Small Business Revitalization Blog

Have you ever wondered how Richard Branson built his empire from nothing?  What’s certain is that when he was 19 and larking about with his student newspaper he didn’t sit down and write out a business plan that included owning a couple of airlines, a space program, an island paradise and a financial institution or two!  

At 19 Branson was just like most small business owners… thinking really creatively about where  income could come from so he could pay the bills.  So what changed?  Those who dare to think big with their businesses are adept at taking the next step…

What’s different about their next step is that it is the step beyond what they can see clearly now.  Leaders who live large are willing to take steps into the unknown.  If you want to live a life larger than any movie star or business guru, this is the first and only step you need to take… and you’ll need to take a lot of them!!

So what’s the use of a business plan or strategic plan if stepping beyond the obvious is all that’s required?  Well, this morning I woke up at 4am (sleepless in Brisbane) dreaming intricate details of the products I’m creating for BlissTribe.  

Over the weekend we had done some creative brainstorming on BlissTribe and this had clearly carried over into my subconscious.   Last night those plans showed me the next steps beyond my waking imagination…that’s why I create plans!! I use plans to dream and to create… to develop my ideas beyond what I can see now… to catch glimpses of what else is possible and to discover what those ‘next steps’ could look like.  

Does this make planning sound just a little more interesting and appealing to you?  If you want to accelerate your business with ease… the Revive Business Coaching Planning Playshop on 21 June could be just the catalyst you require!

Image Credit

In the course of my somewhat chequered career in marketing and sales, I worked for a range of small – medium businesses.  One of the oft quoted platitudes from business owners was “we’re family  here” – mostly said to entice employees to work enormous hours for no extra cash, to make unreasonable demands rather than requests and to create a general sense of guilt – as in: ‘we gave you a job…you owe us everything’ .  This approach is often coupled with vague promises of future rewards.

It makes you wonder what type of family these people had!! As an employee, working conditions like that generally bring the response: “ If that’s how you treat your family, I’d rather be an orphan!”

So let’s ask the multimillion dollar question that most business owners are really wanting to answer when they behave like this:  “What does it take to have employees do their best work and for everyone to profit?”

Well, integrity is a good start.  In western countries slave labour has been abolished for quite some time.  So if you truly intend to create a workplace that feels like home in the best possible sense then it’s time to get creative!

Carmen’s Fine Foods in Australia provides an inspiring example of what’s possible.  Ever had the pleasure of an office nanny… your car washed every fortnight… or a boss who actually asks ‘on a scale of one to ten, how stressed are you?’ each week and then does something about it?  Hmmm I didn’t think so!!  (And for the scrooges out there… Carmen’s has virtually NO staff turnover… ) wouldn’t you rather invest in keeping your team loving their work, than hating you and leaving as a result??

Just a thought… as someone who has sat on both sides of the fence… (maybe its time to dismantle the fence too!!).

If 'we're family here' is a value you hold in your business, what are you doing to uphold it?  Please share your creative ideas here...

New business owners often get stuck when it comes to setting pricing. Pricing is determined by factors such as positioning, competition, market demand and, surprisingly, how you value yourself and the services and products that you offer!

Have you ever found yourself pricing a product or service in your business based on what you would pay in your current financial circumstances?  Did you stop to think about whether your personal perspectives are in any way a good match for your ideal customer?

Pricing is a choice.  But rarely do business owners exercise that choice with awareness of the potentials created by different price points.  Let’s consider a brief case study…

Erin is a natural health practitioner who specializes in a couple of healing modalities.  She is making $60 an hour and sees clients for 20 hours a week on average.  This equates to $1200 a week – not quite enough to put her into GST territory, but getting close.  By the time you take out taxes and costs of running the business (eg marketing, hiring space, training etc), Erin brings home closer to $30 a session - $600 a week is not a lot to live on!

So, let’s have a look at the common small business traps Erin has fallen into: She is doing what she loves and is great at, but is not reaping the financial rewards – she needs to charge what she is worth.

• She is swapping time for hours – there is no leverage in her business – if she doesn’t work, nor does the business
• She has not differentiated her service sufficiently so that clients will pay a premium.
• She doesn’t believe people will pay more than she is charging – but she hasn’t tested a higher pricepoint.
• She doesn’t like asking for money for helping people - her beliefs are in conflict with her purse!

Have you ever fallen into any of these traps?  What choices did you make to improve your financial position?  Share your story below – just click the Comment link.

Need inspiration for making more money in your business?  Book your place for the April 19 2010 Playshop:  ‘Show Me The Money’ – you’ll discover more about money and your business than you thought possible!!

(Kirsiri - a Passion Fest highliight!)

Are you better off having a strong vision and not so strong implementation, or a weaker vision and phenomenal implementation?  For business owners this question can mean the difference between success and failure.  Here’s a small case study that demonstrates exactly what the risks are…

I went to a local Passion Tasting Festival on the weekend.  The idea of the festival was engaging.  The publicity on the festival was great.  The website was fabulous. The vision sounded intriguing.  But…it was a complete fizzer…

The first warning sign was it cost me $100 a head to get in the door!  Quite a daunting price, but I was primarily going as research for a new venture.  When we arrived, we could see about 10 tents on a sports field – I could feel that $100 disappearing before my eyes.  Once inside, we discovered that there truly was little to see besides a few market stalls, the occasional performance (an excellent tribal dance by Kitsiri!) and almost nothing new to discover when it comes to living your passion.  What’s more, there were only about 10 other paying customers there…

So, what went wrong?  Strong vision… but in a nutshell the pricing strategy was a failure!   When you set pricing for anything, there are a few things to consider if you want to be successful…

* What is your end goal?  Often there will be a trade-off between volume of transactions and gross profit – work out which one is most important to your business.

* What creates value for your customers?  In this case, their stallholders required a high volume of traffic and festival visitors required a high volume of interesting things to see and do… both missed out!!

* If what you are doing isn’t working – change something!!  It must have been clear some weeks ago that ticket sales were virtually nil.  Instead of slugging it out and failing, what could have happened if the organizers were willing to sell tickets for $10 each?  At least a few hundred people would have turned up… and stall holders and presenters would have been happy – a starting point for future events… I heard they were actually turning people away at the gate who didn’t want to pay the premium gate price of $125 a ticket!!

The lessons?  Less rhetoric, more understanding of your customers.  Less greed, more flexibility in your business model.  Business really is that simple!!

Want to know more about pricing and how it can make your vision rock?  Check out this month’s Playshop – it’s all about money!!

Image: Flickr - SinDesign

Ever had an employee who made outrageous demands (for salary, promotions, time-off etc) and you gave it to them because you felt you ‘had no choice’?  As a leader, it’s important to manage your business strategically.  Here’s ten tips on managing those who try to make themselves indispensible…

1. Sometimes you ‘don’t know what you don’t know’ – if you have a sense of information being hidden but you can’t pinpoint what is happen, bring in an external expert to review your information flows and make recommendations.
2. Use a function chart (like an organizational chart but for the specific functions within the business) and allocate a primary service provider and a backup person.  Ensure the backup person is well trained and when people leave, ensure you train another for whichever role has become vacant. (This strategy can also work effectively for internal fraud control).
3. Be aware of how your ‘reward’ systems encourage or discourage withholding of information and power plays.  Rewards need to be both team and individually based if you want cooperation and high performance across your entire team.
4. Be aware of ulterior motives… if an employee is constantly criticized by others as ‘not a team player’ investigate early:  What’s really going on here?  What is required to change this situation?
5. Be willing to move people out of the company quickly if they are engaging in game-playing around information or customer relationships – it will be a lot cheaper now than when they really have you over a barrel!  
6. What is the culture of your business?  If it is openness and support for each other the ‘indispensables’ will have a hard time thriving due to peer pressure!  
7. Create a culture of belonging – if people do not feel alienated or unimportant, they will be much less likely to behave inappropriately!  Avoid having people see as the  ‘manager’s pet’!
8. Hire carefully: for key positions, always ask about the person’s approach to information sharing / hoarding when you check their references.
9. Have weekly meetings with key staff – ensure there is a current action list, with deliverables, resources, deadlines and a progress statement on the list that they give you (spreadsheets are great for this)
10. Use all of your human resource systems to create a comprehensive approach that works for your business – job descriptions, induction processes, setting targets and performance management, reward and recognition programs…

Look for common characteristics which signal potential issues with people becoming ‘indispensable’:  e.g. the drama queen (or king!), the office gossip, the person who doesn’t want anything to change, the ‘go-to’ for everything person, the bottleneck, the overconfident non-performer, the subtle sabotager the cowboys and the superstars… implement changes that allow you to recognize risks, share the load and minimize your reliance on any one person.

A business held hostage is a business at risk.  It’s your business and risk management is essential, especially with the new Fair Work laws in Australia.   What are you going to change?  Tell us below!

Via Flickr: Intersection Consulting

Marketing guru Seth Godin has said ‘Content marketing is the only marketing left.’   New technologies mean traditional mass media is fast being overtaken by brands as publishers of content.  It’s easy to publish content online, but much more challenging to achieve tangible business results (like sales!)  Why?

As a business coach, I see a common marketing mistake that many small businesses make – they mistake participating in social media for actually having a content management strategy.  Here’s seven reasons why small business owners need to start with the strategy rather than the social media networks…

1. Activity (or busyness) in social media domains does not equate to goal achievement. It’s expensive to create content (time and/or money) – if your content distribution strategy isn’t clear you’re shooting blindly and wasting valuable resources.
2. Publishing is now marketing and marketing is now publishing. Your influence stems from your value.  Your value stems from your content and your relationships.
3. Until you answer the why… e.g. What are the informational needs of my customers?  What pain points can my brand address?  What brand story are we telling?... your strategy will be incoherent and won’t deliver results.  Relevance is key.  Listening is core to success.
4. Google already pushes Twitter updates through their organic search results and in February 2010 it was announced that Facebook Fan Page content is next – what keywords, key messages and topics will you be found for? The rules for being found by organic search are changing quickly!
5. Without a clear and relevant content marketing strategy, you’ll attract followers who are irrelevant to your business – there’s no point having 50,000 followers if they aren’t in your target audience.  How do you feed your ‘ideal client’ into your traffic generation strategy?  With content your ideal client needs!
6. Productivity – without a clear strategy, there will be no clarity about how all the pieces of your social media marketing connect together… which means it’s impossible to manage the distribution and flow of content in a meaningful way for your prospects and partners.
7. The answer to every question you have about online marketing of your business will come back to ‘it depends… on your content marketing strategy.’  Without one, your ship is rudderless.

Want to explore how to develop an effective content management strategy for your business?  Attend the Revive Coaching Playshop in Brisbane on 8 October 2010 - Book today.

What is your best strategy for managing content?  Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Has the idea of work/life balance completely flown out the window? At this time of year it’s a common trap for business owners to go through a mad frenzy of doingness so that everything gets finished before Christmas.  Sound familiar?  Are you madly running around making everyone else happy at the moment?

In the process you get even more tired and cranky, you lose the joy of the season and the moment you go on holidays your body releases all its stresses by making you ill… it’s not that enticing right?

This year I’ve decided things will be different – I’m going to enjoy my holiday rather than recover from my crazy year… So, here’s 5 ways you can take the pressure off right now!

1. Instead of doing everything now, do a big cleanup and write yourself a clear list of priorities for when you return  from holidays – you’ll go on holidays with a clear mind and a clean desk!
2. Build in some ‘me time’ over the next week – what would nurture you?
3. Say no to a few things instead of ‘shoulding’ all over yourself. Do you really have to…?
4. Work at a more leisurely pace and be present with what you are doing… enjoy the moment and remember to breathe!
5. Find at least 3 places you are being a perfectionist and be willing to set yourself a tight timeframe for finishing the task as well as possible, but maybe not as perfectly as you normally would – you’ll save hours!!

Want to be more productive in 2010?  Book your place at our first REVIVE Business Coaching Playshop for 2010: Prosperous Productivity will be held on Monday 15 February in Brisbane.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daybeezho/

Over the past week I’ve been experimenting with my sweetheart in setting priorities.  Each morning we discuss/email our top 3 essential priorities for the day so that we can be more focused on what matters and more accountable for achieving results.  

Here’s what I’ve noticed so far:

• We both always have more than 3!
• If there is one ‘biggie’ on the list everything else falls out the window.
• Some things seem to spill over day after day.
• A lot of things get done which aren’t even on the list!!
• We are both still working crazy hours.

Something's not quite working here!! Do any of these challenges sound familiar?  In the interests of achieving more outcomes that matter I’m going to finetune the strategy... 

1. Set timeframes for each item – once the allotted time is up, its time to move on – finished or not!  (That’s sure to make me really think about how realistic I’m being in my expectations!)
2. Delegate more.  Between my PA/Marketing Assistant, the cleaner and the amazing Kay at HecticHelpers  I’m sure I could be doing a lot less stuff that chews my time for little strategic result!
3. Put aside one hour a day to do ’10 minute jobs’ so that I get a heap of the essential smaller things done each day.
4. Strike a better balance between the strategic and the operational – both matter!
5. Include more downtime – I’m not productive when I’m tired!

Do you have any other ideas which really work for you?  Please share them here!

Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/

Do you have too much 'buzz' going through your mind to truly do justice to the nectar that provides the joy in your business and life?  Recently I've had a couple of insightful conversations with my sweetheart around our capacity to fit even more in than we already do, as well as minimising our stress levels.  Sounds crazy but we are both high achievers and don't want to waste a second of our lives... here's the strategy we came up with:

1. We have an 8.30am 'essentials' conversation each morning where we make a commitment to accomplishing the most important three things on our respective lists.  (This delivers focus and a sense of priorities, as well as a feeling of support for each other.)

2. We are choosing to be totally present and aware in whatever we are doing.  No more multi-tasking... or working and pretending we're not when we are supposed to be enjoying some chillout time!!  Rest is rest. Adventures are adventures. Business is business.  The key to a joyful life and productive businesses is being totally present with whichever one we are doing at the time and generating so much more from that totally present space of energy and consciousness.

3. Taking some time to ask more questions around 'What else is possible?' and 'What else can we add to our lives?'... and then planning to have what we desire - more time with the kids, more holidays and long weekends, more creativity and better health, more revenue in the businesses by focusing on actions that generate money!

What do you do that gives you a buzz and makes the quality of your life infinitely better? 

A recent survey of almost 2000 small to medium Australian businesses by Quest Newspapers has highlighted that 71% of business owners are in business because of lifestyle factors such as following their passion, creating better work/life balance and being their own boss.

More than 67% of SME owners are working more than 41 hours a week and more than one third work more than 51 hours a week.  This mismatch between intention and reality is often a source of unhappiness or distress for business owners.

As a business coach I spend a lot of time helping business owners achieve more of what they want in their business in a lot less time!  Here’s five simple steps that can make your business more joyful for you and more aligned with the original reasons you started the business!

1. Develop an inspiring vision and focus on doing the things that will get you there.
2. Know where you add the most value to the business. Focus on your strengths and what you are passionate about.
3. Delegate or outsource the ‘$20’ jobs that you hate but do out of habit or your need to be in control.
4. Create a culture that values work/life balance… starting with YOU!
5. Focus on the important, rather than the urgent. Use your time wisely and schedule time for the important.

What is your best tip for maintaining work/life balance?  Share it below!