Engine of Growth

Running your own business should be exciting, challenging, rewarding and, ultimately, lucrative.  However, it isn't always so.  Many SMEs fail.  Few achieve their full potential.  Most grow for a while and then reach some plateau where, despite the best efforts of the business leader or the leadership team, they continue to bump along year after year.

Why is this?

It may be due in part to external factors like market turn-down, a worsening economy or your product starts to lose ground to competitors.  Perhaps a change of staff has not produced employees who are as effective as the original small team.

Often, however, the answer is much simpler than that.  Take a look in the mirror!  The limiting factor for most businesses is the time, attention or knowledge of the person or group of people running it.  The owners may grow the business for many years just by working hard, for long hours, but there comes a point where every new thing they have to do means that something they used to do no longer gets done.  Even if the business has employed more staff, overall productivity is going down.

Managing a business and leading people is difficult to do well and it is unwise to try to practise it through trial and error.  People often say, “I’ll pick it up as I go along” – and the vast number of those businesses struggle.  This is not a coincidence – these facts are related.

What can you do about it?

Start by recognising the limiting beliefs that are holding you back – your mind-set - and replace them with enabling beliefs.

Take a look at the purpose: your vision of where you want to go, how you want to get there, what you believe in, what you value and what you do.  What is your strategy for explaining what is special about your product and how it is a better proposition for your chosen market?

Systemisation: this makes your business efficient, repeatable, resilient, reliable – and scalable.

Finally, think about engagement.  People are much easier to manage when they are committed to the cause.  They are also much more productive.  An engaged workforce is aligned with the organisation’s purpose, will feel proud to be part of a winning team and teamwork will come naturally to them as a result.

These elements are, of course, interdependent.  Each enables the other three, and in turn is enabled by them.  To learn more, book a place on our seminar in June.

Thought Leadership

What is thought leadership?

-        Thought leadership means generating original ideas or opinions on a topic that is of real interest to your target market and relates to what you supply

-        Like most marketing, success requires sustained activity and real insight into your target customers and their needs

-        Unlike most marketing, thought-leadership requires frequent intellectual and analytical effort

-        Thought leadership must appear to be objective; the topic area and your ideas must position you as an expert with the solution to your target’s need but without being pushy about your own services or products

Why is it important?

-        Most businesses are increasingly reliant upon online marketing

o      The online marketplace is flooded with competing messages and your targets are overloaded with information, most of which is ignored

o      People look for efficient filters.  One way to do this is to use the recommendations of others.  Your content must therefore be unique and interesting, both to receive attention in the first place and to make it worthy of repetition

o      Search engines, when they assign search weightings, recognise and value content that is referred to by others

-        Most businesses find it difficult to differentiate themselves.  Producing original and relevant content helps to build a reputation for expertise which will lead to sales opportunities

How do you do it?

-        Start with the customer viewpoint.  What problems does your product solve?  What are the triggers or root causes of the need?  What stories do you have about solving these problems?  What did you learn and can you generalise from this?  What tips or techniques can you share?  How are these problems affected by current events or trends?  What new developments are there in the marketplace?

-        If practical, do some original research in the area.  If this isn’t possible, run a survey on a relevant topic

-        Develop reusable content.  Start with a whitepaper, then blog about it, post it on article sites.  Use it in your email newsletter and on social media.  Put whitepapers on your website, making sure that you capture contact details for people who download them.  Run a seminar or webinar on the topic.  If possible get some PR from it

-        If you are not sure how to produce a whitepaper then look at some examples and adapt the layout and tone to your market – or pay a copywriter to write one from your content

-        Incorporate your thought leadership activities into your marketing planner and follow it – don’t leave it until “things are quiet”

-        It’s marketing – plan it, be consistent and persistent, stick to the plan and measure the results

Mission Statement

 Why have a Mission Statement?

-          Your Mission Statement translates your Vision Statement into something that you can communicate to your employees and customers.  (You may have separate internal and external mission statements for those two audiences to make allowances for their different desires – but the essential message will be the same)

-          A Mission Statement describes what a business is and what it does – it is the way that you as the business owner are going to achieve your Vision

-          It tells people about your values and beliefs; what is important to the organisation and the kind of people that work there

-          It sets the stage for your marketing strategy; what is different and better about what you do and what kind of customers do you serve

What makes a good Mission Statement?

-          It should say what you do

-          It should say what kind of people you and your employees are

-          It should describe who your customers are and what the outcome is for them

-          It should be realistic, achievable and credible.  Your staff and your customers must believe the organisation can do it and it should match actual behaviours and activities

-          It should be stretching and involve some aspiration

-          It should motivate your staff and customers.  It must be something that they think is worth achieving and which matches their values and beliefs

-          It must be aligned with your Vision Statement

-          It may have a timescale and concrete outcomes, or these may be in separate objectives

What do you do with your Mission Statement when you’ve got one?

-          Your Mission Statement (or extracts from it) should be used in internal and external communication (marketing)

-          It should be used when recruiting and appraising staff

-          Short, medium and long-term objectives should be reviewed against the Mission Statement to ensure that they are moving your business in the right direction

-          It should be used to underpin your strategic decisions

Tips for Selling Your Business

The most common reasons for a business-owner wanting to sell their business are:

• They desire a lifestyle change – for instance, retirement
• They are an entrepreneur who feels the business has outgrown them and who is not motivated by the managerial requirements of a larger busines
• They believe the business needs significant investment to progress to the next stage
• They want to bank the value they have created
• They have received an un solicited offer for the business

Whatever the reason, there are guidelines it is wise to follow.  In particular, an owner should actively prepare his or her business for sale, choose the time to sell and follow a proven process.

Strategy

The best-run businesses are always fit for sale but the value of your business is whatever a buyer thinks it is worth.  However, the things that make the business profitable and manageable for their current owners also make them attractive to potential buyers: solid strategic positioning, good management processes, managed risks and strong cash flows.

Getting the best price for your business is a strategic, marketing and sales exercise.  Your business must be growing, profitable, well-managed and measurable, in an attractive market sector and delivering cash first, and well-marketed and positioned for sale second.  You should also prepare, position and market your business so that the price you receive reflects the motives of the buyer.

Timing

Many owners sell because they receive an offer, but you should plan your sale for a time and set of circumstances of your choosing, once you are happy that the business is fit for sale and strategically positioned to maximise its value at that point.  Pay attention to the possibility of generating competition.  As in any market, if demand exceeds supply then the price rises. 

Risk

You need to minimise risk.  The kinds of risk you need to identify and mitigate are: over-reliance on a small number of customers or suppliers, over-reliance on key members of staff, including you, inadequate or missing contracts, inadequate documentation of processes and potential or actual legal proceedings.

These are a few of the considerations you need to take into account when preparing for a possible sale - but there are more.

Business brokers Pace Equity and business advice firm Nick Bettes Consulting are conducting a seminar which will give you further information and advice that you can incorporate in your own business planning immediately. You'll also get a chance to talk directly to our experts about your particular concerns or challenges.   

Follow this link for further details and to register: http://successfullysellingyourbusiness.eventbrite.co.uk

Successfully Selling Your Business

A business that is worth something to someone else will be growing and profitable and well-managed – in short, everything that you would want your business to be right now, even if you aren’t thinking of selling it.

If you simply wake up one day and decide to sell your business or receive an offer out of the blue, without proper preparation and planning you will obtain only a fraction of the true value of the business you have put years of your life into. 

So start preparing your company for sale today to allow you to choose:

• When to sell
• The buyer you want
• The value you deserve

Here are some of the considerations:

• Your motives for selling
• How to get the best price
• How to get into shape
• How to get the timing right
• How to minimise risk
• How to sell future strategy rather than past numbers
• Whether you can generate competition among potential buyers
• What type of sale is most appropriate

The selling process

The factors that make a business attractive to potential buyers are the factors that make a business more attractive to you as the current owner.  Potential owners want a business that is stable, manageable, low risk, profitable and with good and growing cash flow.  As a business owner you should be working on making your business sellable a soon as possible – even if you have no intention of selling it.  This approach forces you to address those areas of risk, strategic compromise or inefficiency that otherwise you would put off and to find ways to deliver the sustained growth and profitability that you might otherwise cope without.

If you do want to sell your business then you probably need to allow two to three years to prepare it for sale through a process of systemisation, for example, documenting all your processes; compiling financial records; maintaining and updating your business and marketing plans.

Attempting to transform your business in this way without help is likely to be expensive and problematic – if you knew how to do it you would have done it already.  You should consult an experienced management consultant or coach at an early stage to carry out a full audit of your business and develop an action plan.  The increase in sale proceeds could be worth 15-20 times the cost.

Business brokers Pace Equity and business advice firm Nick Bettes Consulting are conducting a seminar which will give you further information and advice that you can incorporate in your own business planning immediately. You'll also get a chance to talk directly to our experts about your particular concerns or challenges.   

Follow this link for further details and to register: http://successfullysellingyourbusiness.eventbrite.co.uk

Powerful New Business Promotion Tools

 

New Marketing is about a power-shift to the prospect

Fragmentation of the media

• It used to be 4 TV channels and some newspapers

Information and choice overload

• Millions of pages online about any product or service

Information transparency and democratisation

• Anyone can publish an opinion or complaint about any provider, no matter how large
• Anyone can compare price, performance and reputation of any product - in seconds

New Marketing is about efficient filters

• Search, recommendation and word of mouth are the key marketing skills
• Humans are programmed to use mental short-cuts to avoid being eaten – you need to fit one of these mental short-cuts

New Marketing is about giving value

• All content tends to free
• If you’ve got someone’s attention by being a great filter then you need to provide value to retain their attention
• ..and more value to build engagement...
• ...so you need to understand what represents value to your clients – and where it lies – and what they will and won’t pay for
• Post-sale you need to build their satisfaction with your product back into the filters and the attention/engagement process

Building a 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