things like 10% off, call now for a free colour brochure or buy 9 and get your 10th for free. Blah blah blah, how boring.

The thing to keep in mind is that we are looking to buy a new customer with this advertising, so how much are you willing to pay? Ideally we have an offer that has a high perceived value to our clients but a relatively low dollar cost to us. Examples of this include packaging offers, buy one and get one free, Get a FREE consultation valued at $65 or actually give something away for FREE. Remember we need to make an investment to buy a customer.

Generally speaking the offer section of your advert should take up around 20% of your advert at the bottom, even better for testing and measuring is to have a dashed line around the offer for the prospect to cut out and bring in, which also then allows an easy pathway for testing and measuring the effectiveness of your add.

If you would like to learn more about how to write advertising with powerful offers, send me an email  bradflynn at actioncoach.com and i will send you a free copy of our ebook “Instant Flyer Examples” valued at $29.90.

There are two things that business people find very challenging: thinking ahead and doing things in order of importance.

Doing these two things makes the difference between success in business and just surviving. And the same is true for all areas of our lives.

Leadership trainer and author John Maxwell says, “thinking ahead and prioritizing responsibilities marks the major differences between a leader and a follower.”

Most people have heard of the Pareto Principle, more commonly known as the 80/20 Principle. Roughly stated this says that in most businesses 80% of your business comes from 20 % of your customers.

Other examples of the Pareto Principle are:

Reading: 20 percent of the book contains 80 percent of the content.

Job: 20 percent of our work gives us 80 percent of our satisfaction.

Products: 20 percent of the products bring in 80 percent of the profits.

Picnic: 20 percent of the people will eat 80 percent of the food!

So… when it comes to your priorities, 20 percent of your priorities will give you 80 percent of your production IF you spend your time, energy, money and personnel on the top 20 percent of your priorities.

When you do this you are getting a 400% or fourfold return in productivity. Think what this would mean in your business!

Every business person needs to understand the Pareto Principle as it applies to the areas of customers, team and leadership.

In the area of customers, it is vital to identify the 20 percent who account for 80 percent of your business. These are your “raving fans” and strategies must be put in place to care for them appropriately.

For your team, you must identify the top 20 percent producers. Spend 80 percent of your people time with these people to develop them to their full potential.

In leadership, take an honest look at the question “What do I have to do that no one else can do?” Remember a leader can give up everything except final responsibility. You can decide whether you will be reactive or proactive when it comes to the use of your time. The question is not, “Will I be busy?” but “How will I invest my time?” It’s not “Will my calendar be full?,” but “Who will fill my calendar?,” It’s not “Will I see people?,” but “Who will I see?”

Do this and watch your productivity and personal satisfaction rise to new heights!

If taking a day off is a long-forgotten concept and your business is working you to the bone, you may be in need of business systemization. Business systemization can give you freedom from tedious tasks and extensive hours by helping to ensure your business runs like a well-oiled machine with the least amount of effort. Think of a business system as a little cog in the great machine of your business, a cog that churns around doing its job regardless if you’re watching it or not.

A business system is a small, organized sub-set of the business that functions seamlessly, easily and with neither prompting from outside forces nor nagging from the boss. A business system can be likened to any other system within a whole, such as your body’s endocrine system or nervous system, both which function on their own while contributing to the overall functioning of your body. Business systems can be simple or more complex, but they should all share the same trait of consistency. Once a task or duty is systemized, it should be performed in the same habitual way by everyone who performs it.

How to Choose What You Systemize

Routine tasks that all people can complete in a consistent manner are the best choices for functions you can systemize. You don’t want to start systemizing business functions that need a human touch, such as responding to a very specific complaint, strange request or creating a personalized order. Filing paperwork, reading emails, sending out routine correspondence or even answering the phone are ideal choices for systemization.

How You Implement a System

Implementing a system requires coming up with instructions on how to properly implement a given task. Let’s say you’re going to systemize answering the phone. Your instructions should include implicit instructions on the entire process, right down to the last detail of how many times the phone is allowed to ring before someone picks it up.

Your instructions will cover the greeting, the tone of voice, and a script that outlines how employees should ask questions to ensure the phone call is handled in a professional manner. Instructions for answering the phone should also include a system on how to take messages, how to transfer calls, how and when to place a caller on hold and the proper way to end the call. Include a consistent policy that dictates how and when phone calls are returned and any other tangential tasks that may stem from an incoming phone call.

Once the instructions are set, it’s time to train your employees. Offering handouts of any scripts is a good idea, as is producing a text version of all the instructions in a manual and in the company handbook. When it comes to actually learning the process, employees may fare better if they actually see the process in action, which you can easily do by creating a video on your flip phone and posting it on the company’s website. Make it required viewing. Posting photos of specific systems is also a good idea for tasks that need visual aids.

How to Get Employees to Work the Systems

Breaking each part of the system into even smaller parts is the best way to introduce employees to the new system without overwhelming them. Have them learn and master each specific portion of the overall task in small doses. Also make it very clear that following each system is company policy, including it any employee handbook.

Engaging them in the creation of the system can further enhance their participation. Ask them to keep notes on how the system is working and suggest any changes that may be beneficial. Then amend the system as necessary. Hold regular meetings where employees are encouraged to provide feedback and constructive criticism on the systems, both from themselves and from customers or clients who may have commented on the way a certain system is functioning.

How to Know the Systems Work

Once you systemize your business, you’ll know it’s working when you end up with loads of free time, employees happily buzzing along like worker bees and mounds of profits rolling in. At least that could be the end result in the best case scenario. Since most changes take a bit of time to show results, the free time, buzzing bees and profits may be slow and steady – but still exist.

You may have to monitor your employees in the early days of a system to ensure they are following instructions and to answer any questions or address concerns they may have. Watching what works and what doesn’t gives you further insight on amendments that could be made to better streamline your systemization.

Business Systemization Benefits

Systemizing your business can eliminate the tedious tasks from your daily plate, a move that comes with a host of benefits. For starters, you won’t have to worry about performing each and every task on your own just to ensure it is being done properly, as an established system will ensure that it is. Training employees to successfully work a number of the established systems also makes them more valuable by placing them where they are most needed at the moment.

There’s little downtime in a systemized business since trained employees can always jump in to pick up a task that needs to be done. Rather than being trained in one or just a few specific tasks that only a particularly employee performs, all of your employees will be trained in all the systems. Instead of scrambling to hire someone to answer the phone when your front desk person leaves, phone duties are being taken care of by the system. Your staff members become individual jack-of-all-trades that work together for a cohesive and profitable whole.

The consistency of your systems contributes to the consistency of your business. Customers and clients will be pleased to find your business runs in a steady, expected fashion so they are never at a loss at what to expect in terms of quality and service. Training your employees in each system also means each system is being done how you want it to be done. There’s no more guessing why a phone call was answered with a “Yo” instead of a “Hello” or one employee decided to suddenly file the paperwork from Z to A instead of A to Z.

Systems take care of the little things that may seem less significant than larger tasks but can still help sink your business if they are ignored, forgotten or done carelessly. Ever call a company only to have the phone answered by someone who was chomping gum and didn’t even know how to put you on hold? If so, you are probably not calling back.

The grandest reward for systemizing your business is the freedom you’ll find. You will no longer need to focus large amounts of time on small tasks or scramble to do everything yourself just to ensure it is being done your way. You can then pick and choose to perform only the work you truly enjoy doing or, in the best case scenario, actually take that long-forgotten day off.

ActionCOACH CEO - Jodie Shaw

Everyone in business has heard the phrase, “you need to be working on your business and not in it”. But what kinds of activities are working on your business.

The easiest way to define whether or not you are working on your business is to use a race car analogy. You can think of your business as the race car and the market as the race track with all of your competitors in the other race cars. The cars that are winning the race are fastest with the most skilled drivers. Just like in business, the winners have the best business and the most skilled owners.

So when you work on your business it is like coming in for a pit stop and having some work done on your vehicle to make it faster. For example, does your business have a dashboard? As a minimum your business dashboard should show have information other than just bank balance (fuel gauge). Information such as current P & L statement, cash flow projections, No. of leads and conversion rate, average dollar sale figures and average client retention as a minimum.

What if you were to develop a system in your business that reduced the amount of wastage or design an ongoing training system that boosts the retention of your team. What about reading a book and applying what you learn in your business. Getting a business coach is a perfect example of having somebody make sure that you do work on your business.

Some examples of working in your business include, doing the books, making sales calls, doing the work of employees and restocking the biscuit barrel!

So next time you decide to work on your business, ask yourself this fundamental question, “is what I am about to do going to help me get around my industry race course faster?”