Organisational Needs

What is the organisation trying to accomplish or avoid? These can be categorised as:

• Strategic—The need to increase revenue and growth. The need to expand into a new market. The need to reduce expenses. (Not a strategic or marketing plan or a cost reduction analysis).
• Technical—The need to have their servers up and running at all times. The need to operate more efficiently. The need to launch a new product. (Not a new monitoring service or time / motion study or new logo).
• Financial—The need for ideas on how to become more profitable. The need to sell the business. The need to improve sales results. (Not a tax return or valuation or sales compensation study).
• Political/Environmental—The need to bring a new acquisition into the fold. The need to allow a new store to be built. The need to avoid bad publicity. (Not an employee survey or a grassroots campaign or a series of press releases).

Individual Needs

What is influencing the individual or individuals who will decide to engage our services? These are the needs that are often unspoken and less obviously connected to our services. While you cannot always uncover these types of needs directly, by being aware of what may be going on, you can be alert to the obstacles that can keep you from connecting your services with your prospects needs.

• Professional—To get a promotion. To prepare for a new job. To become well-known. To gain experience in new areas. To do a good job.
• Social—To impress the neighbours. To be accepted and respected by peers. To have a nice place to hang out.
• Psychological—To avoid risk. To take risk. To have someone to talk to. To please the boss. To gain recognition.

Determining Your Client Needs

How do you uncover your clients’ true needs and position your services in a way that fulfils their organisational and individual needs? I suggest the following exercise to get you thinking about how your clients view your services and how you can define them in terms of your clients needs.

1. Bring your key principals, partners, or business developers together for a brain storming session.
2. Think of all the clients you currently have. Why did they seek you out? What needs did they have that caused them to look for a service provider?
3. Think about the last sales conversations you had. How did your prospects speak about their needs?
4. Try to use the words that your clients and prospects use, not the marketing speak you use to describe your services.
5. On a flip chart, write all the needs that you have down the left-hand side.
6. On the right-hand side, write the services you provide.
7. Connect the needs to the services. Which ones satisfy the most needs? Are there any needs you have listed for which you have no services? Should you have those services?
8. Develop the questions that will help you uncover these needs in future conversations.
9. Continually refine and reshape your needs list as you engage new conversations and new clients.
10. Repeat the process as needed.

So, the next time you are asked what your clients need, you will be prepared to answer with the real reasons they seek out your services. You will make better connections, develop stronger relationships, and most likely find new clients in the process.

1. Consider what you are doing that isn’t effective. Do you make many mistakes? Does it tire you out? Would you rather go to the dentist for a root canal than complete the task? Get real with yourself and stop doing these tasks. Find someone else to do them faster, better or cheaper than you can.

2.  Stop learning how to do things that aren’t high ROI (Return on Investment). I always tell people that I make it a point NOT to learn how to update my website. If I don’t know how then I won’t be tempted to try to figure it out. It’s a waste of my time and money to do it myself and I know better. There are very good website development businesses out there who could give you a cost-effective alternative.

3.  Become ruthless. It can be a lot of little seemingly insignificant things that add up to big time wasters. If you were determined to create more time for what’s important then what would you cease doing immediately? Buying office supplies? Figuring out whom to do your product distribution? Doing all those social marketing posts?

4.  Create an exit strategy. For the bigger roles that you are more integrated into (like project managing or handling the operations) you may need to follow the steps of many successful CEOs and create an exit plan from these tasks – what can you do over the next 6 months to replace yourself in that role?

5.  Change your mind about what’s important. If you are a control freak or regularly find yourself holding on to something because no one can do it as well as you, then it may be time for a reality check. I guarantee that in one Coaching Session I’d be able to find at least 10 tasks or roles that you could get off your plate. So start being realistic about what you can really accomplish and remove yourself from the rest of it.

Be willing to clear the decks of everything that is getting in your way of the most important things. When you look around at the people who really do enjoy a lifestyle business, who make consistent income in the high 6, 7 or 8 figures and are enjoying some level of sanity in the process, you’ll see that they never try to do everything and often they do very little. Sir Richard Branson said in an interview once that it is easier for him to run his multiple billion dollar companies today than it ever was to run a small company.

Something tells me he figured out how to remove himself from a lot of tasks! This analogy is important in realising that there is more to business than just doing it all yourself. You may actually start enjoying being in business again. Remember that with the right information and expectations communicated to others the tasks can be done just as well or even better than you. Try thinking outside the square and think of virtual assistants that can help with on- and offline tasks or even get interns to help out when certain tasks need to be performed, usually at no extra cost to you as these people need the experience.

For your business to grow and be successful, you have to eventually settle on the one with the best fit, and pass the others off.

We make a strong distinction between the following

• The Business Owner creates the Vision.
• The Manager creates the Systems.
• The Technician creates the Results.

Each person requires a different hat.

All business owners have qualities of each, but where they most often lack confidence or expertise is in that of The Manager. Makes sense though, right? Most businesses are started by a technician that thinks he/she can be an entrepreneur. Being a manager doesn’t even come up in that scenario.

After careful deliberation a business owner will conclude: “What I really need to do is to hire a Manager.” It is here though that many business owners think “I can do this myself”. That thought does not leave the possibility of creating a business that can operate without the business owner being present. A business is only an effective business when the owner can stand aside and see that the vision is being implemented through a manager and the technician. It is this type of business that will create wealth for the business owner over time, not to mention the freed up time to invest somewhere else.

What a Manager Needs to Be

An effective manager certainly has the potential to take on some of the accountabilities that command so much of the business owner’s time. But how is this by itself really going to move your vision any closer to reality–and without causing too many hassles?

Back to the hats: In the development stage of your business the business owner wears all of them. You must be able to look at your business from each of the three distinctive points of view. As The Entrepreneur, you have the sole authority and responsibility to determine the direction of the business. How will the business be positioned in the eyes of its customers, employees, lenders, vendors and the larger community? The Entrepreneur must determine and constantly communicate and reinforce the company’s intention.

The business owner’s vision is The Manager’s follow-up orders; the vision is the high standard set. The Manager’s duty is to communicate, enforce and manifest the vision.

Managerial work ultimately bridges the space between the business owner’s vision for the business and the daily technical efforts needed in moving the business toward that vision. Effective managers, those who can encourage and motivate employees to reach their full potential while working on important tasks, are instrumental in building turnkey, systems-dependent businesses.

What a Manager Needs To Do

A Manager must have several critical characteristics. One is “know-how.” Some managers arrive with some “know-how” intact–knowing what to do and how to do it—getting work done through other people, i.e. technicians. Effective managers will, as a minimum, have the ability to find out how to do that. Knowing how or knowing how to find out how is one of critically required skills of a successful Manager.

Another essential characteristic of a successful Manager is the ability to communicate and implement that know-how into processes and systems that will enable people to get the desired results.

The only effective processes and systems are those that will achieve the Entrepreneur’s vision. Those processes and systems are the tools the Technicians use to get the results that fulfil the vision. The Manager does not manage people per se. The Manager manages systems.

People respond to orchestrated patterns. Within those patterns (systems and processes), people can manage themselves! People are effectively unmanageable. Systems are not.

A successful business must begin with the vision. The effective business owner creates a compelling vision and communicates it throughout the entire organisation. The effective business owner lives the vision. The effective Manager transforms that vision into systems, and delegates the tasks to the Technician. The effective Technician operates within the system to create the results that move the vision forward.

A successful business owner does not wear all the hats at once. The owner of a successful business must practice the art of discrimination. The owner of an effective business must know what hat is appropriate at any given moment, what characteristics are essential when wearing that hat, and when it is time to pass it off.

Here is how to have more victorious meetings:

1. Pre-game Plan

Purpose: Don’t call a meeting until you have identified and written a clear purpose, defined objectives and the specific outcomes you are seeking with this meeting. This will reveal the lack of necessity of most meetings.

Rules of engagement: No crack(berry) heads… Complete focus and engagement. All phones off and laptops closed—no exceptions. If you were meeting with the prime minister you would turn your phone off, right? Give everyone that same respect. Schedule breaks so folks can fiddle with their toys, but boldly enforce a full engagement policy.

The invite list: Only invite those integral to the discussion. Everyone else can get the 10-minute summary update. Don’t drag innocent bystanders through these slog-fests. Only key contributors to the dialogue need suffer through the full fanfare.

Schedule guest appearances: If some won’t be needed until 30 minutes into the meeting, have them come in only then and depart immediately when their contribution is over.

Agenda: Circulate a draft agenda and get feedback, suggestions and input from the participants in advance. This will refine the agenda and acquire buy-in.

Ask for prep: Distribute reference materials that should be reviewed or studied before the meeting. The meeting can now focus on the discussion and decisions, not the background information review.

II.      Game On!

Pep talk: Start with reminding group of the major purpose and concluding objectives.

Referee: Have someone assigned to be the time referee. Have them give the 2-minute warning when approaching the conclusion of a section to the agenda and announce the hard stop. If someone starts to take the conversation down a rabbit hole, have them throw the yellow card, suggest the conversation go outside the meeting or get the information written up and circulated back to the group.

Fight! Fight! Fight! (But fairly): Encourage debate, dispute and disagreement. If everyone agrees with everything, you don’t need a meeting. Fight, but fight fairly. Attack ideas, not people; battle with concepts, not the character of the person with the opposing view. No unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct or you will get tossed from the game.

1. Post-game Wrap-up

WWW: What is the post-meeting action and deliverables? I call it the WWW – Who, What, When? Every action needs to be 100 percent accountable only by one person with a specific date of delivery. Circulate the key points and WWW’s to all attendees. Assign someone to follow up on everyone’s WWW’s.

Consistency: If you start practising sloppy play you will start losing in the game of productivity. Continue this reckless behaviour and it might even cost you key players – death by meetings.

This is an interesting statistic as it indicates that there could be a flood of businesses for sale with no potential buyers for these businesses in the near future. Why do I say this? Well, many of these smaller businesses that do ok for their current owners may not be up to modern business systems and practices. What I mean by that is that the potential buyer will be looking at businesses that have proper business systems set up as well as the potential for growth.

In the area of business systems it would be important for buyers to know how things are done in a business and that these aspects are documented. For example, how are  purchases of products ordered, received, distributed, etc. Another example may be what marketing system has been set up and how effective is it? Any potential purchaser of a business wants to know that the systems work and that they are efficient. New buyers want to spend more time generating new business than fixing or installing systems into a business.

No purchaser of an existing business would want to buy a business that has no upside potential. It is therefore important to identify markets that can potentially be tapped for future prospecting. If these markets can be easily identified then there is potential upside for the aspiring new owner and a potential increase in the selling price of the business for the owner.

To get around these issues it is important that business owners plan for their succession now and not once they have decided that it is time to change their focus. I have an on-line questionnaire that can help business owners understand the issues surrounding their business and help them identify them so that they are ready to sell at the right price. Contact me now to find out more.

Well, imagine that you have to hammer a nail in the wall. That is easy right? You use a nail and ………. A chainsaw!

“What”? You say.

Yes that is the tool that has been given to you.

“What do you mean”? You say.

Well there is nothing wrong with a chainsaw. It is a perfectly good machine. It does what it is meant to do and that is to cut down trees, branches, etc. …. It is the tool that you have been given in the past.

“Well what has that got to do with hitting a nail in the wall?”

Well if you use this analogy in your business you will see that you may have been using the wrong tool all along. If you have been wondering why your business seems to be slowing down, stagnating or not attaining you expectations then it may be that you have not used the right tools to get your business to the next level.

I have used one of the most important tools to get a client of mine an extra $400k of turnover. How did I do this? I asked questions.

That’s right questions are far more powerful that telling people. If you use empowering questions like where do you think a market may exist outside your industry? This type of question gets the brain juices flowing and leads to more questions so that a clear image can be formed. These questions leave the other person with thoughts about solutions to problems and issues rather than getting his or her hackles up.

Disempowering questions would not work as they convey a negative aspect to them.

For example, why did you not finish the project? Has a clear accusatory tone to it and leaves the person squirming and uncomfortable.

Here a better question may have been “what has prevented you from completing the job?” this is clearly better as it allows the person to expand on why the job has not been completed. There may be extenuating circumstances that may have led to the incomplete project. It also gives the opportunity for feedback on a project.

Once you have used questions to ascertain where are going then it is vitally important to use the next important tool and that is communication. If you can clearly communicate what your vision and expectations are of a particular task  to the right people, then you will have people who will be willing and able to complete that task.

So keep in mind that in order to get you business growing and making it a great place to work, then ask more questions of people rather than telling them what to do. In addition if you clearly communicate your expectations you will have the staff doing what is expected of them.

So what are you waiting for? Get out and ask more questions

Obviously, as the business owner and leader, you have a unique stake in the success or failure of the business because it is tied to you as an individual. You therefore go though the tough times filled with the excitement of what is to be once your vision for the future is realised.

“Business Strategic Objective” is an entrepreneurial exercise that forces you to describe with conviction what your business is all about. You, as the leader, must be clear about where you want the business to go, and what it will look and feel like when your vision is realised. Why is this concept so important? That is because you are not alone on this journey. Your employees will also require this level of clarity if they are to commit to going there with you.

Your People Strategy

After developing your Business Strategic Objective, you are then faced with the task of taking it to the next level. This includes communicating your vision to, and getting buy-in from, all of your staff members. This is where it gets challenging. As employees of the business, they will not have the same relationship to the business as you do, and will therefore not have the inherent personal connection that drives you.

So how do you motivate them to take a personal interest in, and ownership of, the goals and objectives presented in the Business Strategic Objective? The answer is that you must strive to understand their needs, and then position the opportunities within your business so that it touches them on a personal level.

What Employees Want

Any company has the potential to be a source of personal satisfaction for the people that work there. And your business is not exempt from this important aspect, no matter what the product or service it provides, be it cleaning services, adventure travel or dentistry.

Take a step back and think about it from an employees’ perspective – would you want to work for your company? Wouldn’t you want to know such things as whether personal and professional growth opportunities were available; whether other employees were proud to work there; and how the business is known and understood by its competitors, customers, and suppliers?

Think back on your own work experiences: How did you feel when you worked for a company that you truly believed in? And what was it like to work in a company that simply provided you with a pay check? The bottom line for most employees is not just about the money, it’s also about personal fulfilment and achievement.

Fulfilling Needs, Reaching Goals

In order to engage your employees in your Business Strategic Objective, you must concentrate on their needs and find something about the business that will provide personal satisfaction for them. Maybe it will be in the customer focus systems that you have created, or your unique company culture, or the exciting projects they are assigned based on their individual skill sets. Take the opportunity to find out more about them as individuals, and what drives them, what turns them off. Then review your Business Strategic Objective and make sure you have created opportunities that will attract the right people.

Remember, the business must not only serve you. In order for it to be truly amazing, it also must serve those who work in it. Engaging employees in your Business Strategic Objective should be seen as an important, strategic, and necessary task to successfully reach your goals. Not only are fully engaged employees beneficial to the business, they will also be more actively involved with their families and community. These happy employees can certainly help the business with future referrals coming into the business.

In a high-performance organisation you devote 20% to 100% of your time purely on strategic work. We tell our clients in one of our initial conversations with them that the most important change they can make is to find 3 to 5 hours a week to work on the business, not just in it. Most owners complain that they don’t have the time for this. With some simple pointers we often show them that this is possible.  Clients who do this nearly always exceed their expectations. Others achieve some success, but fail to become all they can be.

An important aspect of establishing a high-performance environment is to hold monthly business development meetings. We suggest a monthly meeting held at the same time and place. This should become routine. Further, we suggest that each person at the meeting spend around 5 minutes answering these questions before getting to the rest of the points on the agenda.

1. What’s the best change or improvement in the way business is done that you have noticed this past month?

2. What issue/idea of yours does not yet appear on the master plan?

3. What issue/idea on the master plan do you consider our top priority?

4. What action plan will you pledge to write during the next 30 days?

Once this meeting has become a permanent part of your business culture, indeed a ritual, you can go on vacation. When you come back there will be no unresolved issues on your desk, only implemented action plans. Repeated and consistent self improvement has been the trademark of successful companies, enterprises, governments, and religions since the beginning of civilisation. If you don’t change the way you do and think about things, and improve these then you will fail or become obsolete.

Very often, when success in less than optimal, it can be traced to the client not setting time aside, religiously, to do strategic work. Some clients fail to meet regularly with their managers, and/or the managers fail to meet regularly with their employees. While some people refer to meetings as a waste of time, leadership means meetings. Your job as the owner is to listen (not to dictate or to dominate), to support, to inspire, and to provide your employees with all they need to get their well-documented and well-defined tasks accomplished.

From our perspective, monthly business development meetings call for everyone to write an action plan per month, forever. In time you will have so many ideas documented that it becomes an exercise in improving existing action plans. For example an action plan may create a standard for meetings, such as a published agenda, no more than four items on the agenda, and no more than 15 minutes for each item. Notice that the four questions appearing above find their way into this action plan. Notice that question no. 1: “What’s the best change or improvement you have noticed this past month?” sets up a positive tone for these meetings.

Over time, monthly business development meetings invariably result in every employee coming to realise that each of us has issues, we can’t expect others to solve all our problems for us, we need to prioritise, and take accountability for some of our own issues; to contribute, or to be silent.

Establishing a high-performance organisation not only requires that you continue on a learning path, but also that you enable those around you to grow. We advocate four steps on the journey toward creating this organisation: 1) Integrate the Vision, 2) Build the Structure, 3) Train and Provide the Tools, and 4) Quantify and Evaluate. Most of all, high-performance organisations create a game worth playing. They engage people fully and create an environment where they can use all of their skills and abilities to reach higher levels of personal and professional competence with each new challenge. So while it’s fun to win, the truth about great games is that most people just want to keep playing. Building a high-performance organisation is the best thing you can do to keep everyone in your game.

If you would like to learn more about these aspects of business growth then please contact us.

But “Tibor” I hear you say ” how can I be more effective in my marketing if I have so much work to get through?”

Well it is all about setting up a system or systems of finding the right customers you wish to serve and then setting out to get them. This is done by way of your marketing plan and – system so that you have some involvement but not overwhelmingly so.

It is generally assumed by the public that professional services firms deliver a quality job so how do you make it easier for them to decide to choose you?

Here are some common errors that professional services businesses make:

1. Unrealistic expectations for the marketing tactic used and results obtained.

2. Spending money on campaigns that are “vanity exercises” or don’t produce ROI.

3. Relying on one tactic only, e.g. local paper advertising.

4. Lack of decision making to implement marketing tactics.

5. Poor implementation, e.g. weak copy

6. Not sustaining a marketing effort over the longer period.

7. Not communicating value in their marketing pieces.

8. Not nurturing leads or dropping them.

9. Poor planning for lead generation.

10. No or poor marketing integration tactics.

These errors can often be overcome with a proper plan and implementation process. This process, if implemented well, will ensure that you will always have clients and more importantly, the clients that you want.

For more on professional services firms growth, please call or e-mail Tibor Mackor. if you would like a free copy of our 101 Marketing Tips and Tactics for small businesses then please send us an e-mail at tibor@bbstrategies.co.nz.

1. Integrity
2. Generosity
3. Friendliness
4. Gratitude
5. Attitude
6. Perseverance
7. Passion
8. Motivation
9. Dedication
10. Excellence
11. Optimism

The most important of these is Integrity. It tells the person that either works for a leader or is a customer of the leader that they can trust this person. The perception will lead people to believe that the leader has their best interests at heart. If a leader wants people to follow them it is vital that they look after the interests of their followers first and then themselves. The pay-off comes when these people feel that they are always given the best value. The question one must ask yourself if you want to be a leader is, “where are the cracks in my integrity” and work on ways to resolve them.

The second most important of the above is attitude. Here optimism is a vital component. We cannot change many of the things in the world and in our outside life. One thing we can change however is our attitude. One question you can ask yourself is where you followers perceive you as an optimistic person? Most people will follow someone that is always optimistic about future events. We all have to remain realists, but someone who always sees the glass as half-full will be more likely to have many more followers that those that see the glass as half-empty. It is therefore important as a leader to remember that people are likely to follow leaders with a good attitude to any given situation.

A business owner is a leader. Have you checked your attitude recently? Do people follow you because of the inspirational things you say or do or do they follow because they have no other options at the moment and will if it arises?