Small Business Revitalization Blog

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!

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” - Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie knew that the secret to understanding what people really value is to observe their behaviour. Often the visible brand and culture encapsulated by the all too common ‘handy eye candy’ wall poster turns out to be lip service only.  How often have you stood in a foyer or store and seen the blurb about ‘we care for our customers…’ only to be ignored or given poor service?
 
Strategy generally defines the ‘hard’ profit-making elements of your business. Brand and culture define the ‘soft’ people and customer focused elements of your business. Strategy is often easy to copy; brand and culture are notoriously difficult. 

If long term competitive advantage comes from the elements which are difficult to copy, why is so much time spent on strategy and so little time spent on brand?  

A brand can be defined as “a personal promise delivered via an extraordinary experience”.  It is so much more than your logo, signage and advertising campaigns!  Ultimately it is the intangibles that differentiate you from your competitors. In business, it is rare to see values that are authentically held and delivered! How much untapped and untouched potential is waiting to be unlocked in your business brand?  

The answer to unlocking this potential starts with the culture of your business.  In simple terms this is the core values and behaviours that define “who we are and how we do things” within a business.

To start developing your brand and culture as an inimitable competitive advantage, you need to get really clear about who you are, what you stand for, what promises you are making and how they will be delivered. Here’s five quick questions to get you started…

• What are the first impressions people encounter in your business?
• How do your people treat each other?  
• How would you like them to treat each other?
• What are the promises you make to your customers?  
• How can the customer experience more accurately reflect your brand promises?

Sounds simple… not always easy! What has your experience been with brand and culture?  We welcome your comments!

P.S.  One of our brand values is JOY - we help you discover how joyful business can be... want to experience it for yourself?  Discover how your leadership can set your brand and culture apart from your competitors... join us at the REVIVE Business Coaching Playshop on Monday 26 October.  Bookings are essential!  (Yes, we do playshops, not workshops... so much more joyful and productive for all!!)

                    Source: Flickr: teamstickergiant

When Barack Obama recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, he proved that your own personal brand can deliver results beyond measure.  Whether or not he actually deserved the accolade has been well debated elsewhere. The bottom line is, when it comes to brand, ‘perception is reality’.

The reality here is that the pure strength of the brand values Obama promoted throughout his extensive campaign into the presidential office and beyond, have generated so much energy, enthusiasm and respect that he won this award before he actually delivered on the promises!

Can you imagine having a business or personal brand that is so strong and so respected that people will award and reward you even before you deliver?  Sounds impossible, but Obama has just proven that anything is possible… So here’s my top 10 tips from Obama’s phenomenal brand strategy:

1. Be appealing, be audacious, be iconic.
2. Something not working? Define the game differently. Shift paradigms and perspectives to create a new reality.
3. Create credible and consistent ways to engage brand advocates.
4. Infuse action from the bottom-up. Grassroots efforts create groundswell.
5. Be a flexible and adaptable leader, not a boss.
6. Be authentic. What you do sends clear messages: BE the values you stand for.
7. Connect with people. Talk to human beings, talk to everyone. Know who you are talking to.
8. Be honest and transparent. People love Obama because they feel they know him.
9. Know what makes you unique, and leverage this.
10. Invite and welcome feedback. Cherish the opportunity to make improvements.

Ready to build a brilliant brand and contagious culture?  Are you ready to realise the potency of you? Give yourself permission to BE unique… rather than just talking about it!  Create your phenomenal brand at the REVIVE Business Coaching October 2009 Playshop!

Quirky brand inspiration via Giant Ideas

Think about the businesses you interact with.  Can you name more than five that offer you an outstanding experience every time?  Can you even name one?

Being ordinary in business is easy. You don’t have to think much. You don’t need to do anything different or unusual. You don’t need to be brave.  You don’t need to stand for something. You don’t need to get out of your comfort zone.

The outcome? You don’t stand out from your competitors. You don’t attract raving fans.  And you certainly don’t get extraordinary results!  Being ordinary doesn’t cost much…. Or does it?

Is your business joyful and fun or is it all pain, suffering and gory?  Your answer will depend on your brand and culture… If your brand is more beige than magenta, and your culture is more ‘slit your wrists’ than celebration, it may be time to rethink the risks of being ordinary! When you develop an extraordinary brand and a supportive culture you open up possibilities for magic to occur…  

Talented and amazing people will want to work for you because the way you do things is enticing and engaging.  Customers will become raving fans because you offer something rare and exciting.  Suppliers will want to partner with you because your business is growing.  

Three steps to generating a phenomenal brand:

1. Identify the personal promises your brand makes publicly.
2. Create extraordinary experiences around these promises.
3. Weave the delivery of these experiences through your company culture.

Ready to take the risk of building a brilliant brand and a contagious culture?  Give yourself permission to BE unique… rather than just talking about it!  Create a phenomenal brand at the REVIVE Business Coaching October 2009 Playshop!

Do you have a brand vision that helps you outperform your competitors?  What have you done with your brand or culture that has created phenomenal results? Share your experiences in the comments below...

(Creative Commons Image:  www.flickr.com)

As a small business owner, once you ‘shut up shop’ for the day do you also shut off thinking about your business?  I find my best ideas come when I’m not doing anything connected with work… I went to Riverfire and the Brisbane Writers Festival on the weekend – a few hours chilling out and five new and amazing business ideas landed in my ideas notebook!  

So, how exactly does that happen?  Most essentially, I am a keen observer, always looking for creative opportunities in unexpected places.  When I see a possible opportunity, I start asking questions… lots of them… until I find an idea that gives me tingles.  Here’s a few questions you can ask when you are out and about…

• Is anyone here in my target audience?  If so, what would it take for my business to get access to them at an event like this?
• What would make this audience want to know more about my business?
• Are there any unmet needs here that my business could fulfil?
• Are there any existing but underutilized resources here that I could leverage?
• What business ideas are beyond what I can imagine is possible? What would it take to make these ideas possible?

What other questions do you use to discover creative and  profitable ideas for your business?