Delegate to grow

If you can't delegate you'll never grow your business past the point where you are working as hard as you can.

- Most business need more staff as they grow. Delegation is an essential technique for successfully distributing the tasks that you perform currently to these new staff

- One day your business will have to run (and continue to grow) without you. Even if this day is not in your plans yet, a resilient well-run business cannot rely upon one person

- Development and growth are great motivators for most people – so you should be actively seeking to increase the responsibility you give to your staff

- Your objective should be to delegate everything you do

How do you delegate successfully?

- Classify your staff to assess their readiness for delegation – plot knowledge & ability against attitude, decide who is ready now and what needs to be done to ready the others

- Evaluate what you could or should delegate – and start with the assumption that everything could be delegated if you really wanted to

- From the above two points identify who could do what

- When you have chosen someone, clarify what the value proposition is from both sides – what would you gain and what would they gain. Why would they want to do it?

- Clarify expectations

o Timescale

o Definition of success

o Level and limits of authority and responsibility

- Give them time to come up with their own plan to achieve this – and then agree it together

- Communicate the change and the reasons to all staff (and externally as necessary)

- If necessary provide time management or other training

- Once you have delegated, plan and carry-out regular reviews

o Provide guidance so they stay on track

o Share your experience

o Give praise and feedback – make sure they are learning

o DON’T take it back at the first sign of trouble

When not to delegate:

- When you don’t understand the problem

- When it’s too late

- Key tasks that amount to “ownership”, such as setting strategy, values and culture

What stops you delegating?

- Fear

- Lack of trust in others

- Insecurity about your own role, capabilities and knowledge

It’s about LEADERSHIP.


This seminar "The Owners' Trap" will give you techniques for effective delegation - as well as the other steps you need to take to take your business on to the next level..

Learn how to raise your game by visiting my website.

Trouble finding quality staff?

Frustrated that your staff can't do things as well as you do - or don't care enough to?

Are you resigned to your business staying the same size because you have no more hours to give and you just can't find anyone to take on some of your workload?

Maybe you need to learn about motivating staff...

- Motivated staff are more productive
- Motivated staff are more positive and helpful to customers

- Motivated staff are easier to lead and will take responsibility for things that otherwise you will have to do.

This seminar "The Owners' Trap" will give you techniques to motivate your staff - as well as the other steps you need to take to take your business on to the next level..

Learn how to raise your game by visiting my website.

Feeling the strain?

As your business grows it doesn't just get bigger. It gets more complicated. More staff, Bigger, more demanding customers. More rules. Trying to manage through other people. Delegation.

You'd go mad trying to run it the way you used to run a small business - or give yourself a heart-attack. And you'd fail, and go back to being small.

There is an alternative. Learn how to manage a big business at this business advice seminar.

Or take a look at our business advice website.

Follow-up for sales!

Sales is all about moving an opportunity through a process that takes it from the first contact through to sale and beyond.  Two things are implied:  Firstly, you have to have a process (that is a repeatable series of steps from first contact through to close – a pipeline) and secondly, you have to do something to move an opportunity through the pipeline – the follow-up.

The follow-up is therefore a defined and repeatable action that kicks-in whenever an opportunity needs to be moved through the pipeline.  For instance, when you meet someone at a networking event your follow-up might be a) send an email saying how much you enjoyed your conversation about topic x and b) add them to your database for future newsletters.

If someone subscribes on your website your follow-up might be an automatic email with latest offers.

If you finish a job for a client your follow-up might be a phone call three months later to discuss any other requirements.

An effective follow-up will be:

-          Consistent and controlled rather than left to chance or whim
-          Persistent (without being irritating)
-          Personalised, even if automated
-          Related to the prospect’s needs, not your product’s features
-          Designed to move the opportunity on in a specific way.  For a suspect, say, to establish whether they do in fact have a need for your service.  For a prospect, to establish whether they have the money – and so forth
-          A call to action
-          Intriguing and original
-          Via an appropriate medium, or mixture of media
-          Recorded, analysed and the results fed back into the design of the process

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system will help you define and control this process – but you can do it quite simply without one.  What you can’t do without is a documented sales process and a bit of organisation.

Get more great business tips at http://www.nickbettes.co.uk.

Systemise to grow

One of the key changes you need to make to grow your business beyond you is to systemise it.

This will not only make it easier to find, recruit and manage staff it will make your business more valuable. m The value of a business depends on its growth prospects, profitability, cash conversion and the degree to which that future cash flow is at risk

One of the main risks for small businesses is their reliance upon key personnel, particularly the owner, who know and do things that no-one else knows or can do. This risk is present even if you have no plans to sell the business. If you the owner or one of your key staff are unable to work for an extended period what happens to your business?

Systemisation is the process by which the processes of the business are documented and standardised and reliance on any one individual is removed. This process also makes a business scalable; the processes can be replicated, additional staff can be selected and trained and the business can grow beyond the constraints of any one person

Find out more at this seminar "The Owners' Trap", which will explain how this and other changes should be implemented to help you to take your business on to the next level..

Learn how to raise your game by visiting my website.

Frustrated that your staff can't do things as well as you do - or don't care enough to?
Are you resigned to your business staying the same size because you have no more hours to give and you just can't find anyone to take on some of your workload?

Maybe you need to learn about motivating staff...

- Motivated staff are more productive
- Motivated staff are more positive and helpful to customers
- Motivated staff are easier to lead and will take responsibility for things that otherwise you will have to do.

This seminar "The Owners' Trap" will give you techniques to motivate your staff - as well as the other steps you need to take to take your business on to the next level..

Learn how to raise your game by visiting my website.

Key man blues??

Are you concerned that the growth of your business is limited by your available time and effort?Worried that you need to grow to afford more staff - and need more staff to grow?
To break free from the Owners' Trap you need to do the following:

1. Systemise your business
2. Get your staff to want what you want
3. Learn how to let go
This seminar "The Owners' Trap" will tell you how to do this.

Does incentivisation work?

The IoD Berkshire branch had an interesting discussion on this topic recently.  Here's my take on the subject:

The underlying assumption is that rewarding employees for achievement (usually financially) will encourage them to work harder and achieve more in pursuit of those rewards.  This view is not borne out by academic research but in practice bonus schemes are widely used.  A carefully-designed bonus scheme when implemented on top of good management practices in a well-run business is a useful management tool – but it is not a substitute for these things.

How to design an incentivisation scheme

-          Incentivisation schemes can be implemented at individual, team or organisation level or use a combination of these

-          Ensure that the rewards incentivise the behaviour you want, are tied to outcomes the employees can affect and match the motivations of the employees concerned (which may not be financial).  For some staff it will not be possible to link performance directly to financial outcomes (for example a customer support desk)

-           Understand that as circumstances change every incentivisation scheme will have unexpected and often unwanted side-effects

-          Check that you can afford all possible outcomes

-          The maximum bonus should be enough to recognise over-performance but restricted in terms of total earnings - a maximum of 50% of basic salary, usually far less

-          Tie individual bonuses to overall company performance ie an overall profitability hurdle must be achieved before individual departmental performance related pay kicks in.  The downside of this is the fact that good performers might not get what they deserve but at least it avoids the situation where you can’t afford to pay

-          Bonus payments must be self-funding within the bonusable period; that is; they must be more than covered by the improved profit delivered by the over-achievement which triggers the bonus payment

-          Make sure that base and bonus targets match the business plan and budget

-          Link bonus payments to profit not turnover – and cap them

-          Bonus payments should be at the absolute discretion of management

-          You might want to add other desirable outcomes to the scheme. For instance, you could make “100% of department having a job description and appraisal” or “Complete project X” bonus targets

General

-          The overall bonus scheme rules should be published and each individual should have a written copy of their own targets and rewards, signed by them and their manager

-          Bonus targets should be agreed as part of the business planning cycle and before the start of the year concerned

-          Performance against targets should be reviewed as part of the appraisal and performance management process immediately after year-end

-          If in doubt, keep it simple

Find out more about our business advice, business coaching and business consultancy for buusiness owners in Reading, Berkshire on our website.

Can your SME develop a brand?

What is a brand?

-          It is the shared reaction that it evokes in the people that matter to your business – customers, prospects, employees, suppliers

o   It is what they say about you when you aren’t there

o   It is the way they have come to expect you to behave

o   It is their assessment of your values and beliefs

o   It is the feelings they associate with their interaction with you

o   It is the stories they tell about you

-          It is the things you do to support the reaction

o   The kind of people you employ and the way they behave

o   The kind of customers you target and why

o   The values and beliefs that you run your company by

o   The processes you use and how well they deliver the kind of product or service your brand promises

o   Your style – of communications, dress, language and premises

-          It is the collection of artefacts that represent your business and trigger the reaction

o   Logos

o   Website

o   Company or product names

What are the benefits of having a brand?

-          You will be at the top of their list (or the front of their mind) when a prospect thinks about buying what you sell

-          It reduces perceived risk in the mind of the prospect – “No-one ever got fired for buying from IBM.”

-          It multiplies your marketing  – people find it easier to relate, and relate to, stories about feelings and a strong brand is shorthand for shared feelings about a company

-          It makes you more referable if you have a widely-accepted positive reputation – there is less risk in recommending you

How can an SME develop a brand?

-          As with all marketing, a brand is only of any use if you know what your target market and value proposition are

-          You cannot buy a brand – you have to live it and demonstrate it first so that your customers and employees develop the brand through what they say and do

-          It’s about coherence and congruence – be clear on who you serve, why and how; be clear about the values and beliefs that are important to you, your staff and your customers

-          Make sure that this comes through in everything you say and do, from marketing to invoicing, from the website to the way customer services answer the phone

-          Ask the people who matter (employees, customers, prospects, suppliers) why they chose you and what they think about your company.  This is your brand.

Why do you need a business strategy?

Companies with clearly defined strategies on average beat their competition by 304% in profit margin and 332% in sales over a ten-year period (William Joyce, Nitin Nohria, Bruce Roberson, What Really Works [book] (New York: HarperBusiness:2003)

The #1 cause of bankruptcy is bad strategy (Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui, “7 Ways to Fail Big,” Harvard Business Review (September 2008)

70% of a company’s poor performance is due to decisions about strategy (Matthew Olson, “When Growth Stalls,” Harvard Business Review (March 2008)

BUT

85% of executive leadership teams spend less than one hour per month discussing their strategy, with 50% spending no time at all (Robert Kaplan and David Norton, “The Office of Strategy Management,” Harvard Business Review (October 2005)

80% of top management’s time is devoted to issues that account for less than 20% of a company’s long-term value (Michael Mankins, “Stop Wasting Valuable Time,” Harvard Business Review (September 2004)

Only 3 out of every 10 managers are strategic (Harris Interactive Survey of 154 companies, 2009)

(I found these great points on Strategy Espresso http://www.strategyskills.com/blog/ run by Rich Horwath.)

If you don't have a business strategy - you need one now!

Understand that your task as the owner is to make your business - not to make the widgets

Start with a clear long-term Vision for your business and turn this into some strategic objectives

Then describe your Mission – who do you serve and how?

-          Describe your market

o   What needs do you serve and in which sectors?

o   Are you addressing the most attractive needs and sectors?

o   What will happen to those needs and sectors over the next five years?

o   Will addressing these needs and sectors deliver your objectives?

-          Describe how well you fit the market

o   How are you able to serve those needs and sectors uniquely well?

o   Are there needs and sectors that you are better able to serve which you currently neglect?

o   How do you need to change to take advantage of the anticipated changes in your markets or to address more attractive markets?

-          Describe your business

o   What are your core competences and are they going to remain relevant?  If not, what do you need to learn or acquire?

o   Where are your weaknesses or single points of failure?  How are you going to address these?

o   What additional or different resources and processes will you need to achieve the necessary customer and financial outcomes?

-          Turn the necessary actions and the desired outcomes into a business plan

Embed this strategy process (the learning, change and survival process) into the business cycle and management routines

There are loads of strategic techniques to help you develop your strategy.  This seminar will take you through a few of them.

Feeling the management strain?

As your business grows it doesn't just get bigger. It gets more complicated. More staff, Bigger, more demanding customers. More rules. Trying to manage through other people. Delegation.
You'd go mad trying to run it the way you used to run a small business - or give yourself a heart-attack. And you'd fail, and go back to being small.

There is an alternative. Learn how to manage a bigger business at this business advice seminar.

Or take a look at our business advice website.

No strategy will equal no business

Only 3 out of every 10 managers are strategic (Harris Interactive Survey of 154 companies, 2009).
-The #1 cause of bankruptcy is bad strategy (Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui, “7 Ways to Fail Big,” Harvard Business Review (September 2008).

-70% of a company’s poor performance is due to decisions about strategy (Matthew Olson, “When Growth Stalls,” Harvard Business Review (March 2008).

-85% of executive leadership teams spend less than one hour per month discussing their strategy, with 50% spending no time at all (Robert Kaplan and David Norton, “The Office of Strategy Management,” Harvard Business Review (October 2005).

-80% of top management’s time is devoted to issues that account for less than 20% of a company’s long-term value (Michael Mankins, “Stop Wasting Valuable Time,” Harvard Business Review (September 2004)

-Companies with clearly defined strategies on average beat their competition by 304% in profit margin and 332% in sales over a ten-year period (William Joyce, Nitin Nohria, Bruce Roberson, What Really Works [book] (New York: HarperBusiness:2003).

I found these great points on Strategy Espresso http://www.strategyskills.com/blog/ run by Rich Horwath.

They really resonate with me when I think about my SME owner clients.  Few of them spend any time at all thinking about strategy - and many of those that do don't really have the tools or knowledge to make it work.

If you'd like some help with setting a strategy for your business contact me at my website or book up for this great seminar.

Looking for investment?

Are you looking for a bank loan or business angel to fund your business growth plans?
Do you understand the kind of things they look for in a company before they will invest?

Do you know what government finance is (still) available and how you qualify?

These are big issues. Succeed or fail issues. Don't leave it to chance - talk to us.

As a first step, get yourself on this business advice seminar or take a look at our business advice website.

Clear business direction?

Clear direction - a vision, mission and strategic objectives - is essential for any successful business. Business owners ned to know:
· The importance of a motivating and guiding vision for any business and how to construct one
· Ways to turn your Vision into a compelling Mission for your staff and customers
· How to identify and set concrete Objectives that will keep you on track towards your goal whatever happens
· Why growth is not optional - and why unplanned growth will damage your business – and why growth itself brings challenges
· What successful business owners spend their time doing – and not doing

If you'd like to learn how to do this then this seminar is a must: The Journey to Success

More information on my website: http://www.nickbettes.co.uk/

8 ways to your unique proposition

Price

-          This can be low price if you have a unique process or advantage that will always keep your costs below the competition’s.  If not then competing solely on price is suicide

-          This could be high price if you have a luxury product which is in demand by people who want to be seen as able to afford exclusivity 

Speed

-          This can be fast (for example food or deliveries) as long as you have a process which always delivers faster than anyone else

-          This could be slow (for example fine dining or whisky) as long as the wait is seen as part of the pay-off for the buyer.

Newness

-          In the technology or gadget market some people buy things simply because they are new.  Some businesses compete on performance (for example computers or phones) so they need innovation from their suppliers

-          Oldness can also be a selling point – think antiques, or retro, or reliability

Convenience

-          Petrol stations can charge more for essential items than supermarkets because they are next to the road and have parking.  Convenience could also mean opening hours or home delivery or anything else that makes it easier for the customer

-          Being a one-stop shop

Range

-          Both breadth of range and numbers stocked can be a powerful USP.  If a customer is pushed for time or in a fix they look for the place that always has what they need on the shelf.

Expertise or specialism

-          The ultimate is to be seen as a specialist in a field of one.  This is really what defining a niche is about; making yourself a specialist.

Quality and Service

-          Never the word “quality” or “service” but a deep understanding of what attributes represent quality and service in your market and a proposition which not only delivers on these but uses these terms to resonate with the customer. 

Reliability

-          This is about understanding your prospects deepest fears about your product and addressing them through a unique guarantee, your longevity or testimonials

Find out how to get more great business tips here

Find out more about increasing the value of your business here

Selling your business?

Preparing in the right way could get you 2-3 times as much for your business. 
Getting your company fit for sale could mean the difference between getting nothing and getting a great multiple.  Getting your company fit for sale will make it easier and more rewarding to run while you still own it.

It's what you as a business owner should spend your time doing.

Make a start. Come to this business advice seminar.

Raise your business game

· Reached the point where you are no longer confident about the way to to drive your business forward?
· Need money from an investor or bank to fund your growth plans but unsure how to go about it?
· Started to wonder if you or your management team need to understand more about business to achieve your goals?
· Worried about how you will achieve the best price when you sell your business?

Even successful and ambitious business owners sometimes find it hard to remember why they started their business. Dealing with day-to-day issues can swamp the big picture, leaving you struggling to keep on track and unsure about when and how you will realise the rewards for all the hard work you put in.

We can help you raise yoru game to overcome these barriers - and we're running this great seminar to explain how.

More good business advice on our website.

Do you have a clear direction?

Clear direction - a vision, mission and strategic objectives - is essential for any successful business.

Business owners ned to know:
· The importance of a motivating and guiding vision for any business and how to construct one
· Ways to turn your Vision into a compelling Mission for your staff and customers
· How to identify and set concrete Objectives that will keep you on track towards your goal whatever happens
· Why growth is not optional - and why unplanned growth will damage your business – and why growth itself brings challenges
· What successful business owners spend their time doing – and not doing
If you'd like to learn how to do this then this seminar is a must:  Business Owners - Your Journey to Success

More information on my website: http://www.nickbettes.co.uk/

Are you still serious?

It's simple. There are two different types of business owner. Those who think it's their job to produce widgets (or build websites, or fit boilers, or sell insurance...) and those who think it's their job to build a business.
The first type are really just self-employed. The second type are the true business owners. They are focused on driving their business forward. They spend time thinking about how they get to the next step. They invest in their company and themselves so that they can achieve that next step - because they know that it will take a bigger strategy, a better plan, a tighter operation and more teamwork.

These business owners will spend time planning for when they come to sell their business. Or maybe they're wondering about getting money from a venture capitalist, business angel, government agency or bank to fund growth plans. They recognise when they reach the point where they and their management team become the limitation on the company's growth and they need to step back and change the way the busines operates. Success in any of these scenarios requires them to raise their game.

If you're one of the second type (true business owners) then you recognise the value of getting expert help and this event is for you https://www.eventelephant.com/businessownersyourjourneytosuccess

How to build a great team

As a business leader it is your role to get the most from your staff.  You must become the team coach, not the centre-forward.  You must create the conditions for your team to succeed whilst striving to remove any dependency on your own efforts or technical knowledge.  Here are some guidelines for creating a successful team.

-          Define a shared, clear, worthwhile purpose for the team – and continue to reinforce this

o   Define clear boundaries for the team and empower every member to question things within those boundaries (not only in their own area of responsibility)

o   Define the desired outcomes.  Make these challenging but not demoralisingly difficult

o   Make sure there is regular, objective, actionable feedback on team performance

o    Make improved team functioning, or dynamics, one of the desired outcomes

-          Create wholesome team dynamics*

o   The foundation for any high-performing team is trust amongst the members.  People must feel able to be open about fears and failings and to give and receive honest feedback

o   Trust enables constructive conflict, which is necessary to surface and explore options and arrive at optimum decisions

o   Constructive conflict, where everyone has had their opinions heard and debated, allows buy-in from all members to the agreed team goals and decisions and their part in delivering them

o   Because individuals have bought in to the team goals and decisions, individuals are prepared to be held responsible for delivering their elements of the plan and to hold fellow team-members accountable in turn

o   Shared goals and mutual accountability means that the team is focused on results

-          Build in diversity amongst the members

o   Don’t allow superstars to rule the roost.  Everyone, including them, puts the team first.  If your star performers can’t understand and deliver this then drop them from the team

o   Make sure everyone recognises their own strengths and weaknesses and those of their colleagues.  Make sure they understand that great teams are made up of individuals with complementary abilities

o   Respect amongst members starts with individuals having self-respect.  Make sure everyone understands how their contribution is valued and inculcate a sense of belonging and feeling of achievement in all team members

-          Create pride within the team

o   Look for opportunities to build the team’s respect and reputation in the wider organisation and beyond

o   Create opportunities to build team coherence beyond the task – perhaps through  social bonds

o   Acknowledge and reward their achievements

*Based on  “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, Patrick Lencioni

Business modelling for SMEs

Is there a model for improving SME performance?  Certainly there are lots of business models out there beloved of management consultants and business advisors.  The former tend to use models developed by academics for the corporate world which can be thought of as "tools for thought"; the latter tend to use models developed primarily as sales tools:  "If we could show you how to increase your turnover by 10%, your margin by 10%..." and so forth.

Both can be useful for an SME owner but both have drawbacks.  Corporate models often assume a complexity in the organisation and market, an intellectual curiosity in the client and a depth of implementation resource that do not exist.  The less sophisticated tools on the other hand are often based on a few financial ratios that are assumed to be new to the business owner and which provide only a limited platform for real long-term improvement of the business.

What is needed to augment these tools is something that bridges the gap.  A tool rooted in the daily realities of the SME owner that also makes bigger canvases accessible.  A tool which can deliver simple, practical, high-return changes quickly but also provide a platform for continuing dialogue and development.  A tool which is supported by the advisor but controlled by the business owner and applied as appropriate to their starting point and progress.

If you'd like to know more about this tool and how we use it to help SME owners then take a look at our website.

You have a business plan - so use it.

So you have built your business plan.  What now?

Assuming that you built the plan in order to provide a routemap to your business goals then the plan should form the basis for your management reviews from now on

-          In order that you can use it to manage the business the plan should contain

o   A detailed month-by-month budget for the first year

o   Monthly sales targets

o   Monthly marketing targets

o   A small number of other monthly KPI targets covering customers, operations and staff

-          The monthly management review should

o   Be attended by the staff responsible for the above areas

o   Follow a set agenda

o   Be scheduled and diarised for the year ahead

o   Take place as soon as possible after the month end once the necessary figures have been produced for the previous month and year to date

§  Management accounts

§  Sales figures

§  KPI performance

o   Identify variances from plan, identify causes and specify remedial actions

o   Record actions against an owner and deadline

o   Review progress against previous agreed actions

-          The quarterly plan review should

o   Revise the forecast outturn for the year based on performance to date

§  In bigger businesses this may result in a revised budget against which to measure in future management meetings

o   Identify any significant remedial actions required to align with the new forecast, such as redundancies or new premises

o   Be scheduled, minuted and followed-up as per the monthly meetings

-          The annual strategic review should prepare the new business plan

If you'd like to know more about developing a business plan then this event is for you.

Get more great business tips on our website.