Small Fish Noticeboard

Conflict in Business

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:21:00 GMT

We all hopefully go into business with the intent for bigger and better things, or for financial riches or the lifestyle working for yourself is meant to bring i.e being accountable to self. This is all good in theory but what happens when a point of conflict comes into play?

Conflict can come from numerous fronts- from home, from your business partner or from clients; but from my experience the biggest issue and the one with the most potential for damage or destruction to a business is from business partners disagreeing.

This can become a cancer for the business if not eradicated.

So why is there conflict?

Differing personalities?
Differing opinions on the direction of the business?
Power struggles?
Lack of defined roles?
Imbalance of workloads and ‘fairness’?
Inequality in remuneration or benefits?
Etc

So what do you do? One approach is to understand how it is you deal with conflict in the first place, as we all deal with it differently. One great model is the TKI Model, or the ‘Thomas- Kilmann Instrument tool.' This identifies where you sit in the 5 various conflict management styles by the use of a simple survey to rank your status. The ranges are shown in the diagram below.

These styles show the varying degrees of assertiveness and cooperativeness we use as our ‘default’ style and how one or more may dominate our style. Like a lot of these tools, the TKI model doesn’t state there is any one best way, but rather it allows an understanding of the dominant areas and allows for methods as to how to perhaps modify your approach to various situations.

If you find yourself in a level of conflict, one starting point is to complete such a tool to see your style and learn tactics to modify or to deal with people with competing styles. Another strategy is to seek an independent third party mediator (maybe a coach?) or a professional counsellor? The main key is to not allow business conflict to destroy the goals you are attempting to achieve. Get in early and focus on a resolution to solve and work together for the vision of the business. There are never any winners in a war, so don’t let your place of business become one!

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Some Thing Bosses Never Tell Employees

Mon, 07 May 2012 12:10:00 GMT

Jon liked this article because he's a business owner and he worries about everything. He thinks he agrees with every single one of the points in it.

Do you? Post your comments below!

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Key Numbers to Drive Profit

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 02:39:00 GMT

Do you ever look at the reports from your accounting software or are they meaningless to you?

A typical set of Financial Reports contain a lot of numbers but reading them can be daunting, hiding the critical numbers to success.

So what are the key numbers you should review that will drive your profit?

Revenue Growth %
1. This indicator generally gets a lot of attention and rightly so. The number though should not be looked at in isolation, revenue growth is OK but profitable growth is better.
Price Change %
1. This is the percentage by which the price you sell products either increases or decreases. Small regular price changes are easier to implement that one large change.
Cost of Goods Sold %
1. Cost of goods sold is the cost to get a product or service to market before taking into account overheads. This is an important number as it drives your profitability, a small decrease in COGS can have as much impact on Gross Profit as a large increase in revenue.
Overheads %
1. We often look at our overheads but we should review them as a % of revenue. If you can increase revenue while not increasing revenue your profit will increase, likewise if your overheads increase slower than revenue you will be more profitable. If your overheads rise at the same rate as revenue, you may be working harder for no more profit
Days Receivable
1. This is the number of days on average it takes your customers to pay. The lower the number the better your cash flow. If the number is growing you cash will get squeezed impacting working capital.
Days Payable
1. This is the number of days on average you take to pay suppliers. Small improvements in this area by negotiating better deals can have a huge impact on your working capital position.
Days Inventory
1. This is the number of days on average your stock is sitting in the store room or show room. This ties up cash impacting your working capital, so reducing days inventory by better buying or merchandising can have a big impact on your cash and profit position.

All these numbers are available from your Financial Reports, either from the Profit & Loss or the Balance Sheet. How many of you look at your Balance Sheet each month? Considering I have spoken to numerous small business operators who don’t look at their Profit & Loss report the number is surprisingly large.

Take the time to review the Financial Performance of your business each month, it will be worth your while and will help you trade more profitably.

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

Monitoring Working Capital Improves Cash Flow

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 03:13:00 GMT

A recent article by VECCI (Victorian Employer’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry) quoted ASICs figures showing that nearly 10,500 businesses entered external administration in 2011. Many were small businesses and analysts suggest the higher number of insolvencies is due to a crackdown from banks and the Australian Tax Office, which are pursuing unpaid debts and tax liabilities harder than before.

Business already pushed to the limit with overdrafts and loans are stretched as far as they can and with cash dried up, they have nowhere to go but call in the administrators.

The truth is that many business owners fail to understand or know their real Working Capital requirements and therefore expand too quickly, make bad business decisions or waste money with inefficiencies. This leads to additional requirements for cash and puts pressure on an already strained cash flow.

It’s important to understand the Working Capital requirements because understanding this figure will help understand how to improve it, and therefore keep more funds in the business.

So what is working capital? In a nutshell:

[Stock you have on the shelf +Work in Progress (labour and Parts) + Raw materials + Finished Goods] plus [Money customers owe you] minus [Money you owe your suppliers and other payables (rent etc)]

A simple way to monitor your Working Capital is to work it out as a % of Annual Sales.

For example: Let’s assume we buy 6 weeks of raw materials for production. (we buy an extra 2 weeks supply “just in case we run out”)

Assume Raw materials make up 40 % of our average sales.

1.5/12 X 40% = 5%

So for every $100 of sales we make, we need $5 to pay for the raw materials alone. Doesn’t sound like much but if we turn over $1mil that’s $50,000!. If we grow to $2mil turnover its $100,000 - suddenly that’s a significant amount of money.

Now let’s get efficient and only order exactly 1 month’s raw materials.

1.0/12 X 40% = 3.3%

So in that $1mil turnover business we now only need $33,000. That’s $17,000 we no longer need to fund buying raw materials and can be used to retire debt or for something else.

Going through the Working Capital “supply chain” we can calculate for each item as a % of sales

Raw Materials
Work In Progress
Finished Product
Receivables
Trade Payables
Other payables

Calculate the Working capital as % of sales and know that number off by heart! It’s one of the most important number’s you should know after your Gross Profit margin.

An example is shown below

Here our Working capital is 27% as a % of sales. We now know that if we suddenly receive an order for $100,000 we need $27,000 of cash to fund that order. This number becomes meaningful because we can ask for a deposit, stage payments, stage supply or a raft of things so as not to chew up our cash.

Now if we can make some basic improvements in your Working Capital “supply chain” (as shown in red) and suddenly our business has only 18% working capital needs as a % of sales – and the business has nearly $100,000 of extra cash it no longer has to borrow.

Now that’s impressive.

Of course using an experienced Business Coach can help calculate your Working capital as % of annual sales for your business, identify any inefficiencies and help you reach your goals of achieving great Cash Flow.

Steve Eastwood

Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne

www.smallfish.com.au

The Difference Between Being "Reactive" and "Proactive"

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:13:00 GMT

There is a big difference between being proactive and reactive in your business. Successful business owners focus on proactive. Being reactive is not only stressful and potentially expensive, it can kill your business.

Proactive business owners;

Plan ahead – they know what the next 1, 6 and 12 months should look like.
Have budgets – they know what their goals are in terms of sales, customer retention, average sale etc. They also plan their marketing spend and set goals for return on investment.
Understand the financials – they don’t wait until their accountant tells them business is ok to know business is ok. They check their sales, profit & loss and balance sheet regularly.
Focus on the business and customers they want to attract – they know who is profitable and who is not. They don’t waste valuable time and money attracting the wrong customer to their business.

Reactive business owners;

Never plan – they are scrapping by day to day hoping they will still be in business in 6 months.
Never set budgets – they are unsure how or why budgets are valuable or simply don’t see any benefit in having them, some are far too scared to set goals.
Hide from the financials – they don’t understand or want to know about the financials of the business. They hope that someone else has this under control for them. They are not sure who they owe money to and worse who owes money to them!
Take any business from anyone anytime – they are so desperate for cash they take any customer they can regardless of how profitable the work might be. They continue to work for customers that fail to pay on time. They discount prices and under quote just to get work in the door.

Do you identify with the proactive or reactive business owner? Maybe you identify with a bit of both. There is no shame in seeing your self reflected in the reactive business owner. Business can be scary; the financials alone frighten the heck out of most people. The important thing is that you do something to change. It is almost a new financial year, time for new challenges, new ideas and a fresh approach!

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

Business Coaching Winners - Yummy Mummy Day Spa

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 06:18:00 GMT

Our most recent Business Accelerator Package winner was Amy Mitchell from Yummy Mummy Pregnancy Massage and Day Spa.

We were so excited to meet Amy and the team at Yummy Mummy - who run Australia’s only pregnancy day spa! Yummy Mummy's trained therapists specialise in taking care of pregnant women right from conception, through to birth and beyond - offering treatments that have been designed by pregnant women for pregnant women!

If you are pregnant (or know someone who is), we would highly recommend contacting Yummy Mummy for some pampering and pain relief to start feeling like a Yummy Mummy once more! Did we mention that they even have gift vouchers.....

The Yummy Mummy experience is presently available in Perth, with plans to come to Sydney and Melbourne soon. Amy is in the process of working through the first stage of the Small Fish Business Coaching system, and we look forward with tremendous anticipation to see Yummy Mummy expand Australia-wide, and maybe even internationally!

Stay tuned - we will let you know how it goes!

(Note: Pictured are Gillian (seated), Shannen, Amy Mitchell, Louise and Lee)

Kristian Reiss
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

Are You "Road Blocking" Your Success in Business?

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:10:00 GMT

How many roadblocks do you have in your business? A roadblock is something that you use as an excuse as to why you are not getting the important stuff done. The important stuff is the money making stuff! That means getting on the phone to drum up sales or book appointments, or starting that big project that could help grow your business.

Roadblocks are dangerous and using them allows you to continually sabotage your own success by creating diversions that are not going to lead you anywhere but to exactly where you are today.

Still confused? Here is a list that I have come up with, tick off the ones you allow to block your success;

My office is messy – I need time to sort it before I do anything else
I don’t have my database set up properly so there is no point in calling anyone
My staff are constantly interrupting me so I never get anything done
Our sales material is out of date so I won’t call anyone
I have too many small jobs such as data entry or filing to move on to larger projects
I spend all day checking and answer emails, there is no time for anything else
I have to get through my never ending “to do” list first
The phone is always ringing with people needing my attention
I don’t have enough hours to get to the big stuff

There are thousands of road blocks that small business owners use as daily self sabotage on their own business. There is rarely one that I have heard that does not have a logical and relatively easy answer.

Be honest! How many are you guilty of? How many “urgent” tasks do you allow yourself to get sucked into to avoid doing the “important” stuff?

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

Energy Sucking Black Holes in Business

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 03:35:00 GMT

I meet a wonderfully wide range of people in a typical week, and this one has been no exception. Despite the huge differences, a common theme has been emerging – the phenomenon of Energy Sucking Black Holes. We all have things we know we should do, but haven’t acutally done yet. There is a variety of reasons for this – we’re busy doing other things, the job is not something we enjoy doing or the project is just too big and scary to even think about. Sounding familiar?

So this job sits on the ‘to do’ list… glaring at you! It starts to haunt you – it interupts your sleep and invades your private moments of solitude and reflection. It begins to take on a life of its own. As a consequence, whatever the reason you haven’t got around to doing this thing seems to become more real also – if the job was scary yesterday, its terrifying today! If you might have found 5 minutes to make a start on it yesterday, there’s no way you can do that today… you're just too busy!!!

You know the job is important, or else you would have crossed it off your ‘to do’ list days ago. Bad things will happen if it doesn’t get done. That makes you afraid. Fear breed paralysis. And saps your energy. Before you know it… you’ve created an Energy Sucking Black Hole. To an outsider, they’re easy to spot. The person your talking to is distracted. They’ve got 100 good reasons why the job hasn’t been done yet. They are busy doing other stuff. But you can see the energy being drained and performance drops. The spiral is self-perpetuating.

STOP! Step outside yourself for a moment, stand next to me and look at the situation as an outsider. We don’t have the emotional baggage, things are much clearer from out here. How to tackle this sucker? Here’s a few techniques to get you started.

Forget an A+, you just need a ‘Pass’. Perfectionists often set themselves very high standards. Often, this is a good thing. But not when it makes the bar so high you’ll never get over it. Aim to get the job done… just done. Nothing fancy, just finished. There is more good in a project finished to a reasonable level than the best project in the world never getting off the ground.

Take a different approach. If the idea of walking into your office, turning on your PC and writing that report fills you with dread, don’t do it. Put on a Hawiian shirt, grab the laptop and find yourself at a table at that cool café on the beach. Or take some fancy note paper and a purple fountain pen. We’re after a result here, it doesn’t matter how it gets done.

We all know how to eat an elephant. One bite at a time. So make your first step breaking this huge, scary monster of a project down into cute little bite sized pieces.

Step 1. Write your plan. Make a fancy title page. Turn off the PC and celebrate the completion of Step 1 with a nice glass of wine. Just make sure you come back for a similarly easy Step 2 tomorrow.

Sorting out your filing cabinet, writing your marketing plan or making an appointment with your bookkeeper can be daunting, but the pain of dealing with an Energy Sucking Black Hole is far worse. Go on… just do it!

Richard Everson
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Economic Disaster My Arse, We'll Be OK

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 03:05:00 GMT

Seth Godin recommended his book, I just watched it on TED (there's a theme here, isn't there?) and it involves a discussion of abundance, which we state as one of our values - we come from a mentality that there's there's enough to go around so we'll share and be generous and we won't feel impoverished if we give stuff away.

Peter Diamandis (Abundance is our Future) talks about how the new and emerging technologies and the population shifts and other factors actually make it likely that we won't all collapse in a heap but that we'll overcome our hurdles and have a fun next decade.

In particular, this applies to our economy (watch for it, it's near the end) - there are some billions of people emerging from the third world into the information world and they'll be our consumers - there will be a huge fill up to the global economy, enough to counteract the global crisis that's with us now. So don't despair.

Watch the video here. It is quite interesting.

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Northern Rivers
www.smallfish.com.au

The HRMWEB Recipe for Better Customer Service

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:59:00 GMT

...whipping your staff admin processes into shape!

Your workforce is your most important, and often your biggest, business asset, so better structure and processes around managing your staff offers many obvious benefits such as time savings, money savings, better staffing decisions, increased control and peace of mind. However, there are benefits that are not always so obvious... one of those is better customer service!

Essentially, your staff are your business. They are your representatives, your front line, the driver behind your day to day operations. Your product and service offerings, customer service and reputation all rest on your staff - so you need to ensure you manage them effectively.

It’s easy to understand that when your administrative processes and your workforce are well organised and working effectively it results in a professional looking business (which consumers do notice) and happier staff - and that means better customer service and a better overall customer experience!
See our three key ingredients to gearing your workforce towards better customer service...

1) The “right” number of staff

It’s the thing that keeps you up at night - figuring out how many staff you need working at any given time, who will work what shifts and what's it going to cost you. It's called rostering and if you don't have processes around how you do it, it will cost you time and your business money.

Not enough staff rostered on - customer’s won’t get the level of service they expect, you'll lose sales and the staff you do have on will be overworked and stressed. Too many staff rostered on - it’s a waste of resources and money... and your staff are bored and frustrated.

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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE: You are at a bar... the line up is 5 people deep. It’s slow, it’s frustrating and all you want is a beer or a wine or maybe even just a soft drink. Is that too much to ask? It is a bar after all – isn’t serving drinks their staple?

Rather than wait you bail and go to the bar down the road (there is always a bar close by!). Not only did that bar lose your business, you’ll tell everyone about that bad experience you've had and you’ll think twice about going back there or maybe you’ll never go back there again!

All that bar needed to do was make sure it had more staff members on to serve... imagine the extra cash that business could make by putting just one extra person on. Now, what if they could use software to predict their “busy” periods and suggest appropriate numbers of staff. Or what if they could see it was getting busy and send a broadcast SMS to all the staff the system knows is free to work a shift at that time – a staff member could be there within 15mins! This is all very possible!

2) Organised and informed staff

If you want your staff to feel like a part of your business "team" then treat them in a way that shows you respect them. Keep them well informed and manage them in a way that is consistent.

Your staff want to be kept in the loop and want easy ways to communicate with each other and with you. Most importantly they want to know you have things under control. They want to be able to come into work and do their job. No one likes surprises!

When your staff feel secure in your ability to manage them and run your business that attitude of calmness and confidence is passed onto the customer.
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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE: Joe comes to work and does his hours, he fills in his paper timesheet... it’s hard because he has to rely on his memory quite a bit but he uses some post it notes to jot down his times every day to make it easier.

Every time his pay is deposited into his account he goes through it with a fine tooth comb making sure to match it up with the post it notes he has been keeping. It’s such a hassle for Joe but he has to do it because his pay packet is sometimes wrong. Joe doesn’t want to be underpaid or overpaid because every time there is an error it is such a hassle to chase up and takes a lot of time for him to do so.

All he wants is for his work hours to be documented accurately and his pay to be correct every time. Is that too much to ask? He does his job properly why can’t he be paid properly? Eventually frustrated, Joe goes and finds a job with another business that has automated systems in place that make his life much easier! Joe was a great worker and the customers loved him... he was a great asset that is now lost.

If only Joe’s employer had an automated roster, timesheet, pay rate calculation system. That way Joe could fingerprint on and off his shifts, have his hours automatically recorded, have his pay rates calculated automatically and then that could all be sent through to payroll. With the reduced reliance on human intervention in that process, Joe could ditch his post-it notes and have the confidence in knowing his pay packet is correct!

3) Happy staff

It's simple. If your staff are happy it will influence how they behave with your customers. It's all about positive vibes - most customer experience goes beyond words - attitude and actions is where it really counts.

A major gripe of staff is how they are managed especially with regards to administration or as we like to call it "the paperwork". For instance, staff want to be allocated shifts based on their availability and they want to easily see what shifts they are working. They want to do as little admin paperwork as possible - they see it as a waste of time, and it usually is!
Having sound processes around how you manage your staff will make their lives, and yours, easier!
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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE: Susan always makes sure her manager knows what times she is available to work. She studies and works part time at another job so she has to manage her time effectively and make sure she is super organised.

Even though she goes to the trouble of detailing her availability in emails and post it notes her manager is always losing them or not looking at them when he does up the roster. So many times she finds out about shifts less than a week in advance or she is rostered on to work at times she has already said she can't do. She has had to amend other parts of her life many times to accommodate shifts that she didn't know she was working.

Every time she is given an incorrect shift she gets frustrated and often the manager asks her to help out and find a replacement. Eventually Susan becomes so frustrated that her "needs" are not being taken into account that it starts to show when she is dealing with customers. She still does a competent job but she is less than happy and customers see that - they walk out of the store saying things like "gee, it would have been nice if I could have at least gotten a smile". They will get that smile somewhere else and then you lose their business.

Staff feel respected when their employer takes into account that fact they are human and have lives outside of work, that they like to know what they are doing in advance and that they can't just drop everything and work a shift. If only Susan's work had an automatic rostering process. She could enter her availability online and the rostering software would take it into account when building rosters. Then the system would sms her the shifts she is to work, well in advance! She could sms back to confirm she can work those shifts and if for some reason she couldn't work a shift wouldn't it be great if the system could find a replacement for her. How easy would that be for Susan! How easy would it be for her manager as well!

...and of course with any good recipe there needs to be a binding ingredient: Technology.

To enable the above three ingredients to be achievable you need to add a fourth “binding” ingredient that pulls everything together – and that of course is, technology.

The days of rostering via Excel spreadsheet, staff availability scribbled on bits of paper, phone calls to communicate shifts, written timesheets based on memory, calculators to add up hourly rates and fat fingering numbers into payroll, are over. Those frustrating, error prone tasks are now able to be completed quickly, easily and accurately by software solutions that are geared specifically to helping administer a business workforce.

Look for a cost effective, web-based, easy to use software product backed by a provider who will deliver you a fully supported solution. Web-based is the way technology is moving (you will hear “the cloud” mentioned a lot these days!) and it’s great because you can access your system from anywhere with an internet connection – so you can run your rostering, payroll, check what staff are on duty etc from home, work, Hawaii – wherever!

Look for guarantees as well - like metrics on exactly how much time and money the product is likely to save you. Also your provider should be able to do continual evaluations and analysis of your “savings & benefits” for a couple months after the software solution is implemented - just to check its working properly for your business.

Be careful of big up-front costs. Older desktop based solutions will cost a lot up front as you are paying for expensive and probably already out of date hardware. Look for solutions that have small set up costs, require minimal hardware and charge an ongoing monthly rate that is calculated on a “per person” basis – that way you will only pay for what you need.

...and most importantly look for a provider who will actually get to know your business processes before they even suggest a solution. The more they find out about how you currently manage your staff the more value they can offer in terms of streamlining your processes and matching software to your business needs.

In Summary...

Streamlining staff admin processes will result in better staffing choices and a smoother running and happier workplace for owners, managers, and employees. The flow on will be obvious as a better work environment will result in a better customer experience.

Streamlining may seem like it’s a difficult or costly thing to do, but it’s not. There are tools out there that can be tailored to your business to quickly and easily streamline your staff admin processes. Just be sure to look for a cost effective, web-based, simple to use product that does everything you need and is backed by a provider who will deliver you a fully supported solution.

Irene Hazilias
Director, HRMWEB

Business Coaching and Sports Coaching - Common Mistakes

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 06:16:00 GMT

Implementing and driving a process of change in a business is like coaching a sports team. You have to get the basics right before you start to win.

These are some of the many similarities we found out when Tim Edwards (Guru sports coach, lecturer, academic and part time surfer) shared with us at the Small Fish Business Coaching conference a few weeks ago.

Here are EIGHT common mistakes made by sports coaches – many have great similarity in the business world.....

Mistake No 1: Failure to recognise that change takes TIME

Many sports coaches forget that it takes time to mould a team to success. They expect instant results without doing the basics. Good coaches who take on new teams in AFL and NFL think years in advance and don’t expect to achieve success until two or three years out. They plan for it, knowing that getting the basics right is the first priority, building on them, then winning the premiership will come later.

Just so, business owners must understand that just by taking on a coach, things won’t change overnight. It takes time to implement a change program in a business. You have to get the strategy right, put the right systems and processes in place, understand the market, implement a solid sales plan, and nurture your customers, just to name a few. There are a myriad of small incremental changes that must take place before the business can start “winning”. Don’t expect to be driving the Lamborghini in year two.

Mistake No 2: Failure to get everyone to PARTICIPATE

How many times have you seen a line of budding young sports stars being put through their paces by their coach. All lined up and one at a time practising their goal kicking. That’s all very well but soon the other 14 are as bored as anything and the coach looses them. Coaches would do better to ensure everyone is fully engaged all the time during practices.

As in business, everyone should be engaged in a change program. It’s no use trying to change things if half the people don’t know what’s required. PARTICIPATION is the key to make sure change is driven deep into the organisation. It’s all too easy to lose sight of getting everyone in the business fired up about a change program.

Mistake No 3: It’s all about BALANCE

How many times do coaches forget that if they are going to spend 50 % of their time in offence and 50% of their time in defence during “game time” then they should practise in that proportion? All too often coaches practice only one or the other and wonder why they lose during game time.

Just so – it’s no use spending all the focus on growth, like sales and marketing, and forgetting the back end of the business- customer service and delivery. All that ends up happening is that sales pour in the front door and fall through the cracks out the back by bad service and poor delivery.

Mistake No 4: Not making the best use of TIME

In sport coaching, some coaches just spend too much of the session talking and not enough on practice. Motivational speeches serve some purpose, it's true, but not at the detriment to good old fashioned practice of the basics. If you have a group training session once a week for an hour, it’s the coach’s job to make sure every second counts.

Business coaches too should be mindful of making the best use of every valuable second with their coachees. A coaching program that allows an hour a week face time must be disciplined, focused and geared to get the most out of the time allotted. Good preparation by both parties will ensure this happens.

Mistake No 5: The GENIUS in us is not always best

It’s so easy to think that a team will win if we come up with that genius strategy on the day, or that we have that genius “magic bullet” idea that’s going to save our bacon. It’s far better to concentrate on the basics and get them right. Practise them over and over until they are perfected. Remember that the simple systems often work the best.

In business we hope that some brilliant idea or concept will save us or we expect our business coach to come up with it, when all that is needed is to make sure that the simple basics are followed. Strive for the proper execution of a simple solution rather than a part execution of a brilliant solution.

Mistake No 6: Failure to START SLOWLY away from game time

Coaching a team from scratch to winning a premiership takes time and the plan needs to build slowly. A good sports coach will know the limitations of the team and break things down into little steps, get these right in practise, and build slowly on these steps. No one can learn a skill in “game time” -they must be practiced.

Just as in business, a coach should help the business owner and staff to develop their skills out of context of the real business scenario. For example if great sales skills are needed, role playing could be used to develop these skills. Handling objections can be tested and worked on. Practice the basics slowly and get them right. This places the person in a much better position in front of real potential customers.

Mistake No 7: There’s no motivational speech that wins matches

A really well drilled, well skilled team who knows their systems and execution, beats a great motivational speech on any game day. A coach shouldn’t be there yelling advice from the sideline. Honestly –it’s too late by that stage to have any effect on the real performance of the team.

Just as in business – it’s not about a lining up all the staff on a Friday and giving them a great “ra-ra” speech. While it certainly helps for the business owner to stand up and tell the staff what’s going on and what the plan is – a plan shared and communicated well within the business, involving everyone and getting them engaged provides a far better result than a “rev up” once a month!

Mistake No 8: Recognising that sometimes it’s just plain HARD!

We should make sport and business fun, it's true, but we should all be mindful that sometimes it's just hard! Times are tough right now for small business. However, after going through a tough patch, the real enjoyment and gain is knowing you came through, overcame that adversity and achieved something of value. Now there’s the real awesome outcome we all should strive for.

Steve Eastwood

Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne

www.smallfish.com.au

Using Teams in Small Business

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 06:02:00 GMT

One powerful tool often used by big business to boost productivity and improve outcomes is the use of Teams.

Teams are a small group of people (or staff) with complementary skills, who are committed to a common goal or purpose, set of performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves accountable (Katzenbach &Smith 1993).

Other essential elements of a team is that they have knowledge of each other, a skill to work together, trust, commitment and a shared identity. Teams are held together by their interdependence and the need to collaborate to achieve a common goal.

Typically teams are set up in large organisations such as the military, hospitals, government organisations, production or R&D facilities. They can be used for many and varied purposes such as assembling a product, providing a service, solving a clients problem, developing a new product or searching for new opportunities.

There is however great merit in using these same models in small business.

One of my clients for example is using a Team to roll out a new IT operations system in their business. The Production, Installation and Administration managers, along with the external consultant have formed a Team to make sure the rollout is carried out in the best possible manner.

Each person brings complementary skills to the table, and coming together for this specific task they have provided huge benefits to the rollout. There is a schedule, a plan, accountability and all aspects of the business are represented to make sure mistakes are limited and the rollout proceeds the best possible way.

This means that the business owner is free to overview the process relying on the depth of the business to carry out the actual work and make the best decisions.

Using teams in small business allows for a broader spectrum of problem solving, and if knowledgeable people are brought to the decision making process, mistakes are limited and a greater level of possibilities can be uncovered. It gives individuals more accountability and this can improve job satisfaction.

So if you have a problem, task or a new initiative in your business, consider putting together a team... it could be beneficial and increase the speed, efficiency, quantity and quality of the outcome.

Steve Eastwood
Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne
www.smallfish.com.au

KER-ching! Truth About Banks

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:02:00 GMT

Just as Aussie Home Loans and Wizard changed the way we borrowed money to buy houses (and kept the banks slightly more honest than they used to be) now the world of foreign exchange is a target. Jon works with Atlas Currency Exchange in Byron Bay. They can help you save money on international money transfers - check out their bold claim and enjoy the passion in Kylie's writing. She studied journalism at uni and you can tell. Might ask her to write more stuff for us.

So banks are going it alone, increasing interest rates regardless of the RBA ? They’re, *cough, ‘hurting financially’. Those $24b annual profits musn’t be in term deposit. It highlights their confidence in an economic climate where no-one else is.

How far can they ‘push’? Our love-hate relationship with banks means not many of us are impressed by their gall yet the majority, clearly, still walk through their doors for our financial product. When will we seek the alternatives ? Are there alternatives ?

As far as foreign currency product and services go there are. Operators with the same licences, but not the advertising budget or the captive account holders.

If you’re purchasing your fx cash, travel card product or performing your international money transfers (into Australia or out of) through your bank you are, without a doubt .. that’s right, without a doubt .. not getting the best deal.

Cash : banks rarely have cash in stock, you will have to order it and wait. Then the rate, whilst better than the airports (not hard when airports have 10c spreads on majors), won’t be negotiated regardless of whether you’re buying US$100 or US$10000. If you bought 20 cars you’d get fleet rate right?

Global Travel Cards : Careful. You may think you’re doing the smart thing buying a travel card, but wait .. Purchase fee, load fee, reload fee, unload fee, monthly account keeping ‘activity’ fee, expires after ‘x’ months and, wait for it, any funds still on the card at expiry are RETAINED by the provider. That’s like withdrawing money from your account, going home and putting it under your mattress and then 18 months later your bank manager knocks on your door and says ‘Have you still got that money under your mattress? We’re going to have to get that back because you didn’t spend it in the time allocated.’

Multi-currency cards are deceiving. Sounds like a great idea, one card/multiple currencies. Is the card pulling funds out of another currency if your first currency runs out? Are you aware of when this occurs? Do you have to pay for a sms to let you know when it is ? So you’re in the UK and you think those Pounds coming out of the ATM are coming from your Pound account but they’re really coming from the Euro fund portion. What’s the cross-currency conversion being applied (can be up to 8.45%)? If lost or stolen will they be replaced or are you going to get slugged $60 to replace a card that’s going to expire ? Phew, might as well have copped the 4 lots of fees on your Aussie funds out of your keycard.

IMTs/TTs : Oh my .. here we go. Examples speak best. To purchase and transfer US$50,000 to the US (or increasingly China) today, at time of writing you would pay AU$47,959.04 at the best of the major banks, AU$48,199.19 at the worst and AU$46,974.82 across the road at a local FX provider. Simple as that, AU$984 to $1224 more in your hand/wallet/mortgage/shoe fund for EXACTLY the same product.
If your money doesn’t matter enough to check it out then really, stop complaining about ‘The Banks’.

Guest Writer: Kylie Ryan-Miloy
Atlas Currency Exchange

Jon Dale (Kylie's Business Coach)
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

New To Business?

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:06:00 GMT

New to business? Don’t lose your nerve!

I have been helping out one of my best friends with her new business venture in the UK. It is exciting, a bit out of the box and loaded with potential. We had a long chat via Skype about a job offer she had received. It was essentially what her business offered but she would be committed full time for at least six months. The question – what should she do?

Give up the chance to earn a full time wage for six months or hold her nerve and continue with the business?

She held her nerve…bravely…. Instead of being a full time employee she convinced them they should hire her company instead! No need to put all marketing efforts on hold, no need to turn away potential new clients, no need to stop doing all of the things she has been doing in the past six months to get her to where she is.

Small business is a big old adventure loaded with potential wrong turns and bad decisions everywhere. You will make some (maybe even lots) and you will want to give up. I know this because I have been there. Possibly the worst decision you can make is losing your nerve too quickly. You know what it is like, the bank account is empty, you no longer buy the fancy toilet paper, and your social life has all but disappeared. You find yourself taking a quick peek at Seek, just to see what kind of jobs are going… it’s a slippery slope from here my friends.

If you are in your first year or two of business I want you to print this blog out and stick it above your desk as a reminder to not lose your nerve until you have answered the questions below;

Question 1

Do you honestly do everything possible every single day to make your business?

Question 2

Do people know you exist? This does not mean googling your business name!

Question 3

Have you asked a professional (oh I happen to know some business coaches…) for advice?

Question 4

Do you ask someone every single day to buy your product or service?

Question 5

Do you honestly want this to work?

If you answered no to the above then you just need a good old fashion kick up the arse with the exception of question 5.

If you answered no to question 5 then it is best you nick off and get a job fast!

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

Back to Marketing Basics

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:24:00 GMT

Seth's blog (you know I love him) on Horizontal Marketing. This is a frightening idea for those of us who are trying to market our product or service. We're trying our hardest to get people to pay attention and yet, increasingly, our market is ignoring that stuff and making its choice based on hearsay. Shit, we'd better be good!

Back to basics, then - make something amazing or inspiring, or with genuine value instead of the average crap that's mostly out there, keep telling people (some of them will pay attention) and trust that word will get out. Feels wrong doesn't it? We should be doing something to drive our customers to consider us, surely (that's how I feel). Like Seth says we can't control what the market does with our product and we can't ignore that the market will do what it wants with us, irrespective of what we spend.

But can we just sit back and wait. I'm not so sure that's what he means or that I can do it either.

What do you do about marketing? I want to see your comments below!

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Australia's $15m e-commerce king says "get a Business Coach"

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:27:00 GMT

Our friends at Reid-McGill sent us this article. It's good advice, we reckon (well, we would wouldn't we?)

Eddie Machaalani, of BigCommerce gives one great piece of advice of how his start-up rose to success. He lists many more, but of course we found this one the most important.

Quoted from Smh.com.au:

"3. Call a coach

Behind every successful athlete lies a good coach. A business owner can benefit equally from a coach, who need not be incredibly successful running a business or have the skills you do.

Instead, the coach should have good systems and processes to teach and help keep your emotional rollercoaster under control.

A good business coach is worth their weight in gold. "

You can read the rest of the article here.

So, maybe it is time you really do think about picking up the phone?

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Starting A Small Business? Read this First!

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:41:00 GMT

What do you mean you are leaving a full-time job to go into business? “ARE YOU NUTS?” If only I had a dollar for every time I had heard those inspiring bits of wisdom and encouragement, I would be at least a hundred bucks richer!

So why did I leave my employer, hand back my nice new fully maintained company car, fuel card, expense account, laptop, mobile phone, regular guaranteed income and sanity behind? Possibly people were not wrong when they suggested I was nuts?

The actual reason was that I could see the downturn of the economy and it’s impact on the company that employed me slowly unfolding. Those above were feeling the pressure. In turn, their stress was being unleashed on those below. Cuts were being made everywhere; staff were not being replaced and those who remained looked as disenchanted as I felt. More than 50% of my pay was made from bonuses. As those around me starting losing confidence and motivation they stopped performing. I could see that it would mark the end of bonuses for everyone, not just those under performing. Micromanagement kicked into full gear, all of a sudden I had to explain my every move. For someone who actually enjoys work and loves achieving goals, this was nothing short of degrading.

What was I really leaving behind? Stability? Nope… nothing about my position felt stable. A regular income? Yes, but not the income I agreed to when I signed the contracts. I knew that no amount of time and effort invested would allow that income to increase anytime soon. What a frustrating place to be stuck in. Do I miss my company car now? Not really. Do I miss my fuel card? Heck YES! I loved that little bit of plastic. Would I trade any of it for being self-employed? Absolutely not!

So you may be thinking that this is a blatant plug to join Small Fish Business Coaching as a Business Coach, it actually isn’t! It is a plug for small business. If companies were thriving and bonuses were flourishing I possibly would not have made this choice. For me it is about (not to be cheesy) “being the master of my own destiny”. In this economy nothing is certain, being employed for me was no less risky than being self-employed. How stable do you feel right now?

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

Delegation - How To Make It Work

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:34:00 GMT

We often talk about how do you make things easier and free up time to get things done. If you are going to achieve more you are going to need to delegate more as you can’t do everything yourself.

We are often relectant to do this: "no one does the job as well as me" is an often quoted statement. My answer to this is how well did you delegate? Delegate badly and instead of improving your day, your frustrations reach on all time high. Delegate well and you will start to see genuine progress.

The difference between these two contrasting scenarios comes down to one thing. How clearly did you explain the delegated task? Each time you delegate a task, understand that that the task must be clear before it can be succesfully completed.

Connections. How does this relate to what I do?
List of steps. What do I do know now?
Expectations. How will I know when I’ve succeeded?
Ability. What support will I have?
Return. How will the company benefit from my efforts?

If you put these simple steps into place, your delegation will be succesful, freeing up time to get other things done.

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

Staff - Who Needs Them?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:19:00 GMT

Staff are one of the biggest headaches for small business but are also something that you just can’t do without.

Over the last month I have been talking to the staff of different businesses. From this a number of things have become apparent:

They didn’t have staff meetings or if they did then they weren’t effective – the staff didn’t know what work was in the pipeline and who was doing what. There was never any reflection on what was working and what wasn’t
Processes, if in place, were not followed by all staff
Communication between staff was poor – little issues were getting out of control while fundamental issues weren’t being raised.
The owner/manager was too much on the tools.
The owner/manager had a very different perception of what was happening in the business than the staff did.

The overall result was disgruntled staff – which means poor work performance...

So what can be done?

Someone needs to MANAGE.

Management is crucial because you don’t get paid for what you do, you get paid for what your employees do. As such you have to do everything in your power to help them be successful – you succeed when they succeed.

Employees need the person in charge to make time to:

Provide understanding – talk about the strengths and weaknesses in the business and how you are managing them. Ask for their input and ideas for improvement.
Provide direction – 80% of the time talk about the future of the business. Let them know that they are a part of it.
Walk the Talk – encourage and reinforce what you love about your business
Understand the roles of the staff – make sure they are well defined and you have the right people in them
Plan – set budgets or targets and review in team meetings – what is working what isn’t and Why? Delegate and mange workflows so that no-one is idle or too busy. Communicate what has to be done by when.
Have procedures – how do you know something is being done effectively or not getting missed if you don’t have a benchmark to measure against. They don’t have to be complicated – it can be a simple checklist.
Supervision – no one enjoys a micro manager but you need to take time to sit with each staff member every couple of months to see how they are doing their job. Ensure procedures are followed and ask for their ideas on improving them. Check that they have the training and tools to do the best job that they can.
Give feedback – always respond immediately to a job well done or a job done badly.

Feel free to write a comment on how you manage staff issues.

Mariejan Bigby
Small Fish Business Coaching Toowoomba
www.smallfish.com.au

Tips For Getting The Best Out Of Your Team

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:57:00 GMT

At Small Fish Business Coaching one of the areas we concentrate on to improve profitability is Increased Productivity. This means getting the best out of your team which leads to better performance and in the end –increased profitably.

After all, its Business coaching isn’t it?

Here are some tips for business owners and managers to improve profitability and performance in their teams:

Communicate clear expectations - For people to perform well and continue to grow and learn they need to know what’s expected of them. At Small Fish we help business owners formulate a “Strategy on a page”. This clearly defines the Vision for the business, the VITAL FEW things that need to be done to achieve that vision and the individual strategies that must be accomplished. This can be shared with staff and strategies can be related to individual expectations, which become the standards by which performance will be judged. At least they will know – “this is what I need to do to achieve the strategies”
Focus on specific areas that require improvement - To get the best out of your team it’s a good idea to pinpoint exactly what needs to be improved. If Sales are low and sales require quotes to be produced, then focus on driving improvements in the number of quotes put out. Monitor them and put KPI’s in place. Provide feedback and assistance to the Salesperson to make sure they are meeting their targets.
Help remove obstacles - To perform anywhere near top capacity, individuals may need help in removing obstacles. Managers and Business owners should be that “snowplough” that keeps the road clear for their staff to perform at top capacity. For example if a staff member was having trouble getting work done because their computer was slow or old; it may be time to upgrade it so they can work faster. Keep your eye open all the time for obstacles that could be holding back your team and remove them. People have improved motivation when they see you actively helping them do their job better.
Gain a commitment to Change - Unless you can get a commitment from a staff member to improve in any area, that member may not attain the higher performance. They must want to do it, and they should communicate that to you genuinely. There’s some skill to get an intuitive feel when employees are serious or not about performance improvement. Look out for clues like: over agreeing about the need to change and agreeing to change without any emotion. These may be hints that they aren’t genuine about it.
Applaud good results - Always praise people when they’ve made their targets or gained that improvement no matter how small. There’s nothing like genuine encouragement and positive reinforcement especially in front of their peers to make them feel good about what they have achieved. Managers often forget this important facet of their role. Enforce that encouragement with a small gift like movie tickets or a book, because this makes them feel good about the achievement for longer, and gives them the opportunity to tell their family and friends about it.

So there you have it ...- Five ways to improve productivity in your team.

Steve Eastwood
Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne
www.smallfish.com.au

Are You Going Backwards or Forwards - The Importance Of Business Planning

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:53:00 GMT

I was sitting in a train today facing the wrong way I was travelling and was thinking to myself I can see where I have been, but not where I am going. This got me thinking about life and also about how this may be relevant to business.

How many times do you look at where you have been, but not where you are going?

We always look back and say things like ‘that promotion didn’t work’, ‘I hired the wrong person’, ‘sales were bad last week’ etc. But how often do we look forward?

Looking forward to determine where it is you are going (or want to go) is a critical part in your planning for your business success. Take the time to work out where it is you want to go and look beyond the immediate horizon.

If you are ‘looking backwards,’ take the time to now start ‘looking forward’ at where you want to head. Make a plan, write it down and work out what needs to be done to get there.

It may be as simple as defining what your ideal team member looks like, does, and needs to do, or to plan sales forecasts, marketing plans etc.

The most important thing is to DO IT, and now is a great time.

Good luck!

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Another Year Done

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:14:00 GMT

Another year done! What will you change next year?

As we approach the end to yet another calendar year, it is useful for us to use the upcoming months to reflect on our successes or opportunities. What will your reflections reveal this year of you and your business?

Did you hit your goals for the year? – goals can be financial, growth based, development based or to focus on any aspect you wanted to achieve. The main point being that you actually had a goal for the year? Don’t panic though if you didn’t as all is not lost, set one now for next year.
Does your business look like you wanted it to look? – Physical size as far as turnover, number and quality of staff, the types of clients who buy from you etc.? If yes, then review what it was you did well and continue or enhance it. If no, then establish some plan of action to fix the gaps to make next year better.
Is your work-life balance where you want it to be? - have you had a holiday and was it stress free, or did you call the office every hour while away? Have you missed those important family events or kids sports days? Unfortunately it will happen, but how can you reduce this lost time opportunity in the coming months? Do you need to ‘let go’ a bit and have someone do some of your tasks?
Are you making more, or building an entity worth more than you would have if you had one of those 4 letter words, A JOB (well not technically one word, but it works for my point!). Should you go back to the corporate world, or have you got what it takes to turnaround your business if it was a bad year?

Now would be the perfect time to go on about the needs or benefits of getting a business coach, or utilising one of our awesome products like the Business Audit Consultancy, but I won’t do that (unless you decide to click on the links of course! What I will say is DO spend the time reflecting on your year in the coming weeks. Write down what worked and what didn’t, and spend the time to plan for an awesome year next year.

It is never too late to start planning.

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Could "Confidence" Be The Most Important Word In Business?

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:06:00 GMT

We’ve all heard of Business Confidence. The Business Confidence Index (1) is a tool that is used to assess the strength of businesses in Australia.

The most recent NAB report states “business confidence strengthened in October, bolstering the sharp pick up in sentiment in September. The improvement in confidence in the month was consistent with increased speculation that the RBA would cut rates ...... while European Finance Ministers appeared to be taking more decisive steps to try to resolve European sovereign debt problems and more favourable activity data out of the US appeared to have allayed fears of a double dip recession."

Then there’s Consumer Confidence. Consumer confidence is the degree of optimism that consumers feel about the overall state of the economy and their personal financial situation. Across Australia, consumer confidence rose 6.3% in November to 103.4 points from 97.2 points in October of 2011. (2)

So, based on these reports, as business owners, we should all be feeling a little more confident about our business prospects, right? Well maybe.

There are other forms of confidence which to me are far more important to the success of your business. What are they?

Well, first there’s confidence in your product. Are you confident that you have a product or service people want, and will this continue to be the case in the future? Do customers have confidence in your product or service?

Second, there’s confidence in your systems. Are you confident you have the systems in place that will deliver the best solutions for your customers? Are customers confident you can meet their needs?

Third, there’s confidence in your people. Do you have confidence that your people are able to deliver products and services in a way that will keep your customers coming back? Have you ensured your people have the confidence they need to be good at their job?

And fourth, there’s your own confidence. Do you have the confidence to drive your own business success? Do you have confidence in your own skills and abilities – enough to take control and make the important decisions?

Some businesses will thrive while others will struggle, no matter what the broad indicators are showing. But your business will always perform better if you pay attention to your products, your systems and your people, including yourself. I am confident about that.

Notes

(1) This index is managed by the National Australia Bank, who publishes monthly and quarterly the result of business surveys carried out on Australian organizations and businesses. Hence, it acts as a useful tool for evaluating the overall economy of Australia.

(2) The Westpac Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment is an average of five component indexes which reflect consumers' evaluations of their household financial situation over the past year and the coming year. How confident people feel about stability of their incomes determines their spending activity and therefore serves as one of the key indicators for the overall shape of the economy. In essence, if consumer confidence is higher, consumers are making more purchases, boosting the economic expansion.

Neil McVicar
Small Fish Business Coaching Coffs Harbour
www.smallfish.com.au

Things About Life I Learned From Santa

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:16:00 GMT

Encourage people to believe in you.
Always remember who's naughty and who's nice.
Don’t pout.
It’s as much fun to give as it is to receive.
Some days it’s OK to feel a little chubby.
Make your presents known.
Bright red can make anyone look good.
Wear a wide belt and no-one will notice how many kilos you’ve gained.
If you only show up once a year, everyone will think you’re very important.
Whenever you’re at a loss for words, say: “Ho, Ho, Ho!”

Mariejan Bigby
Small Fish Business Coaching Toowoomba
www.smallfish.com.au

Is it time to start a new Aussie Christmas Tradition?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:45:00 GMT

One of my oldest friends now lives in America. I noticed this post on her Facebook page. I thought it was really interesting and considering that most of the people reading this are small business owners, I hope you will find it interesting too.

After you have read it, think about what pledge you will make to yourself this year? I have started the dreaded Christmas shopping – already I have handmade soaps and lotions from a local market where I got to ask how the product was made, what got the owners started and what they enjoyed about their business. I have also purchased hand made dresses for the little ladies in my life and am now looking for some wooden boys toys. Friends will get homemade biscuits (not made from my home…I have not yet mastered the oven) and a nice bottle of Aussie wine!

What will you do differently this year?

Christmas 2011 -- Birth of a New Tradition  

As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods -- merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor.

This  year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine  concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands. Yes  there is!   It's time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in  a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper? 

Everyone -- yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates  from your local American hair salon or barber?  

Gym membership? It's appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some  health improvement.   Who wouldn't appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned  detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a  book of gift certificates.   Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plonking down  the Benjamines on a Chinese made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift  receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or  driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.  

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants -- all offering gift  certificates. And, if your intended isn't the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint. Remember, folks this  isn't about big National chains -- this is about supporting your home town  Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.
How many people couldn't use an oil change for their car, truck or  motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?   Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a  local cleaning lady for a day.   My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is  struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin  their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery  and beautiful wooden boxes.   Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave  your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at  your hometown theatre.  

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.  

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese  lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about  fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to  burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.  

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that  China can build another glittering city.

Christmas is now about caring about  US, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow  their dreams. And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our  communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn't imagine. 

THIS is the new American Christmas tradition.

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

Exclusivity - What Does It Mean For Your Business?

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:28:00 GMT

I’m sitting in a café across from a jewellery business in Chatswood - Hardy Brothers. Have you been there? Have you stood out the front and ogled the beautifully stunning, very expensive jewellery and or watches? Have you noticed that you can’t get into the store without a store employee pushing the secret button to unlock the door? Once the button is pressed the expansive glass doors open wide and welcome you into a treasure trove of luxury beyond most dreams.

Interestingly there hasn’t been one customer go into the store in the first hour of trading. Given they exist in one of Australia’s most expansive retail precincts, I feel troubled by the lack of clientele. On reflection I probably don’t need to worry. I know and they know that at any point during the day someone looking for an exclusive shopping experience will come into the store. They know all to well that the brand, the look and feel, the locked doors, the desire for exclusivity, the want, and the need for an emotional connection to a purchase from this store is the key to making money.

The vision of exclusivity is clear. It is there for us all to see in black and white just above their name…..’BY APPOINTMENT TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN’, a statement allowed to be used as a result of holding the Queen’s Royal Warrant. There is no confusion about what you can expect when you walk through the front doors if you dare. You are buying quality, you are buying very expensive product and you are buying into a world of prestige that has an effect on your perceived self amongst family, friends and peers. The exclusivity of the experience in itself is enough to ensure the brand is held to its high standard.

So the big question is...how does your business communicate your clear, defined and simple message? Are your customers buying an experience? Are they buying a feeling? Are they willing to pay more for it? Do they pay more for it and feel better about themselves? Or, do they have a higher perceived value because of that emotional connection?

Lets be clear, exclusivity is not for everyone. It can rule out a large piece of a target market. It can mean you need to sell less volume at a much higher margin. It can mean working harder at developing a long-term loyal following. It could mean a longer sales cycle. It could even mean culling products and services that don’t meet the grade.

On the flip side, exclusivity could mean the difference between being one of the crowd or standing out and being recognised as THE brand in your niche experience. Imagine being sought after by a client base that was willing to pay more, even in times of economic uncertainty.

What next? Go forth and determine whether you are in a market whereby exclusivity could be your unique value proposition and then plan to drive your vision through your brand, your customer experience and your products and services. Oh yes, and one last thing……don’t forget to deliver on EVERY promise your business makes verbally, philosophically and unintentionally. Break your customers expectation and passion for the experience and you wont live up to the exclusive status for long.

Simon Thomas
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

Google+ What's The Fuss?

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:13:00 GMT

On 28th June 2011 Internet giant Google launched their very own social networking site, Google +. Google+ is Google’s latest attempt to get on the social bandwagon after failed services such as Wave, Buzz and Orkut. This time around they may just have a stayer.

Originally launched as an “invite only” service, the platform has grown from 10 millions users (it’s initial user base after two weeks) to 40 millions users (current at October 2011). It’s only early days for Google+ however at the moment, it’s far behind it’s main competitors Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter, who boast over 1 billions users between them, with Facebook out in front with 800 million users.

Google+ provides a clean, fresh, uncluttered user interface which is best described as a mixture between Twitter & Facebook. Users are grouped into Circles which can be a one way relationship based on Twitters Follow/Following model, however the content sharing platform has more Facebook features such as integrated photos, videos, links and the ability to share paragraphs in updates.

Google+ have brought some cool features to the table, however I’m not sure they are enough to get the masses on board and it’s not until that happens that the site will get some traction. The main benefit for Google+ is it’s integrated search feature, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, and is one of the main reason I’m encouraging business owners to look more closely at getting on Google+.

Some of the features include:

Circles: Similar to Facebook’s Friends List, where you can group contacts into different circles and hence control the content you view and share. However, just like Facebook’s Friends Lists, it’s a underused feature with most users sharing content to everyone.

Hangouts: A free video chat conference feature which allows groups of up to 10 people to communicate at one time. Can be ideal for internal business conferences or as an alternative to Skype.

Instant Upload: When snapping pictures on your smartphone, Google will store a copy in their ‘cloud’ available for you to access at a later date, without the need to post them to the Google + site.

Pages: In early November Google+ introduced Pages for business. Previously the only the option was for personal accounts in your own personal name, which caused a media frenzy. Currently your business page can only be linked to one personal account making it difficult for corporates to get started, but ideal for the small business owner who can link it directly with their personal Google+ account. Check out my Google+ page and if you want to set up your own here are some instructions.

I’m sure you are asking yourself now, do I really need another social networking site? My answer for this is - It depends - but here are five elements you should consider when making your decision.

1.) Target Market: The Google+ current user base is over 70% males with the largest age group 25 - 34. They are made up of mainly US users, followed by India. Currently there are 1.45% Australians which is roughly 362,000 users. If this demographic is your target market, then YES, you should set up a Google+ account. If not, read on.

2.) Search Engine Optimisation: It’s still early days, however all reports indicate an increased Google ranking for Google+ Profile and Page. Therefore if ranking at the top of the search engine is important for your business, then Google+ may be an option for you.

3.) Page & Profile Link: As mentioned previously, pages can only be set up and manged by one personal profile which can make it difficult for larger companies with community managers and marketing teams. Pages have only been released in the last month and I would assume this would change in the future.

4.) Time: In business time is money and do you really have time to maintain another social media account. I find that many of my clients are struggling to understand Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter and get time to manage them. Before you create your account, determine who your target market is and then find out where they are online. If they are on Google+ then yes, create and manage an account.

5.) Integration with other google services: Are you using Gmail or maybe Google Docs? It’s handy to have only one Google login to control all your accounts and I believe in the future these will all be integrated together.

6.) ‘Average People’: One of the reason why Facebook is so benefitical for business owners is that they have over 800 millions users who are ‘average people,’ such as your mum and dad. And these are the people who are their consumers. It wasn’t until all age groups where represented on Facebook that it truly became a powerful marketing platform. Google+ won’t get this same traction until more ‘average people’ are on board.

So what do you think... Is Google+ worth the fuss?

Natalie Alaimo is a Social Media Expert, Trainer and Speaker. Natalie provides business owners, women and entrepreneurs with straight forward advice on how to build their business using the power of social media and online marketing via a series of live workshops, webinars, online training and do-it-yourself products. Natalie is an International Speaker, a published author and an avid blogger. For more information visit her website Natalie Alaimo and get your copy of her 9 Tips to Social Media Success. Valued at $29.95 but for you, it's FREE.

Using Social Media In Your Business (A Business Coach Tries To Make Sense Of It)

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:23:00 GMT

It’s OK, I know I’m a business coach and not a social media expert but we’ve been learning a little lately and I thought you might find it interesting. I’ll defer to the experts and I acknowledge the input of a few experts in this field. Mark Barrett from CI Marketing (our Internet marketing adviser and website custodian), Natalie Alaimo, coaching client of Melanie Miller and Social Media specialist, Seth Godin (who I’ve never met but who writes and speaks with considerable authority), that guy who wrote “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” and Michael Stovin-Bradford of Tactical Resources.

No-one knows all the answers, everything is changing so quickly that there are no answers in the way we used to think of them – that there’s a right way to do things that will give you guaranteed results. There’s not and it’s likely that that old certainty is gone forever, at least where the Internet is concerned.

This article tries to share what we’re doing when it comes to social media and how it meshes with our online strategies. I’ve been thinking about why people use social media (it’s not because they want to hear how good you are or why they should buy your stuff); the social (media) contract; relationships and the mesh (thanks Lisa Gansky).

The Social (Media) Contract

Why do we use social media and the Internet (I’ve lumped them together here). As I said, it’s not so that we can be advertised to, we use it when we want to find things out or when we want to find out about things (including where we can buy them and how much they cost; we use it to be entertained, interested, informed – in a sort of lazy, passive way.

I’m not sure where this assertion came from but it rings true – we use the web (Google mostly) to look for things. We expect to find them quickly and, if we don’t, we’re back to the search results looking for a more useful site before you can say “click here to find out more”.

We use social media like Facebook and Google+ (watch for this one – it promises to be huge) to be mindlessly entertained, to see what our friends ate for lunch and to see what they’ve shared – because we’ll probably be interested in some of the stuff they’re interested in.

I know from my own habits that overt sales messages or someone talking about themselves too much gets boring. I’ll read posts or articles or click through tweets or subscribe for emails if I think they’ll be interesting.

And our tolerance is low, too. I only read about 10% of the regular emails that come my way (and I know that only about 20% of the people who receive our Fish Tales open it to read it). We scan the heading and make a very quick decision about whether we read on or not – there’s so much stuff out there, we’re not interested in checking to make sure we don’t miss something interesting. If it’s really god, someone will share it again, anyway.

So, the social media contract – be interesting, useful, entertaining. Reveal something of yourself, share what you’ve learnt recently, pass on interesting and useful titbits (but not too many, that’s boring, too). It’s ephemeral – what you share or write is soon lost.

If people like what you say or share, when they go looking to buy what you’re selling, they will (probably) go and look for you – via whatever social media or web channel they’ve been.

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

We're Learning About Google Plus - Are You In On It Yet?

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:55:00 GMT

We all know that social media in business is something that most have started to use to promote their services and to get a wide presence on the Internet. And of course, just as we are getting used to all the tweets and posts, deciding what is even going to make people read what you've written, Google throws another social flare into the mix - Google +.

You've probably heard all the fuss about Google + for business pages. If you happen to be one of the early adopters who have jumped on board with this, great!

We’ve been working on Google + for business pages for Small Fish and quite frankly, we are enjoying it. Maybe it's because it is a fresh clean slate. Maybe it's because not that many people are using it yet and we like being one of the early ones in. Or maybe it’s because we know that Google rules the web and that frankly, if you want your business to move up in the ranks, you should probably bow down to the Google gods and do whatever they tell you. It’s not like it is going to hurt... it's only giving your business more exposure!

We're not pretending we are experts yet, but we're going to figure it out, learning as we go. If you think this is interesting and useful, go to Google + and we will include you in our circles so we can share some interesting tips and information with you as we learn. We think you should definitely jump on board.

Stay tuned for more posts to come as you come on the journey with us into exploring how to make Google + work for your business. We will be working hard on our page, so why not learn with us?

Next week I'll share our first Google+ training workshop. (I have to finish writing it first).

Lindsey Weissert
Marketing for Small Fish Business Coaching
www.smallfish.com.au

Who Represents Your Business? Everyone

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:05:00 GMT

Marketing a small business can be tough and we all use as many techniques as we can to get our message out there. For a long time the big companies had their logo’s emblazoned on trucks and cars everywhere, but as it has become cheaper and more cost effective the name and phone number on the side of a car or truck has become the domain of SME’s.

A word of caution for those of you who use this form of marketing, you are now always a representative of your business and anyone who sees your car will see it as a respresentation of your business. So what does this mean? Road rage is not a good look for your business and neither is speeding or poor driver etiquette. We've all been on the receiving end of an unhappy driver letting us know their thoughts. When they have their business all over their car we immediately make a buying decision: I’m not doing business with that person. Likewise, peeling or poorly applied advertising does not create a good impression.

So if you are going to use this form of marketing be aware of the positives and negatives. Talk to your staff and make them aware of their responsibilites and remind them they are respresenting the business at all times. Review signage regularly and make sure it is appropriate and finally make sure contact details are up to date and accurate.

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

Word Play Fun

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:08:00 GMT

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

Business Coaching And Weekly Shopping

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:06:00 GMT

For those who have newsletters, blogs and regularly updated websites that need new content, I am sure you can relate to the challenge of finding things to write about each day, week, month or year!

Myself, I find I go in bursts of excitement (like lots of things I do). I do none for a long time, then go BANG and write a few to stockpile. We are lucky at Small Fish in that we all share the load in submissions to this awesome weekly newsletter- partly so we don’t bore you with Jon writing every week, but more so to expose all of us regularly.

I’m in one of those BANG moments right now, and turned to my friend GOOGLE to get some inspiration on blog topics. I found one suggestion that said to make a list of how your industry compares to day to day things or to other industries.

Great idea, but then I had to think of what to compare it with…..hmmm….got it, the weekly grocery shop.

So here goes….get ready for it, here is my list for the 7 ways Business Coaching is like the weekly trip to the supermarket (riveting hey?)

You might not like what you come out of there with, but you know you probably needed it in the long run.
You may need to buy extra tissues just in case things get a bit emotional.
The vegetable section may have items that don’t taste very good, but they are good for you, just like some of the ‘discoveries’ in coaching.
Make sure you select a coach carefully, a bit like picking a shopping trolley - some are a bit wonky and may try to take you in the wrong direction and you have to feel comfortable with it.
They both work better if you leave the kids at home.
Price alone isn’t the only driver of value in either case. You have to feel satisfied with the overall experience and the process
They are both less stressful if you have a plan and follow it.

Wow that wasn’t too bad…so as you can see shopping and business coaching are very similar! Can you think of some comparatives for your business? Would love to see them.

Have a great week.

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Testimonials - Why They Are So Powerful

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:05:00 GMT

In the current climate, consumers are becoming more and more skeptical. They have heard all the claims from the snake oil salesmen and they no longer buy it, it is too easy to go online and check out the deals and see what is real and what isn’t. Therefore the customer needs more convincing than ever, before they will give you the most important element of every sale – trust.

One of the tools we must use in order to establish trust is the testimonial. When it comes to selling our goods and services, there are two powerful reasons why we should all use testimonials at every opportunity.

They give the intending purchaser some comfort that they won’t make a mistake
Testimonials can be used to defuse common objections. It is very powerful to see some of their peers mention their similar concern, but then report a positive outcome.

I believe that testimonials should be used by everybody who has a customer base and who is actively looking for more. They are an absolute must if what you are selling can not be proved easily. For example, becoming smarter or earning more money.

So how can you go about getting these powerful testimonials:

Call repeat buyers and ask them why they repeat
Talk to long term customers and ask them what they like about the product or service
If you have a happy customer who is having trouble writing the testimonial, offer to write it for them!
The trick is to ask, ask for a testimonial. Begin with the words “I wonder if you may help me?”

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

7 Ways To Motivate Your Team... Without A Pay Rise

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:59:00 GMT

I was reading an article recently saying that 1 in 4 small business employees globally feel depressed and uninspired by their bosses. Read further at Perth now.

It can be costly to believe or have a mindset that giving more money or a pay rise to your team members equals happy employees.

Believing this is costing you valuable time, revenue, employees... Cash will always be a major factor in motivating people and a solid plan is critical to attracting and keeping key personnel. But the key is that additional cash is not always the only answer, and in many cases not even the best answer.

I have compiled some quick suggestions. Let's look at 7 non-monetary motivation tips that can be implemented today...

Recognition/Attention. When your employees accomplish something, they have achieved something. Your recognition is appreciation for that achievement. Managers and owners don't give enough recognition for a good job done. Recognition is free! Do some spontaneous on the spot praise and of course a “Thanks” goes a long way too.
One-on-One Coaching. Coaching is employee development. Implement a regular Performance review meeting.
Document personal development needs and feedback from your team. Your only cost is time. Time means you care. And remember your people don't care how much you know... until they know how much you care.
Training. This ties in with personal development. You can never over train your team. As they learn and develop, so does your business. It might take some time and effort, but the benefits of training will continually enhance the performance of your people and the productivity of your business.
Career Path. Your employees need to know what is potentially ahead for them, what opportunities there are for growth. This issue is a sometimes forgotten ingredient as to the importance it plays in the overall motivation of people. Set career paths within your organization. Do you promote from within? I hope you can answer yes to that. Although specific circumstances require you to look for talent outside your company, you should always first consider internal personnel. If you do this you are sending a very positive message to everyone that there are indeed further career opportunities within your organization.
Good Work Environment. I heard of a recent industry study where employers were asked to rank what they thought motivated their people, and then employees were asked to rank what really did motivate them. Employers felt "working conditions" was a nine (or next to last) in terms of importance. What did the employees say? Number two! Working conditions are very important to the way employees feel about where they work. Some things to consider or ask yourself are: Does your office look nice?, Are there pictures on the walls, plants and fresh paint among other features that generally make people feel good about their environment?, Does their work space have enough room or are they cramped in a "sardine can?", What about furniture? Is the desk the right size, chair comfortable?, Is there file space and do they have the miscellaneous office supplies needed for maximum performance?, Is the temperature regulated properly so they don't feel they're in the Amazon jungle one minute and the North Pole the next?
Casual Dress Day. This will apply more to the Business-to-Business world, based on the difference in normal dress codes from the Business-to-Consumer arena. For those required to "dress business" every day, a casual day becomes a popular desire. I encourage Casual dress Fridays for example. Retail outlets use holidays to create theme colour casual days, such as red and green before Christmas, or black and orange prior to Halloween. Major sports events are a perfect opportunity for casual days to support your local or favourite team with appropriate colours, buttons, and logo wear.
Time Off. Implement incentives that earn time off. People will compete for 15 minutes or 1/2 hour off just as hard as they will for a cash award. Put KPI’s (key performance indicators) in place and when these goals are reached by individuals, teams or the entire staff, reward them with time off.
Additional Responsibility. Encourage and support more responsibility and accountability from your staff. You will be surprised on how they will rise to the challenge and it will make them feel more as part of the team.
Food days. Every now and then bring in or organise pizza, popcorn, or cookie days that will help break up that everyday routine and help people stay motivated. Because it is a natural tendency for people to get excited in anticipation of something, structure some of these days in advance. Then buy some pizzas or different cookies or even whip out some different types of popcorn.

LEVERAGE Your Way To Success

Paul Duncan
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

What Hat Are You Wearing Today?

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:52:00 GMT

Being a small business owner means that you have to wear many different hats. You are not only the owner, but the marketing manager, IT specialist, book keeper and workplace trainer etc.

The success of your business depends on your ability to wear all the multiple hats needed to keep the wheels of your business turning. At times, the dizzying pace needed can turn even the most capable person into an overwhelmed manager wearing too many hats. As such you need a plan and you need to work that plan. Some simple pointers are:

1. Identify your separate roles

The first step is simply putting down all the varied aspects of your business that you are currently in control of. This includes both income-generating tasks (sales, marketing and customer service) as well as operational ones (managing the team, stock control, finances etc).

Are you successful in all these roles – do you know what is needed to be successful?

Effective goal setting is key to success in any business, and you should set individual goals for each aspect of your business and measure your results.

2. Make time to work on your business (not just in your business)

It’s all too easy to get lost in the daily grind of your business (working “in” your business) or only doing the things you enjoy and put off strategic, long-term planning (working “on” your business). If you find yourself in this situation, you need to make time in your calendar each week to consider your business, think about potential opportunities and do some long-term positioning. Stay disciplined: You’d never put off a meeting with an important client, so don’t slide on this critical strategizing time, either.

3. Bring on help

Many business owners end up wearing multiple hats because they wait too long to hire additional staff or outsource some of the roles such as IT and book keeping. Wages are usually one of the higher costs in the budget, but skimping on staff can have a detrimental effect on your business’ ability to grow, support customers and take advantage of new opportunities.

Before looking to bring on help, you should sit down and objectively assess your own strengths and weakness in each of the roles that you do. What areas of your business do you love? Where do you need more discipline and development? When hiring as a small business owner, it’s always best to try to capitalise on your own strengths and fill in gaps for your weaknesses, rather than just hire for what you’d consider “lower wage” work.

4. Empower those around you to do more

It can be difficult to relinquish control of day-to-day details to others. But it’s critical to let go. Successful business leaders don’t micromanage what everyone else is doing. Rather, they empower people around them to do their jobs.

Make sure you’re giving your workers the freedom to make decisions (even make mistakes and correct the mistakes themselves). In the long run, you’ll have a wiser, more confident, more effective and more capable workforce. And you’ll be able to focus on the strategic aspects of your business.

5. Always stay close to the customer!

No matter how big your business gets and how much staff you bring on, talk to your customers one-on-one. This is the best way to truly understand customer needs and how your company is doing. And helping customers is probably why you started your business in the first place, right?

Most importantly, embrace all the many hats you wear in your business. Because one thing is for sure; you’ll never get bored!

Mariejan Bigby
Small Fish Business Coaching Toowoomba
www.smallfish.com.au

The Forever Recession

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:27:00 GMT

I posted this to Facebook so if you've read it already I'm sorry but I liked it so much I wanted everyone to read it. Seth Godin speaks wisely - the revolution is here and we need to think about how we respond to it and how we participate in it.

Marketing is important, originality is important. If you do something irreplaceable, good for you. If you do something that can be outsourced to somewhere cheaper, watch out. And start thinking about how to be irreplaceable.

The forever recession (and the coming revolution)

"There are actually two recessions:

The first is the cyclical one, the one that inevitably comes and then inevitably goes. There's plenty of evidence that intervention can shorten it, and also indications that overdoing a response to it is a waste or even harmful.

The other recession, though, the one with the loss of "good factory jobs" and systemic unemployment--I fear that this recession is here forever.

Why do we believe that jobs where we are paid really good money to do work that can be systemized, written in a manual and/or exported are going to come back ever? The internet has squeezed inefficiencies out of many systems, and the ability to move work around, coordinate activity and digitize data all combine to eliminate a wide swath of the jobs the industrial age created.
There's a race to the bottom, one where communities fight to suspend labor and environmental rules in order to become the world's cheapest supplier. The problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win...

Factories were at the center of the industrial age. Buildings where workers came together to efficiently craft cars, pottery, insurance policies and organ transplants--these are job-centric activities, places where local inefficiences are trumped by the gains from mass production and interchangeable parts. If local labor costs the industrialist more, he has to pay it, because what choice does he have?
No longer. If it can be systemized, it will be. If the pressured middleman can find a cheaper source, she will. If the unaffiliated consumer can save a nickel by clicking over here or over there, then that's what's going to happen.

It was the inefficiency caused by geography that permitted local workers to earn a better wage, and it was the inefficiency of imperfect communication that allowed companies to charge higher prices.
The industrial age, the one that started with the industrial revolution, is fading away. It is no longer the growth engine of the economy and it seems absurd to imagine that great pay for replaceable work is on the horizon.

This represents a significant discontinuity, a life-changing disappointment for hard-working people who are hoping for stability but are unlikely to get it. It's a recession, the recession of a hundred years of the growth of the industrial complex.

I'm not a pessimist, though, because the new revolution, the revolution of connection, creates all sorts of new productivity and new opportunities. Not for repetitive factory work, though, not for the sort of thing ADP measures. Most of the wealth created by this revolution doesn't look like a job, not a full time one anyway.

When everyone has a laptop and connection to the world, then everyone owns a factory. Instead of coming together physically, we have the ability to come together virtually, to earn attention, to connect labor and resources, to deliver value.

Stressful? Of course it is. No one is trained in how to do this, in how to initiate, to visualize, to solve interesting problems and then deliver. Some see the new work as a hodgepodge of little projects, a pale imitation of a 'real' job. Others realize that this is a platform for a kind of art, a far more level playing field in which owning a factory isn't a birthright for a tiny minority but something that hundreds of millions of people have the chance to do.

Gears are going to be shifted regardless. In one direction is lowered expectations and plenty of burger flipping. In the other is a race to the top, in which individuals who are awaiting instructions begin to give them instead.

The future feels a lot more like marketing--it's impromptu, it's based on innovation and inspiration, and it involves connections between and among people--and a lot less like factory work, in which you do what you did yesterday, but faster and cheaper.

This means we may need to change our expecations, change our training and change how we engage with the future. Still, it's better than fighting for a status quo that is no longer. The good news is clear: every forever recession is followed by a lifetime of growth from the next thing...

Job creation is a false idol. The future is about gigs and assets and art and an ever-shifting series of partnerships and projects. It will change the fabric of our society along the way. No one is demanding that we like the change, but the sooner we see it and set out to become an irreplaceable linchpin, the faster the pain will fade, as we get down to the work that needs to be (and now can be) done.
This revolution is at least as big as the last one, and the last one changed everything."

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

5 of the Best FREE Business Tools

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:11:00 GMT

You know the saying… “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. I disagree. I find free stuff for business all the time! There are so many fantastic free resources, webinars, eBooks … the list goes on.

Why is it free?

Sometimes we assume “free” equates to “crap” but this is not always the case. The list below have free offerings – you can upgrade if you love them so much you want more!

1. Mailchimp

Golly gosh, I just love Mail Chimp. You will need to pay if you exceed a certain number of emails per month but you would need to be sitting on a massive database to do that. If you have tried newsletters before and have decided they don’t work for you, you were probably making some common mistakes – read my blog about the 5 biggest mistakes here!

2. Skype

Skype rocks my world on a weekly basis. If you have not downloaded this nifty program then you are missing out on free calls to other Skype users. It is fantastic for face-to-face communication – switch the video on and voila! It is like you are sitting in the same room as the other person. I use Skype to coach clients and to catch up with friends and family. You can even make conference calls, which is fantastic if you have a team that is not office based.

3. Toodledo

Need to manage your own task or assign group tasks? Then this free program is the answer. Steve Eastwood put me on to this one and I have now got clients using it for project management. I use it myself so it must be good! You can download a free app if you have an iPhone and/or iPad or go old school style and use it online.

4. Facebook

I send clients and the other Small Fish Coaches nuts with my love of Facebook. There are very few businesses that this is not effective for. Set yourself up a free business page and start using Social Media to promote yourself! Mine is here if you would like free business tips! If you are not sure how to use it visit www.nataliealaimo.com - she is the “go to” gal for Social Media. You will find some great free resources such as eBooks and videos on her site. She is also running a free webinar in October, which will take you through the changes Facebook are making.

5. Free one-hour business coaching session

You knew I would slip that one in to the list! If you have not already booked a free session with a Small Fish Business Coach then do it now! We are smart and lovely and genuinely want to help. If business coaching seems like it might be for you – great! If not, we will still be friends and you will have some new ideas and a bit of fresh insight into your business.

Got a great freebie that you use in your business? Share it on my Facebook wall!

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

How Much Profit Is Your Business Leaking?

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:59:00 GMT

Most businesses leak profit, often for simple reasons, which can easily be fixed. Is your business leaking profit?

The Business Audit Consultancy will help you identify and plug profit leaks. And help you make more money. And who doesn't want that?

Just ask Noven Purnell-Webb from Magedata – he says

"The questionnaire was a really easy way to get some quick and effective insights into how my business is running. By merely asking the questions, the obvious things can no longer be ignored and some surprising results emerged. A highly effective tool for any business owner trying to clear up the bigger picture."

Click below to read more or to book yourself in for a good probing (with questions of course). We think you’ll like it.

Read More Now >>>

Regards,
The Small Fish Team

Times Are Getting Tough - Get Better At Marketing

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:52:00 GMT

With the slow down in the economy and tightening of the financial markets, times are tough in the retail and Small Business sectors. This could potentially result in a number of business failures.

How do you protect your business from becoming one of the casualties? You have to operate better than you are today and better than your competition and there are only two ways to do that. You either sell more or spend less.

Let’s look at both sides of this equation, both selling and spending by your business. Both of these are impacted by Marketing or Advertising. Marketing and Advertising bring you clients to sell to, but they also cost you money. You know this, of course. But do you know exactly what it costs you to find a client to sell to? Do you know how many clients your marketing brings you? Do you know how much you sell to each client and what the return on your advertising is?

To make sure your business survives and thrives you need to know.

So how do you work it out?

Total sales last year divided by total customers = Total Sales per customer SPC
Total Advertising & Marketing Expenditure last year divided by Total Customers = Cost per acquisition CPA (Include existing clients as they are also included in the total sales number)

Simply, if Total Sales per customer is not much higher that Cost per acquisition, you are in trouble. This figure SPC – CPA should be well below your estimated profit margin. If it’s not, then you need to work on it.

What can you do? Get better at marketing, insure your marketing dollar is working for you and delivering you clients, and ensure you are making the most of your on line prescence.

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

Small Business Strategy Made Simple

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:44:00 GMT

Many small business owners I talk to do not have a strategic or business plan of any kind. However, they do have reasonably clear ideas about where they’d like to take their business (and the challenges they face in doing so) and agree that some sort of strategic business plan would be helpful. So how can their ideas be easily incorporated into a planning framework?

Most strategic planning models involve complicated planning processes beyond the scope and resources of smaller to medium sized businesses. However, there are two common concepts we can borrow from these models and use in developing a simpler approach. These are the vision and the mission.

The vision is a fancy term for what you want your business to be. When I talk to business owners during coaching or even in the course of a free coaching session, I find that just about everybody has a date or timeframe in mind for achieving key things in their business – “ by the time I’m 55”, or ”when I’ve had the business for 10 years”, or “when I retire”, or “x years from now,” etc.

Once the timeframe is identified I simply ask them to close their eyes and imagine what their business will look like at that point in time. In particular, I ask them:

what products and services will you be providing?
what does your customer profile look like?
what is your turnover?
how much will your business be worth?
what geographic area will your business be servicing?
what sort of premises will you have and where will they be located?
what is your role in the business?
who is in your team, and what are they doing?
how is your business operating (how will it be different)?
what are people saying about your business?

This is their vision.

Using this information, the vision can be articulated as a high level description of the business in the future, underpinned by a set of goals relating to some or all of the specific points above.

The mission is a broad statement about how the vision is to be achieved. It can be developed by answering the question “what is it you need to do or change to take your business from where it is now to where you want it to be?” The mission statement is a set of high level strategies which incorporate the key things that need to occur - i.e. expanding product/service lines, increasing the customer base, establishing strategic alliances, opening new outlets, modernising equipment, introducing new management arrangements, automating systems, etc.

From the information contained in the mission statement, a detailed plan with timeframes can be developed for managing the changes. At Small Fish, we use a Strategic Buiness Plan on a page with a 12 to 18 month time frame for this purpose.

Neil McVicar
Small Fish Business Coaching Coffs Harbour
www.smallfish.com.au

The Single Most Important Question In Business

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 01:02:00 GMT

As business owners, we hear all the time that word-of-mouth is the best form of marketing. As a result, we focus on building our referral network - the group of people that know what we do, and can act as advocates for our business into the broader community. This is what word-of-mouth marketing is all about. (And if you don't believe me, go and visit your local BNI.

It follows then, that one of the biggest opportunities for referrals is to make sure our customers are happy. We need to make sure that we are giving our "smiley" happy customers every opportunity to recommend our business to their friends - empowering them to be "fans" of our business.

Satisfied clients, actively recommending your business to their friends will certainly help to grow your business - but it is something that can be difficult to measure.

I recently came across some interesting research by Frederick F. Reichheld in the Harvard Business Review titled "One Number You Need to Grow."

Essentially, this explores the relationship between customer satisfaction and top-line growth, concluding that the single most important question that should be asked as part of any customer satisfaction program is: "Would you recommend this business to a friend?"

This applies to all business, large and small. Big business is getting on board this research, and some are starting to measure it with an approach known as Net Promoter Scores - or NPS for short (Oh, how we love acronyms - LOL!)

If you're interested, you can find out more about the science behind Net Promoter Scores here.

In the meantime, I have two important questions for you:

Would your customers recommend your business to their friends?
When was the last time you asked your customers this question?

Kristian Reiss
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

Creative Problem Solving

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:50:00 GMT

“Thank you for calling the Creative Business Seminars.... If you would like to become more creative ............Press 1 without touching your handset!”

A cartoon by Randy Glasbergen caught my eye this weekend and it got me thinking – just what makes one person more creative in solving problems than another? Are there techniques that can be used by normally non-creative people (such as myself) to make them more creative?

After all, businesses are always talking about being more creative: 10 new Creative marketing strategies, 7 Creative selling techniques to name a few that do the rounds. (By the way- just for the record - Small Fish does not endorse creative tax minimising strategies in case you were thinking that).

Anyway, it seems being creative isn’t just about finding creative solutions to problems. It seems there’s more to it than that, like for instance starting off by understanding the problem in different ways.

I heard it once said...pretend the problem is a jigsaw puzzle. Now break it up and turn over the pieces in your hands. Look at them again and again...what do you see? Straight edges, corners, middle pieces?? Reds together, greens and blues...I’m sure you get the idea. By looking at the problem from different angles you discover unique solutions from a different perspective.

Another writer suggested using creative “jamming”, like a jazz group. Jamming entails giving the problem to a group of people and getting them to give it a good “working over”. Pass it around, tear it apart, put it back together, and turn it over again and so on. The group often sees more than the individual.

Another way is to “tell a stranger” ... This entails describing the facts and situation to someone not related to the problem. Get them to explore the problem with you and get them to ask you questions. By verbalising the problem, putting it in your own words, you are more likely to view the problem differently, and this opens up creative solutions.

So there you have it – if you have a business problem you’ve been struggling with, GET CREATIVE with it....and of course you could always get your business coach to help you.

Steve Eastwood
Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne
www.smallfish.com.au

Decision Fatigue

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:00:00 GMT

My friend Patrick Halliday showed me this article on decision fatigue. I hope I'm not being too much of a geek showing it to you but it's really interesting if you can get through it.

For the attention-poor, here's a summary:

Making decisions is tiring. We get sick of it and less good at it the more of it we do. By the end of a long day of decision-making, we are making poor decisions - reckless and short term focused or deciding not to do anything. Our brains get depleted of the ability to make decisions. There's hope, though - food helps - if we take a break and we eat, we pick up (and it explains why we get cravings, too).

People with the best self control which is related to decision-making) structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. They don't schedule endless back-to-back meetings (oops), they avoid temptations like all you can eat buffets and they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making decisions all the time.

Here's the learn for business owners:

Plan your days and your weeks ahead, using your diary or a tool like Groundhog Week (Conserve your decision-making energy).

Eat properly, feed your brain.

Make important decisions early in the day, before you are tired.

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Northern Rivers
www.smallfish.com.au

Who Is Your Target Market?

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:21:00 GMT

One of the biggest challenges in business can be identifying your target market. Who are they? Why do you need to know who they are? What benefit is it to you and your business?

I have heard many people try to educate others on how to identify their target market and why it is important. I have struggled to educate people myself. At a recent BNI meeting I had 10 minutes to educate other business on my business. I pointed out my target market, I could hear the gasps and whispers in the room. Oh my god – she just said she ONLY works with women between the ages of 28 and 45! When in fact, that was not at all what I said! What I said was that the demographic that was MOST profitable to me was women between the ages of 28 and 45. Does this mean I have no male clients? No it doesn’t! Does this mean I have no clients younger than 28 and older than 45? Nope!

This is my best effort to explain it to you and I hope it makes sense. If it doesn’t, you're no worse off than you were before!

Firstly – your target market (in my words, not in business text book words) are the customers that have the longest lifetime value to your business. They are the most profitable to your business.

Think about a Fish and Chip Shop (mainly because I am hungry, but also because it is a nice simple way for me to explain using a “fishy” analogy). The Fish and Chip Shop need to sell $20 worth of product to make 150% profit. The profit declines as the average purchase declines. The aim is to attract the customer that spends a minimum of $20 in one transaction. They use only the best quality products including low cholesterol oil.

The Fish and Chip Shop has a very smart, gorgeous, funny business coach (hmm…who could that be?). The business coach suggests that they need to do some advertising but on a limited budget - the Fish and Chip Shop want to make sure they get as much bang for their buck as they can.

How do they accomplish this? Simple… Advertise to the clients who have the largest value to your business. The most profitable customers are the ones we want to attract!

These are the clients that

Purchase regularly (1-2 times per month)
Purchase more than $20 of food
Live close to the shop
See value in a quality product

These are NOT the clients that

Purchase sporadically (3-4 times per year)
Purchase less than $20 of food
Do not live close to the shop

Lets now consider the types of clients the Fish and Chip Shop attract. This is clearly not an accurate full list, but stick with me, it will start making sense!

Families (high profit)
Singles Men (medium profit)
Teenagers (low profit)

Now lets think about whom from that list you want to advertise to? The immediate answer most businesses give is “everyone is my customer”. While this is true, not every customer is profitable.

Who do you want to advertise to? Is it the single man, the teenager or the family? Of course it is the most profitable which is the family. A family doesn’t make the decision to purchase together – usually mum and dad make the decision so we have just broken your target down even further!

From figuring out who is profitable, the Fish and Chip Shop can now use their marketing dollar to influence mums and dads who live within 2kms of the store. Instead of spending $1000 on an advertisement in a newspaper circulated to an area 4 km outside of the shops location that is mostly read by retirees, we can focus efforts on a letterbox drop to homes (not units or retirement villages) in a 2km radius of the shop.

This is of course an overly simplistic view and I have no clue how profitable a serve of flake, chips and scallops are but I hope that helps you understand why you need to identify your target market.

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

Why Kindness Is Good For You

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 05:34:00 GMT

From a young age, you are being encouraged to ‘be nice’, ‘play fair’ and ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. It all makes perfect sense.

But it can be difficult. Especially in business. It’s easy to forget these basic rules when you are bombarded with messages of negativity - like the 6PM News, and often it feels like everyone is out for a piece of you. Internet scams, telemarketers and an avalanche of marketing urging you to buy, buy, buy! Is there a place for kindness in this materialistic, self-absorbed world?

If the sound advice of your grandmother is not enough to convince you to live a life of kindness, how about medical evidence that it will help you live longer and better? Dr David R. Hamilton has written a book called ‘Why Kindness Is Good For You.'

It’s a great read, but here is the basic message in a nutshell.

We have been designed to be kind to each other. When we are, our body functions better, is more resistant to disease and aging and we feel better.When we turn our back on kindness, our blood pressure rises, free radicals roam our bloodstream doing us harm, and we are prone to depression.

Other facts about kindness, happiness and compassion:

It’s contagious – the human brain is tuned to detect and mimic kindness.
It’s addictive – displaying compassion releases endogenous opiates and these powerful chemicals can replace the highs produced by morphine or heroin with a ‘helper’s high’, a far more natural and positive experience, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Happiness makes us richer. People sometimes equate money with happiness. In other words, if I have lots of money, I will be happy. Dr Hamilton references research that suggests things work the other way around. He cites a study by Robert A Emmons that measured the happiness of a group of US college students over 16 years. Those who were happier at the beginning of the study actually earned more during the evaluation period. The happiest in the group earnt $25,000 more per annum than the least happy!

But don’t take my word for it… give it a go and see for yourself.

Click the picture below to reveal a list of 50 random acts of kindness to get you started. I look forward to hearing your results.

Being kind to others is being kind to yourself.

Richard Everson
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Business Travel - Friend or Foe?

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 03:40:00 GMT

Like a lot of people out there, I have had my share of corporate travel. In a previous life (one I left to join the world of small business to avoid) I was based in the Middle East for nearly 6 years and travelled internationally nearly every week. This takes its toll on lots of things such as- missed family time and outcomes associated with this, time wasted at airports and lounges, eating bad food, another city, another hotel room etc. etc. Not quite the glamour I initially thought. I have early visions as a child thinking that friends who had parents who travelled had the best job, from my experience it isn’t all it is cracked up to be!

So I left this life and came back home to Australia, partially to escape travel, only to end up in Perth and then every few weeks still spend time flying back and forth to Sydney. So I didn’t quite escape! Now I am back on the east coast and spend less time travelling, so the daunting side has reduced, to more of a novelty. The only bit of that past life I miss are the people in all the cities I went to, but social media, email (and phones) can eliminate that gap easily.

As the circle has now nearly turned a complete revolution as a small business owner, I pose the question to all as to whether you now dread the travel side of the business world and why?

Do you work smarter and utilise technology such as Skype, GoTo Meetings, conference calls etc. or do you still insist on the face to face?

If face to face is still important, have you taken the time to consider the cost of a trip to you or your business? It isn’t just the airfares and hotel and meals, but the time you are away at your hourly rate doing ‘other things’, it’s the time away from family events or school events which cant be replaced as well. There is a big sacrifice to those who live this life whether in corporate or in their own business!

Maybe I’m just being all philosophical as I sit in a café in Melbourne after flying down here for two days this week. This has meant re-scheduled meetings, missing an event and being away physically. Some of these things just can’t have a price put on them, but I guess it is a necessary evil as the world gets smaller and smaller!

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Are You "Great" Or Just Doing OK?

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 01:01:00 GMT

In a recent article I posted to our Small Fish Blog ‘What makes a great business owner?’ the behaviours of great owners were discussed. To continue with this theme and to look at some more specific behavioural data, I have conducted some analysis of businesses I have had contact with recently as a coach.

These results come from the mini audits of 87 business owners, who took the opportunity to try the Free Coaching Session Small Fish provides. (I have to plug this and say it is a great way to seek some feedback, ideas or thoughts on how you can improve your business if this is what you want to do!). Just click here or email me if you have an interest in having one for your business!

So, what did I discover?

From the 87 business mini audits, the following was discovered:

75 employed staff (balance solo operators)
8 actually have regular structured staff meetings
7 provide incentives, feedback or reward processes for their team
6 have a formal business plan (I think about 2 had actually looked at it since completing)
5 have a Marketing Plan
4 tracked Marketing activity for ROI each time
6 obtain and review financial information on a monthly basis (i.e. P&L)
4 knew their break-even point

These are some alarming numbers, and I am sure all those reading will not be on this list!

Clearly not all people I meet want to become clients for a number of reasons such as time, cost, don’t want to change, not ready, feel they’re doing ok, etc. This is fine and to each their own.

The key point and take away from this is not to sell coaching, but to advise if you are guilty of any of the above. The first step is to recognise your gap. Once you know where you need to modify things, you have to WANT to change. This is where those who seek external help flourish; they have identified a need and want to amend that gap in their behaviour. Don’t waste money on coaches, consultants, training etc. unless you really are serious about change and willing to commit. It isn’t easy, but the business benefits longer term will truly make you a great business instead of just chugging along and doing Okay.

I wish you all the best and hope to see these hit rates change as we all become better (and even great) at what we do.

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

A Worthless Business Guru

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 00:34:00 GMT

Being a person who began writing with blue ink and a nib, I wish to know, if you have a blog that is 106 words long, is it technically a Twitter?

Well now it is up to 145 words, so it must be a blog. Below is the juice.

I was recently asked how to spot a worthless business guru.

Nationality is a good start; they are likely to be Americans (there goes my visa application and creditability as a Post Modernist).

Also they will:

Over promise and under deliver
Are shameless self promoters, peddlers of snake oil in the best Side Show tradition
All unqualified (you know from a place you go after High School), but have had success prior to selling success as a product
They make IT up and believe IT like religion
Claims are not subject to independent measurement or evaluation, and they are largely ignored by academia
Claim if it does not work, something must be wrong with the customer

These are the six top things to watch out for when seeking support in growing your business. Avoid.

Now back to business coaching.

Seamus O'Brien
Small Fish Business Coaching Illawarra
www.smallfish.com.au

Thinking Is Free

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 06:32:00 GMT

The following passage is from a book called "Make Your Small Business Thrive" by Kevin Gilbert.

"Thinking is free, so do it more often. It is amazing the amount of people who do things without knowing the reason why. Remove yourself from the hurley burley of day to day life, even for an hour, and think. Too many people pre judge whether something is going to work or not, particularly if they have tried it before and it wasn’t successful. Don’t fall into this trap.Try things and if they don’t work, try something else. The next “big thing” may be something small. After all, little developments can make a big difference and they are a lot less scary to embark on. So try a lot of little things. Don’t overcomplicate what you do or how you explain it to people. Keep it simple but not simplistic. If something didn’t work then try again. The circumstances may well have changed. Very few “overnight successes” get it right first time."

So next time you don't want to try something because it may not have worked before, even if it is as small as re-implementing a new system that did not take off in your business at first, stop and think again. There is always a way to re-vamp old ideas. There are not too many things in life for free, but thinking happens to be one of them.

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

Are You Getting Referrals?

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 05:13:00 GMT

We would all like customers to just come to us - but this is just not the reality of the world. Business operators need to be out and about “walking the talk”, building a referral engine either through networking or raving fans (i.e. happy customers).

How much time do you spend educating the people who refer to you about what type of clients you want and nurturing these relationships?

Everyone loves word of mouth advertising and for many in an established business this is where the majority of new customers come from.
So how do you make it happen?

Identify a team of people to promote your business – BNI groups were established on this principle. This team should be made up of loyal customers, suppliers and others that you network with or who have a circle of influence.
Invite these people to actively help you by offering them something e.g. a discount off your services for the other business to provide to their customers as a thank you, or by giving them referrals in return.
The most effective way to earn referrals is to exceed expectations. In order to do this you must first truly understand what your customers or network group expect and manage this effectively.
Ask for the referral – let your customers know that you will be asking for referrals .
Acknowledge the person who provided the referral. Let them know that the referral has contacted you and thank them. Once you have met the referral let the referrer know what is going on and if the referral becomes a customer be the first to let the referrer know. Make sure they feel appreciated for sending people your way.
Contact and nurture your relationships with referrers. Let them know of any new or different things that you are doing and try to reciprocate their generosity in referring.

Referrals are a privilege, not a right. You don’t automatically deserve referrals, you have to earn them.

Mariejan Bigby
Small Fish Business Coaching Toowoomba
www.smallfish.com.au

Spruiking BNI (Which Has Nothing To Do With Small Fish)

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:17:00 GMT

It feels a bit strange to write a story about another business, one which has many flaws and frustrations (bureaucracy, anyone?) and to be telling you all how helpful it's been for our business.

It has, though and this despite its flaws.

BNI is a global franchise, thousands of chapters and millions of dollars of referrals passed. I sound like a brochure, already, don't I. Anyway, if you get business because people decide to trust you (who doesn't?) then networking with other businesses might be a good idea. BNI is not the only way to network by any means but it does work and it's working for Small Fish. So consider this a personal testimonial from me, for business networking generally and for BNI in particular.

I've been in the Byron Bay BNI group since it started, about 18 months ago. I've had four customers from it (I would generally work with a small number of high-value customers) and I am in discussions with another two. This is a significant contributor to my personal revenues. In our group, we have 16 business coaches and 8 BNI members, all of whom have been in their chapters for a shorter time than I. BNI has contributed more than 20% of our total customers in less than 2 years.

This makes it a significant contributor to our group revenues, too. Word of mouth, or referrals business is something you get if you do a good job - people tell their friends about you and, slowly, your business grows. BNI and being active about networking and asking for referrals accelerates the process of people getting to know you and how you operate, so they can decide whether they want to refer people to you. You meet every week with the primary purpose of doing precisely this - thinking about finding referrals for the members of your group who you've decided are good enough to work with your friends.

I don't want to sound like a salesman for BNI, because I'm not one, but I do honestly think that if you're in business and you want to grow it, joining a referrals group like BNI is worth considering.

www.bni.com.au

Other, similar groups exist and some of my colleagues are as enthusiastic about theirs as I am about BNI. They include Schmooze in Canberra, Business Chicks and Swap.

Why don't you let us know about your business group (only if you are enthusiastic about, of course)

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Profit $60,000 to $300,000 In 3 Years!

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:46:00 GMT

I'd like to share another article with you that I wrote for our local newspaper, The Echo, a few weeks ago.

"I thought I'd tell a true story about how business coaching can help a real business owner change his business. The subject of the story is Jeff Banks, of Banks Consultancy, in Sydney. I've been coaching him for three and a half years now.

We met in 2007, thinking we'd talk about referring business to each other - Jeff is an accountant and has small business customers; my coaching customers are small business owners. As we sat and ordered coffee, Jeff said "I don't want to talk about that, my wife says I need a business coach." It went from there.

Jeff was frustrated in his business. He had a busy accountancy practice with $350,000 of turnover and more than 300 clients. But, profit was only $60,000 (Jeff's personal income), the business had $300,000 in aged debt and almost $80,000 of the revenue was trade - that is money you can't spend on important stuff like mortgages and petrol. Jeff was feeling the pressure, working very hard and wanted out.

The vision Jeff and Robyn (his wife) came up with for the business was "Sell for $750,000 in Dec '09 - and escape up the coast.

We worked hard on the discipline of chasing debtors (and still do); we increased Jeff's prices (to squeals and protest from Jeff but none from his customers); we started Jeff actively marketing (not something he felt comforahle with, I can tell you); we worked on Jeff - on stopping him from being such a pushover for some people, on his confidence in his (very strong) abilities in accounting (and gutter technology, as he he puts it), on his time management and prioritisation.

Within a year, profit was up to $100,000, Jeff was less stressed. We recieved and they rejected an offer to buy the practice (because they were enjoying it again). As of June 2011, revenue was $860,000, profit $300,000, Jeff is confident, engaged and a business leader in his local community.

Sometimes he likes to credit me with this but I think we know that 90% of it was down to him. The coach is just the catalyst.

Have fun in your business. And call Jon for a free coaching session on 02 6680 8036."

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Lessons from the Tour de France

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:02:00 GMT

After 3 weeks of late nights watching the tremendous efforts of our Aussie, Cadel Evans, in winning the 2011 Tour de France (and the first from our country), I am sure I am not the only one who looks forward to an early night’s sleep after it all ends…the 2 am endings take their toll!

So given the amazing ride of ups and downs and demonstration of true grit, why am I writing about this in our blog?

A few themes have come from Cadel’s ride. He clearly had a plan, he had a great team around him and he never lost sight of his vision- to WIN!

So as we celebrate and reflect, ask yourself if you truly have a vision for your business and where you want it to be at any given point in time, be it 1 year, 3 or 5 years…if not, why not write it down today and spend some time to develop the vision (of course a Business Coach can help).

Once you have a vision established, develop a plan as to how you will get there. This is the classic ‘future back’ activity of looking at what you need to do to achieve the vision.

Is it a Marketing plan, a plan to evaluate and align your people, or is it a sales strategy? It may be a number of these or more!

Finally, don’t forget the power of your team. Just as Cadel Evans had his fellow BMC team mates to help in times of adversity, be it mechanical fixes, driving the chase or keeping him motivated, they were clearly aligned to the overall vision (to win) and the plan (how to do it stage by stage). Do you have your team clearly aligned and aware of your plan and vision? They are the ones who can help you get there, you cannot do it all by yourself. The first thing Evans mentioned, after his yellow jersey on Stage 20, was to say how his team gave 99.9% to 100% effort the entire race, and he couldn’t have done it without them. Can you say the same about your vision and plan and your team? It isn’t a challenging one to do, once your plan is set. Have a strategy sharing session and let your team know how they are a critical part of the end result, then give the recognition, motivation and celebration for the small wins.

As a fellow proud Aussie this weekend, have a look at Cadel’s efforts and see if you can take some of the lessons from it for your business, and maybe you can win your own personal Tour de France in 2012 and beyond.

Good luck and congratulations to Cadel Evans!

Now it’s time for some sleep.

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

What's A QR Code?

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:21:00 GMT

At a recent networking luncheon, aptly named the GAF Luncheon (Grog and Food), I was introduced to a new bit of IT or marketing technology (well at least new to me, I’m sure they have been around for a while, but I may just be a bit slow to catch up with this techno stuff). So I decided to go and use my best friend, Google, and see what they are all about, and obviously decided to share what I have found.

QR codes, or Quick Response codes were initially designed for the tracking of parts in the automotive industry. They are now used to allow a user, who can scan such codes, quick links to website, email links, SMS link, phone numbers etc. They have become a key target in the Mobile technology whereby an App can be downloaded for both IPhone and Android phones to scan and then therefore, make these little black and white boxes usable to us. I found an App for my phone easily on the App Store and for an option of a FREE one or a $1.19 HD version, I am now a man with a scanner, and they are pretty cool!

I have also discovered (again thanks to a quick search of Google and the word "QR code creator") several sites that allow you to make your own QR codes for free, again, how cool? Since finding, creating and playing with this in the last few days, I am amazed at how many QR codes I have come across each day, from magazine advertising, bus advertising etc. They are popping up everywhere, and hey, now I can scan them!

While I don’t know if this is the next big thing, I’m sure the marketing aspect of these will grow by the day but, they are certainly quite impressive, and unless you can scan, you don’t know what you are missing. Finally, when you find and scan one, it is a mystery as to what is going to open up on your phone!

So what are you waiting for? Go and have a play like I have…

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Sell Value

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:44:00 GMT

In all the marketing and business improvement lierature we are constantly reminded to sell on value and not fall into the price discounting trap. So what does that mean, what is value in the consumers mind?

Well it could be any of the following components, or a combination of them:

Service – This includes providing a service that people may not want to do themselves (cleaning, car washing) or providing excellent customer service while selling your goods and services.
Response – How we respond to a customers requests or needs.
Variety – Especially in retail do we sell a varirty of goods that service a range of customers.
Knowledge – What experience do we have and how does this apply to the business or service we supply.
Quality – How do your products measure up to the competitors?
Guarantee – What guarantees do you provide? Do you have a refund policy?
Convenience – How easy is it to do business with you? Trading hours, phone or email access, parking?
Price – Do you have a pricing proposition that you stick to and can market?

If you are looking to sell on value and want to define your value proposition. Consider the following questions:

How do I differ from your competitors?
What need do I fill for my customers that no one else does?
If I ceased to exist, would my customers miss me?
What do my customers want that I do not have?
Who are my best customers and why?

If you consider these things carefully you will be able to determine your value position and market your business accordingly.

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

What Makes A Great Business Owner?

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:26:00 GMT

Jim Collins in his book ‘From Good to Great’ discusses what differentiates a good company from a great one, and how few companies end up being great. It’s a great read and I recommend it for anyone in business or in a management role. When we look at these questions in the context of the business owner, what is it that makes him a ‘great’ owner versus just a ‘good’ one?

Whilst there are numerous lists out there I thought I would throw a few of my own thoughts out there based on insights drawn from conversations and observations with business owners who fit the mould of being ‘great’. They are the ones whom not only have the successful and desirable business operation, but in most cases, have the balanced lifestyle to go with it.

Characteristics of a great business owner are:

They have a vision for the business
The vision is developed into a working plan and being actioned
They are passionate in all they do
They’re not afraid to take risks
They have access to funds
They surround themselves with experts to complement their skill set
They are willing and able to change (at short notice)
They seek out new opportunities
They have strong decision making abilities
They solve problems (but sees them as opportunities)
They have a sense of humbleness
They are strong communicators
They can let go of the reigns and allow others to control their business

Whilst I’m sure there are many more characteristics for a great business owner, this is a good starting point. From the list of 13 points above, how do you score in honestly ticking off those that apply to your approach to your business? I think I can confidently tick about 8 to 9, so I guess I still need to get some more focus in various areas…or maybe my humbleness needs some work?

I would love to hear of any additional pointers that great business owners have, or to see how you rate in a score out of 13?

Best of luck in the journey to ‘greatness’!

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

First Impressions Count - Is Your Business A 70's Throwback?

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:56:00 GMT

We often hear the saying that people will decide what they think of you in the first 30 seconds of meeting you. First impressions count and this extends to your business as well.

Within 30 seconds a potential customer will have formed an opinion of the quality of your services before you have even had the chance to butter them up with your wit and charming smile!

How does you business present itself?

The Pushy Used Car Salesman

Is your business “in your face” with large colourful posters pitching every service or product you offer? Are those posters hand written suggesting you are a budget business? Does your staff almost jump the counter to grab a customer?

The Obnoxious Wine Snob

Could someone walking into your business clearly identify exactly where to go and what to do. Sounds strange doesn’t it? I have visited businesses where the front door was not easily located and the reception was deserted. The reception may have been beautifully presented but immediately I feel a little unwelcome and slightly intimated. Chances are I came to your business to use a service, not to feel like I don’t deserve to be there.

The 70’s throwback

Could your business be mistaken for a 1970’s trip down memory lane? Old stinky carpet, brown and orange bench tops/desks and yellowing/peelings posters on the wall of products you no longer sell. It is the equivalent of a woman wearing blue eye shadow and Farrah Fawcett hair. For some unknown reason, hairdressers and doctors surgeries often fall into this category. Doctors I kind of understand (they are busy curing illness after all) but hairdressers have no excuse. Refits are costly and headache inducing but small changes can make a huge difference. P.S Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are “retro” cool, your not…

The Moody Teenager

One huge mistake I see often are staff leaning and slouching all over desks and counters. It drives me crazy! Stand up and look alive people! If you are in no rush to serve me when I walk in your front door you will be in less of a rush to help me when you already have my cash.

The Sloppy Guy with Soup On His Tie

What might be acceptable to you in terms of tidiness may not be acceptable to your customers. If I can see piles of unopened mail, over flowing rubbish bins and paperwork strewn across your desk I won’t be impressed. Be as feral as you like behind closed doors, but when it comes to business keep it neat! Do you want to see a mechanic or dentist in disarray? I would worry that your disorganisation would lead you to forget to put the bolt back that holds my car together (slight overkill, but I am trying to make a point) or rip the wrong tooth out.

Take an outsiders view of your business, or better yet get an outsider to actually view your business. Ask the following questions to see what people notice about your business first?

Could you find the front door/see our signage?
How long did it take for you to be acknowledged?
What where the first three things you noticed?

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

End of the Financial Year: Networking

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 05:39:00 GMT

So it’s the end of the Financial Year and the start of a new one. There are a million articles floating around about this particular event. So I have decided to write about something completely different.

Networking!

Do you or does someone in your business participate in a regular weekly organised networking event? It just so happens that I do and I really love it. I am about to become the President of my chapter (no its not a cult as my wife likes to refer to it as) and I am really excited.

The benefits to my business through networking have been amazing. In fact 60% of my clients have come from networking. It is an extremely cost effective form of marketing and it allows me to build trust, expertise and relationships with people that become advocates for my business.

I meet with like-minded business owners on a weekly basis for breakfast. The meeting starts with 20 minutes of open relationship building and catching up with new members and visitors. We then move into a formalised sit down breakfast with an hour-long agenda driven meeting. Each participant has the opportunity to stand up for 60 seconds and give his or her elevator pitch. The specific intent of this pitch is to ask other members for referrals and to provide them with enough detail so that they become your external sales team.

The middle of the meeting provides a 10-minute timeslot whereby a member presents his or her business to the group. Every week sees a different member present and this is an awesome opportunity to be innovative, demonstrate value and deliver your sales pitch to the group. It is an excellent way to be interactive with 20 plus people in one room whilst they are intently figuring out ways to help you get more business.

The tail end of the meeting allows for every member to officially pass referrals, state how much closed business they have won from the group that week and record how many one to one sessions they have had with chapter members that week in order to get to know one another even more.

So what? Big deal. What on earth has this got to do with Business Coaching?

He is the exciting part. I am about to become the leader of approximately 25 people that will all be actively seeking business opportunities for ME! Not because I forced them to with threats of violence, but because I have become an active member of a group whereby giving is about gaining. I now have a team of sales people working to promote my business with true intent. They are a sales team with integrity, with substance and with care for me as a person. This is possible because I participate with energy, passion and drive to help my fellow chapter members.

How much does this cost? It costs me a nominal annual fee and it costs me time. But the return on my investment has been massive!

If you are not networking because you are scared of the prospect of putting yourself out there or because you don’t have the time to add another something to your list or because you don’t think it would work for your business then I suggest you rethink your options. Not only could this be good for your business but it too could possibly be good for you as a leader of a business! Members are constantly giving testimonials about their improved presentation skills, their confidence in growing their businesses with the support of chapter members and most importantly their ability to form lasting relationships that transcend business.

My aim is to have our chapter passing $1 million in business by the end of 2012. That is certainly an exciting proposition for a group of businesses that are passionate about new business, new clients and increased revenue.

If you would like to know more, drop me a line. Happy to discuss the opportunities related to networking in more detail and happy to help you make the transition to a networking event near you where I can.

Happy networking and go get some seriously warm leads!

Simon Thomas
Small Fish Business Coaching Belrose
www.smallfish.com.au

Celebrating The Wins

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 01:07:00 GMT

I have had a fantastic week!

3 of the businesses that I have worked with have been nominated (by clients) for the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards. What a great achievement.

These businesses knew that they had to change. They took on advice and did the hard yards to make the changes happen and now they can celebrate.

Although driving a business to success is a long and sometimes tedious process it is important to stop and enjoy the wins. Reward yourself and your staff along the way for reaching goals. In this way you can really enjoy hitting targets and the business success that comes with doing so.

If you want to drive change in your business then make an appointment with a Small Fish Business Coach today.

Mariejan Bigby
Small Fish Business Coaching Toowoomba
www.smallfish.com.au

Why Are You In Business Anyway?

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 05:49:00 GMT

Jon wrote a story in the Byron Shire Echo last month entitled “Why are you in Business Anyway?”

Read the Article Below:

Who’s your business coach? Obviously, as a business coach and a coach and recruiter of business coaches, I think everybody should have one. Well… I would, wouldn’t I? It’s good to be writing here. I promise I’ll try to be interesting and maybe even useful. I’ll go for funny, sometimes, too. All in 250 words a month. Today I want to ask ‘Why are you in your business anyway?’ Think about it, it’s important. There are disadvantages to owning a business that you don’t get in a job– stress, cash flow (or not), staff problems. You know them, I’m sure. So you need to be clear on why you’d take all this on. When we’re coaching you, we use a very basic three-step process – Audit, Plan, Action. We work out (with you) what’s going on and what you want to achieve, then we make a plan and write it down. Then we start taking action.

I know it’s simple. What did you expect? Ten secrets to world domination? Sorry, there are no secrets. The closest thing to a secret in business is the observation that the biggest difference between those in business and those with a job is that those in business got off their arses and did something. The rest of it is the usual – what are you trying to achieve, what should you be doing about it? Get on with it then! This brings me back to my question. What do you want? Enough money for biscuits? Autonomy? World domination? (It’s up to you.)

It’s worth being clear and making sure you steer your business in that direction. It’s easy to let your business be in charge, instead of you. So think about it, write it down. Show your partner. Or your mum. Or your business coach.

Jon Dale is a business coach and a director of Small Fish Business Coaching in Marvell Street. If you want to talk to him about your business, he’ll give you a free coaching session, no strings. He says it’s good marketing. Phone 02 6680 8036 or 0402 259 209.

This video by Derek Sivers whose new book, Anything you Want, is out now, illustrates the point really nicely.

Stuff the MBA types – don’t let them ruin everything.

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Pricing

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 03:52:00 GMT

In the world of coaching, we spend quite a bit of time discussing PRICE as it has a fundamental impact on profitability.

We are used to seeing ‘2 for 1’ offers, in fact Harvey Norman promises us MASSIVE DISCOUNTS almost daily. How do the words on this sign make you feel? What was the shop owner thinking when they wrote them? I, for one, am impressed, and I’m guessing these drinks are pretty good.

Let’s have a look at pricing theory.

“A very old puzzle in economics is the relation between price, value to the consumer, and cost of production. It is tempting to say that the price of a good is determined by its value to the user. Why, after all, would anyone buy a good for more or sell it for less? But if this is so, why are diamonds, which are relatively unimportant (most of us could get along quite well if they did not exist), worth so much more per pound than water, which is essential for life?

The answer is that price equals both cost of production and value to the user, both of which must therefore be equal to each other.” Price Theory: An Intermediate Text by David D. Fridman.

Our clients often wonder how to price their goods or services. I recommend consideration be given to several factors.

Cost of production. Calculate both the direct and indirect costs of production. Direct costs would be the materials or time directly associated with production – if prcing a steak meal in a restaurant, calculate the cost of the steak and accompaniments and the labour required to produce the meal. Indirect costs would include an appropriate contribution towards gas, electricity, rates, insurances and the myriad of other overhead expenses. Once these costs are known, add a profit margin to give you a selling price.

Competitor’s pricing. Go out to the market and see what your competitors are asking for a similar product or service. Take note of where you sit within the range – is your product at the higher end of the quality scale? If so, that’s where your price should also sit.

Preceived value. Think back to the diamonds. The price of a diamond is almost exclusively based on percieved value. What is your product or service worth to your customer? If your product is unique and has little or no competition, your asking price will be very much based on ‘what the market will bear’, in other words, how much a customer is willing to pay. Obviously, for your business model to be sustainable, your product must deliver or its value will quickly erode.

Test and measure. You will see these words a lot in business. The art of business lies in creativity. The science of business lies in the evaluation and refinement of your current practices. Fix a price. Test it in the market – you can do this by tracking your sales, obtaining feedback from your clients and surveying the market place. And then adjust your price based on the feedback your receive and test again…

The subject of pricing can be daunting for many business owners but careful and ongoing evaluation of your pricing policy can reap rich rewards.

Richard Everson
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Is Discounting Really The Best Option?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 04:49:00 GMT

Everywhere I look I see perfectly respectable businesses tarting themselves out with slashed down prices like cheap hookers. Some of my favourite places are offering me prices so low I (almost) feel a little dirty for buying from them.

Sales have their place in the world of business. Moving excess stock after peek periods or getting rid of those old lines to bring in new products are perfectly respectable. What amazes me are the retailers offering substantial discounts on new stock. Advertising of sale stock has always been used to lure in the bargain hunter who then (hopefully) would be swayed into taking a heap of full price stock with them. Why then are some businesses marking down prices on everything?

Next time you get out the red marker pen and start pimping out your product at well below retail think about the following:

Will you customers still respect you when the discounting stops? Probably not, they will assume you were ripping them blind to begin with.

Example –I like one particular clothing chain (not naming any names but if you ever see me in the street you can check my tags). Their stock (all of it!) is on sale at least one week out of every five. So what is a girl to do? Wait till sale week of course! The strange thing is they still insist on under servicing and over staffing.

Are you cheapening your brand? Your target market may disappear and you may attract a whole new market that you never wanted in the first place.

Example – A local restaurant that I dine at regularly started offering 50% off meals and $12.50 steaks. Previously a large portion of their sales came from wine, now it doesn’t. What changed? Their clientele changed! Where once they attracted a younger crowd who loved a glass (or five) of chardy with their dinner, they now have families flooding in for a cheap feed. Guess who can’t drink gallons of booze on a weeknight? Mums and dads, that’s who! Guess who doesn’t want to sit in a restaurant with screaming (but I am sure lovely) kids? Me, and the rest of the “its fine to drink excessively during the week” crowd!

So what are the options?

Sharpen up your customer service! Know your product, know your customer and know how to provide exceptional service.
Consider a value add instead of discounting. A glass of house red with a full priced meal would have avoided luring in the wrong customer (and gotten the right customer tipsy enough to splash out on a fancy bottle of red).
Reward those who shop with you regularly. Provide a “members only” promotion or a rewards system that lets your regulars know you appreciate them.
Keep in contact….constantly! Databases are gold mines when sales are down. It is easier to sell to your existing customers than to constantly look for new ones. Don’t underestimate the power of regular newsletters, social media or just a good old-fashioned phone call! If you have never bothered to start one, now is the time regardless of the industry you are in (and poke yourself in the eye, you deserve it for not starting one when times were good!)

So now you may be reading this thinking “this girl has no clue what we are going through! Well think again! I too have ruined relationships with great customers by discounting new product lines and have attracted the wrong customer with cheap stock. It took a lot of hard work to regain the ground lost. Don’t make the same mistake!

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coaching Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

Are You Ready For A Coaching Challenge?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 04:50:00 GMT

We recently surveyed* our small business clients and found that two of the things that people find challenging about working with a business coach are:

Finding the time to get the work done, and
Dealing with the way their business changes.

So as a business owner, how can you make the most of getting a business coach to work with you on your business?

Firstly, make sure that you find the time to take yourself out of the day-to-day of running your business and focus on the activities that result from the coaching. It is simply not going to work if the only times you spend working “on” your business are the times when you are with your coach!

Secondly, be prepared for your business to change. This means being open minded, and being prepared to face and to make decisions – some of which can be tough ones! Remember - the very essence of business coaching is about changing your business.

A business coach will be able to help you with both of these points; however the ultimate responsibility for how much you and your business will get from your coach rests with you!

If you are ready for the challenge – why not book yourself in for a Free Coaching Session!

*More outcomes from the Small Fish Business Coaching 2010 Customer Survey can be found here.

Kristian Reiss
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

9 Ways to Improve Your Sales - A Lesson from Beaurepaires

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 23:51:00 GMT

With small business doing it tough these days it pays to get back to the basics.

Here’s how I was given a lesson on marketing, sales and a touch of classy customer service this week by Beaurepaires Burwood.

It started with a thought...and ended in 4 new tyres.

I decided since I had an hour free I would get a quote for new tyres for my car before a well meaning member of the Victoria police decided they would force the issue by adding to the state coffers. It’s one of those jobs you keep putting off because ....well.... you know it’s going to hurt the hip pocket.

In my local area I have two main tyre suppliers just a block away from each other, so off I went to get two quotes (as you do).

I remembered a while ago my wife had taken her car in to the local Beaurepairs for a simple puncture repair (a $20 sale) and they were really helpful so my first thought was to call in there – after all there was a bit of a relationship already.

Lesson 1: Be excellent on even tiny sales -you never know where they may go and they start your business relationships.

I pulled into Beaurepaires Burwood store. Great location – right on the corner with space to park in the driveway.

Lesson 2: Make sure you are where your customers can easily find you.

Walking in to the shop I was greeted by two smiling shop assistants who were busy on the computer at the time but quickly stopped what they were doing and stood up to see to me.

“A quote? No problem, let me out come and have a look”. Anthony quickly diagnosed what I already knew.... 4 new tyres all round.

Lesson 3: Focus on the customer – they are the most important person in the store at the time.

I explained that the tyres I had on the car seemed very hard and was that normal? Straight away he took me over to a pile of tyres and pulled one down off the shelf and pointed out the features of how great they were. – “These have just come off the truck -here.....feel they have a soft lining – these will be great on your car and fix the hardness problem."

Lesson 4: Know your product, listen to your customer, and provide a SOLUTION and let them feel like them own it.

“No problem, sounds good– but how much?”. I was still in the “I want a quote” mode.

“Well today we just happen to have a Buy 4 -get 1 free that’s 25% off so I can do a really good deal for you”.

Lesson 5: Make the price attractive (not cheap – these are $250 tyres here!) the customer must perceive it to be value for money.

“And – I can fit them today! Can you leave your car with us?”. Anthony even offered to drop my keys in the letterbox because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to pick the car up before closing time. How good was that? Anthony certainly wasn’t going to let me go off and get that second quote.

Lesson 6: Make it easy for your customer to do business with you.

So there I was standing in the shop with all the barriers to buying removed and a fantastic offer on the table. What else could I say?

Wait... there’s more:-

“And by the way – for an extra $7.50 a tyre we can give you extra protection so if any tyre is destroyed or damaged during its lifetime for any reason we’ll replace if free. (Conditions apply I’m sure).

“Great! - I’ll take that”....

Lesson 7: Upsell Upsell!!- If the margin on a $250 tyre was say 30% (I’m guessing here) the profit would have been $75.00. By getting an extra $7.50 out of me per tyre with no extra cost to the business the profit suddenly became $82.50. Now the gross margin is 33%!!! Straight to the bottom line!

I am pleased to report I am extremely happy with my new tyres and marvel at the way the whole transaction was handled. Well done Beaurepaires Burwood, here are the 9 things I learned from your business this week.

Start your business relationships early no matter how small
Position yourself where your customers can find you
Focus on your customer, they are your most valuable asset at the time
Know your products features and benefits
Listen to your customer’s pain points and provide SOLUTIONS to them
Help your customer feel like they already own your product before they buy
Make it easy for you customer to deal with you
Find something you can add to the sale without adding to your cost
Provide excellent customer service

A real life lesson written by:

Steve Eastwood
Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne
www.smallfish.com.au

Jon Survived the CEO Sleepout

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:17:00 GMT

I did it, I slept outside (sort of) with a group of equally self-righteous CEO types and we all felt good about the small contribution we made to the plight of people who are in such dire straits that they don't have a place to live. We raised some money and thank you to those who donated. I raised $1785 and my friend Matt raised $20 less so, as you can imagine, I'm feeling a bit smug.

I learned a couple of interesting things and I thought I would share.

Anyone can become homeless, even business owners. Often some disaster triggers a chain of events that ends in a shitty situation for someone. It's often injury or a car accident.
It could happen to any one of us - they said we are only 3 pays from it ourselves (unless you have the right insurance, of course)
Sleeping rough isn't much fun. Despite the common view that they are a bunch of lazy bludgers, sleeping outside in the cold is crappy and not having somewhere to go home to is horrible. I don't think many would be doing it out of choice.

So there you go. St Vinnies help homeless people get back on their feet and that's often all it takes to help them become functioning members of society again.

Donate here.....

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

The Principle of Reciprocation

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:16:00 GMT

The principle of reciprocation says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us. By virtue of the reciprocity rule, then, we are obligated to the future repayment of gifts, invitations, and the like.

Simple example: When you are invited to dinner at a friend’s home, you then feel obligated to return the favour, don’t you? And for many, this obligation weights heavily until it is repaid.

In a sales situation, customers and prospects feel obligated to say “yes” to those they owe.

Knowing this, savvy salespeople perform unexpected acts of kindness up-front; they give of their time, knowledge and occasionally product and service samples.

Guess what this does?

It obligates the other party to reciprocate.

The principle possesses awesome strength, often producing a “yes” response to a request that, except for the existing feeling of obligation/indebtedness, would have been refused.

Simple example: If you want to generate referrals from a customer, first, give a referral!

Bald Fact: Create a sense of obligation, and you’ll make more sales. A fact that has been proven in the business community when business operators found that, after accepting a gift, customers were willing to purchase products and services they would otherwise have declined.

Looked at in this light, the apparent random, unexpected act of generosity might be regarded as a powerful marketing method that will generate future sales.

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Manly
www.smallfish.com.au

Somethings Fishy at the MyBiz Expo in Melbourne

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:10:00 GMT

If you’re going to be in Melbourne on Thursday 16th or Friday 17th June, you can meet some of the Small Fish team in person at the MyBiz Expo.

The Expo promises to be a fantastic networking event, with the opportunity to meet many people and gather some valuable and useful information that can help you in your business.

We would love the opportunity to meet with you too, to talk about your business. Could your business be more profitable? Is your business and the environment it operates within changing? Does the business leave you with enough time to enjoy your success? Are you in control of your business, or is it the other way around?

Speaking with a business coach in person is a great way to discuss these things, and to find out whether a business coach might be able to benefit you and your business.

Alternatively, you might be considering becoming a business coach yourself. Being a business coach is not for everyone. It is hard work, but very rewarding as you get to work with and help a broad range of people in business.

Come down and talk with the team to find out first-hand what being a business coach is all about. This is also a fantastic opportunity to discover the benefits joining forces with Small Fish!

The MyBiz Expo is being held at the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre from Thursday 16th to Friday 17th June, and Small Fish will be at Stand 30. To find out more, and to preregister, click here.

Regards from The Small Fish Business Coaching Team

News Flash: "Optimism - The Predictor of Life and Business Success"

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:09:00 GMT

Business stuck in the bog? Seems to spinning its wheels, the occasional hard revving is followed by no movement forward? Then it may be time to change something and maybe that something is you!

Ask yourself do you agree or disagree with the following questions:

I have control over the things that happen to me and my business.
There are lots I can do to solve some of the problems I have.
There is a lot I can do to change many of the important things in my life.
I often feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life.
I like to think about things.
Sometimes I feel that I am being pushed around by competitors and the economy.
What happens to me in the future mostly depends on me.
I can do just about anything I really set my mind to do.
I still expect much from my business.
I exercise and take time out each week for me, my friends and family
I do not look forward to what lies ahead for me in the years to come.
I am still full of plans.
I often feel that my business life is full of promises.
I am glad the quiz did not end at 13 as that would discourage me in taking the quiz.

Now to score the answers (agree or disagree). To see what it means for you and your business you will need to contact me directly and there is significant rationale lying behind this requirement. You can do this by email or by phone. Mondays are best.

The Psychological research is in; the key to progress is a mental approach with deep roots in optimism. The optimistic business people make fast progress against formidable odds.

What we are talking about is not the odd motivated, sunny emotional day but a profound approach to all of life’s problems.

Look for yourself at those who are achieving business success and find a pessimist amongst them.

Still in doubt? Well have a look at the hard data published this week by Dr. Martin Seligman, Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of Positive Psychology. He concentrates on such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.

Dr Seligman’s research at the University Of Pennsylvania is based on empirical peer reviewed psychological studies from which the following hypotheses can be posed (thoughts added by me are not, therefore they are italicized for easy dismissal)

Optimists take actions and are more successful than others. Pessimists think a lot, go to seminars to secure the missing bit of knowledge they are sure will make all the difference, eat junk food, don’t exercise, and help the health and fitness industry become rich by joining gyms and then never attending. Pessimists are an empty vessel into which failure decants.

Optimists believe that their actions matter, whereas pessimists believe they are helpless and nothing they do will matter. Pessimists want the answer to the above quiz now and will not take the requested action to secure it. They just know they are about to be scammed. Optimists try, while pessimists lapse into passive helplessness. Optimists therefore act on good advice readily and will take risks to get what they want.

Optimists may take better care of themselves.

Even more generally, people with high life satisfaction (which correlates highly with optimism) are much more likely to diet, not to smoke, and to exercise regularly than people with lower life satisfaction.

Optimists take action to avoid bad events, whereas pessimists are passive and accepting.
Optimists have more friends and a richer social and business life. The more friends and the more love in your life, the less illness. Happy people have richer social and business networks than unhappy people, and social connectedness contributes to a lack of disability as we age. Misery may love company, but company does not love misery, and the ensuing loneliness of pessimists may be a path to illness.

So by now if you are a pessimist with a business you will have stopped reading somewhere above, if not then maybe you have a chance. The good news it is relatively easy and inexpensive to become optimistic and if you take the requested action I am willing to assist you in transitioning from pessimist to optimist. Although for most, pessimism has just kicked in again and you will do nothing. That’s the vicious circle you are trapped in.

I love Burl Ives, we have much in common (beard -check, folk singer - check, rotund- check, kind exterior with fiery heart- check) so I offer you this little ditty as a place to start .It is sound and invaluable small business advice. Put this song into your toolbox, I call it “The Business Coaching Song – Small Fish way."

Hear from you soon.

Seamus O’Brien
Small Fish Business Coaching Illawarra
0414 241 010

Picking A Business Coach

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:13:00 GMT

From a recent article I wrote, I hoped to give some clarity between the role of a Business Coach and a Consultant.
If you have now decided that your business needs the help and expertise of a Business Coach, here are a few points to ask or consider prior to selecting one. There are many coaches and coaching options available in the market and considering coaching is not cheap, it is important to ensure that you select carefully.

Some good starting points to consider when approaching or if approached by a Coach:

How will you work with my company and team? I.e. what value will you add?
What is your business experience?
What accreditation, experience or training do you have to be a coach?
Do you have any testimonials or referees I can find out more about you from?
Have you had any previous work within a system of business development?
What kind of support do you have from your coaching company and how can it help my business?
How big is your network of support?
What’s the track record of your results or record of business experience?

If the prospective person is ticking all the boxes in this area, then some more points to consider when looking at them as a person could include the following:

Have they defined the difference between coaching and consultant?
Do they ask good questions to you?
Will they hold you accountable?
Are they honest about how you will work together?
Do they put you and your business needs first, or just simply being a salesman to sell you a service/ product?
Are they someone who you can feel comfortable working with?
Are they nice?

The relationship between you, your business and a business coach is one that should be long lasting and beneficial to you and your business and the results. It is critical that you choose carefully. Should you wish to ‘check out’ your Small Fish Business Coach, arrange a Free Coaching session with any of our coaches!

Good luck!

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Vinnies CEO Sleepout

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 06:59:00 GMT

Even though Jon’s not really a CEO, only a director and a business coach (because we don’t believe in awarding ourselves fancy titles), he’s doing the CEO Sleepout to support Vinnies. Jon is going to sleep outdoors on the 16th of June without the benefit of warming alcohol (as it's forbidden), to experience what it’s like to be homeless and, of course, to raise money.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to donate to Vinnie’s and give Jon a pat on the back for supporting a cause to help homeless people. It seems that being homeless is not much fun rather than the easy life that some of us imagine. When Jon gets back, he’ll let you know how it was.

Click here to donate on Vinnie’s website.

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Zappos - Going to Extremes for customers!!!

Thu, 26 May 2011 03:22:00 GMT

I read a great article recently by the CEO of Zappos' Tony Hsieh on how they go that extra mile for their customers and that has resulted in phenomenal growth - from $184m in 2004 to over $1Billion turnover in 2009!!!

From humble beginnings in 1999, when Tony Hsieh invested $500,000 in what was universally considered a bad idea at the time: an online shoe store, Zappos quickly became the leading online apparel and footwear provider by striving to provide shoppers with the best possible service and selection. They offer millions of products from over 1000 different brands of clothing and shoes and are now owned by Amazon who bought them in 2009 for $1.2billion.

In 2004 they moved their entire workforce of 70 staff from San Francisco to Las Vegas to make use of the 24/7 customer service mentality and culture where people are used to thinking of customers as guests. It certainly paid off and was a great strategic decision.

They champion the telephone as one of the best branding devices they have – far better than social media and “integration marketing” – Tony says “you get the customers undivided attention for 5 – 10 minutes and if you get the interaction right they remember it for a long time and tell their friends about it.

How did they do it?

They make customers count and achieve exceptional customer service!!!
Make customer service a priority throughout the WHOLE company – not just a department
Empower employees – don’t let them have to escalate a problem to their supervisors
Fire customers who are insatiable.... yes we all have them!
Don’t measure call times and don’t use sales scripts – be yourself
Don’t hide your phone number – you WANT to talk to customers
View customer complaints as an investment – not an expense
Celebrate great service by telling exceptional stories to the entire company

Great pointers we can all use in our businesses... and if we do it well we might also get $1.2billion for ours?

Reference: “How I did it.. Zappos CEO on Going to Extremes for customers”

Steve Eastwood
Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne
www.smallfish.com.au

Business Coaching vs. Consultants

Thu, 26 May 2011 03:44:00 GMT

One of the common questions we come across in our meetings with business owners is that of ‘what is the difference between and Business Coach and a Business Consultant?’ Quite often the perception is that they are one of the same, but in reality there are many differences. To put it simply, think of a business coach as a personal trainer for your business. They help you meet a goal, work to motivate and drive you, and keep you on track, focussed and recognise achievements. A business coach will help you achieve your goals for your business.

A consultant on the other hand, is another resource available for business owners which are of value as well. A consultant will generally be an expert in a specific area or field who will provide a solution for the issue based on their knowledge or areas of specialisation. The client is generally engaged in the initial briefing and again at the end report presentation then has a choice to implement or not when they get their final report. The level of engagement is limited.

This doesn’t mean that there is one best option as per a coach or a consultant. Even though as a Business Coach myself, I should be saying we are the best option, it isn’t true. The key to the decision is really what does your business and you need. Do you want someone to come in and give you all the answers and a plan and leave you to it, or do you want the ongoing supportive process where you do the work and someone else drives you and holds you accountable? At various stages in a business cycle the need for each may arise…the main point is doing what is best for you.

Below lists some key points of difference between coaching and consulting.

Coaching

Cost based on the program (ie 12 months)
Focus on your accountability
Ask questions to you
Like A Teacher
Generalist knowledge
You do the work
Lifelong learning skills for you
Plan based on your needs
Utilises's your team's skills
You do the homework and are constantly involved
Applies proven and effective strategies for any category or industry
SOLUTIONS COME FROM YOU

Consulting

Cost generally by the hour
Focus on a deliverable
Tells you what or they will do it
Doer
Specialist in specific area
Consultant does the work
When consultant leaves, so does the experience.
Plan is driven by the deliverable definition
Uses other consultants
You are involved initially in planning and final acceptance, but otherwise little involvement
Applies strategies based on industry expertise for every category and industry
SOLUTIONS COME FROM CONSULTANT

As can be seen, the differences are considerable, but the roles and outcomes of each are also to meet different business needs. Whatever your need, the choice between the two options needs to be based more on the desired business gap you need help with. Good Luck!

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Differentiate Yourself From The Competition- Get Creative!

Tue, 24 May 2011 06:43:00 GMT

"Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny."
Carl Schurz (1829 - 1906)

Occasionally, you will encounter a new idea that is so simple, yet so powerful, you will be amazed. And quite often your next reaction will be ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ Take Zumba for example. It is estimated that 7.5 million people in 105 countries around the world are embracing this new, fun-filled form of exercise. There are now more than 3000 Zumba instructors in Australia alone. That’s a lot of wiggling hips and goofy grins!

How about Twitter? Or the 24-hour access gym? Or that nifty little scanner ‘Digiframe’ that scans photos and receipts and saves them as electronic files. My last example (I could go on… ) - a the company that converts blog pages into coffee table books – now that’s a turnaround!

As you search for a way to differentiate yourself from your competiton, original, creative ideas are gold. I learnt recently that our creativiety declines dramatically as we age, if we allow it to. But if you are looking for an edge in business, creativity is essential. Use your creativity to solve your customers’ problems more efficiently, or identify a problem that doesn’t yet have a solution and get creative finding one. Find a new way to deliver your existing product – the square pizza, the Cruizer pie, the ultra-concentrated detergent, the dentist check-up reminder via SMS.

Heres a few current trends you might want to focus on:

Make a great idea even better with personalization. Facebook is a great idea. Now you can pay creative types to ‘pimp’ your Facebook page to stand out from the crowd. Ikea revolutionized home furnishings, but for Canberrans, our closest store is in Sydney. A smart Canberra-based business now provides a delivery and assembly service for Canberra residents. A little further afield, a Dutch company, Mykea, allows you to customize your Ikea products by converting your personal photos into adhesive stickers which you attach to the furniture. Boardshorts were a welcome step forwards in the evolution of men’s swimwear (somebody point this out to Tony Abbott, please!), Shortomatic.com allows you to customize your shorts so you’ll always stand out in the surf.

Go Green. Many of us would like to ‘tread more lightly’ on Mother Earth and use eco-friendly products. If you’re a hairdresser, source enviro-friendly hair products. A new chain of carbon-neutra,l eco-friendly dry cleaners has just landed in Australia. And within the printing industry, those at the cutting edge are using vegetable-based inks and recycled papers. My newest client, Liz from Bali Flags, is developing eco-friendly signage solutions.

Love the Boomers. We hear daily about the aging population - the number of Australians aged between 65 and 84 will double in the next 40 years. Will you react with new products and services for this wealthy, mobile, discerning market? If you are a personal trainer or gym owner, tailor a program that focusses on maintaining flexability, builds bone density and adds a social context and fill those ‘middle of the day’ gaps. Home and garden and maintenace providers – look at how you can better serve the needs of this growing market.

Other ‘tribes’ with growing influence – women, the time-poor, social media junkies, pet owners…

Get creative, may the next big idea be one of yours!

Richard Everson
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Some Things Change, Some Things Stay The Same

Tue, 24 May 2011 06:44:00 GMT

In the words of French journalist and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr:

“plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”

Which translates to “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.

We often avoid change because it can be unsettling, a journey to the unknown and into uncertainty. Sometimes we fear what change might bring, and feel safer in the “known” certainty of continuing in the same way we have been.
If we think about it, this thinking is based on the assumption that not changing anything will lead to a known and certain outcome.

In business, if we carry on in exactly the same way we did in the past, can we seriously expect exactly the same result in the future?

Economists have found the Latin expression “Ceteris Parabis” useful when trying to explore the effect of change. It means “all other things remaining the same."

Essentially, if all other things stayed the same, and we carry on in our business in the same way, then perhaps we can expect the same result in our business in the future.

But this thinking is fundamentally flawed – because in the real world, ALL other things do NOT remain the same. (Perhaps that explains why economists sometimes get it wrong!)

If you compare your business this year with your business last year - not only has the business probably changed, but the external environment within which your business operates has also changed.

Think about it. Your team, your management, your equipment, processes, customers, pricing, costs (the lists goes on) – are they all the same?

Let alone the changes that have occurred in technology, the environment, in government and with your competitors (again, the list goes on) that will undoubtedly have an effect on your business.

Can change therefore be avoided? Is choosing not to change the most certain course of action?

By now I think you will agree with me that change is inevitable – perhaps change is indeed as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus stated “the only constant."

So how do we change? The first step in the process of change is to assess and understand your situation.

When was the last time you stopped what you were doing to have a good look at your business and how it interacts with the world around it? Is this something you do on a regular basis?

If you haven’t done it in a while, stop now and make the time out to do it. There are plenty of resources and tools out there to help you.

Kristian Reiss
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

Is Your Hourly Rate Enough?

Tue, 24 May 2011 06:45:00 GMT

Do you feel like you are NOT earning enough for all the hard work you do in your small business? Are your earning requirements fair and reasonable?

If you answered yes to both questions, then maybe you need to put your prices up!

Many small businesses charge too little for the products or services they provide. This leaves them with a business that operates on small margins and, often, earning less from all their hard work than they would earn in a job!

Sometimes it is difficult to work out what your business’ charge-out rate should be.

To help in this situation, you can use the Hourly Rate Calculator - a useful little tool to help you work out an hourly charge-out rate for your business.

This tool is also useful if you are facing competitive pressures. It gives you an opportunity to analyse your costs for efficiencies, as well as understand any competitive advantage you may have (to help you better explain why you charge more than your competitors).
The Hourly Rate Calculator (and instructions on how to use it) can be downloaded from the Small Fish website here. Of course, if you get stuck, give us a call.

Kristian Reiss
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

Noreena Hertz: How to use experts - and when not to

Mon, 16 May 2011 00:49:00 GMT

Another TED video where an economics professor and adviser to the UK Prime Minister (an expert herself) is advising us not to trust everything the experts tell us. It’s a thought-provoking discussion and one that feels right to me. Too often do we hear people not thinking for themselves and relying on someone else to make a decision for them.

As a business coach, I hear people say things like “I’ll have to ask my accountant” and they defer to the accountant’s decision on whether to do something. (Not meaning disrespect to accountants, of course but their optinion on a project should be one piece of the puzzle, we shouldn’t be abrogating our responsibility for making our decisions, as entrepreneurs, to them)

I even find people expect me, as their business coach, to tell them which decision they should make. “I don’t mind sharing my opinion but your decisions are your own”, I always say..

It’s time we took our experts opinion in context and made our decisions ourselves.

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Business Blog Feedback

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 04:39:00 GMT

I wonder if you can help us out.........

We send our Fish Tales every week. Some of you read it and even respond. Others not. We’d like to make it more useful and interesting to you.

What would you like to see from us? Please post comments below.

Thoughts:

• Free online business coaching – you send questions or problems in and one of us will offer ideas or advice for nothing. (Obviously, this is more of a website thing than a weekly articles thing)

• Specific topic requests – time management, marketing, leadership

• Should we put on events and use the emails to invite you to them? We’re thinking workshops on specific topics
such as setting strategy, writing marketing plans, managing people, leading.

We’re happy to share what we know – between us we know a fair bit – but we’re also clear that the value in coaching is not the knowledge we share but the process and the relationship that causes you to take action.

We’d like to make our website and our emails (and ourselves) a useful resource that helps you make your business better so that when (if) you want business coaching and the changes that come with it, you come to us and invite us to talk to you.

Please help us be useful.

We promise to try!

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Happy Workers are Productive Workers

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 04:00:00 GMT

The notion that “happy workers are productive workers” seems obvious at first but was developed over 70 years ago in the 1930’s and 40s by researchers conducting the Hawthorne studies in Western Electrics. It was an interesting and revolutionary experiment at the time to determine if production in a factory changed under high or low light intensities or by using different light sources over work places.

They found was that production had very little to do with light type or intensity at all!!!– they concluded that all working teams improved production simply due to the motivational effect of the interest being shown in them. This became known as the “Hawthorne Effect”.

Based on those conclusions, managers worked to make their workers happy by improving working conditions and the environment in which they work.

The reverse may also be true... productive workers are more likely to be happy workers. Why? Well - productivity leads to job satisfaction. If staff do a good job they intrinsically feel good about it. This increased productivity is likely to lead to higher wages, increased recognition and possibility of promotion. These rewards in turn increase job satisfaction.

Creating a great working environment, with supportive working conditions and providing mentally challenging work will contribute to having happy workers. Studies show workers prefer physical surroundings that are not dangerous or uncomfortable. They also like working relatively close to home, in clean and relatively modern conditions with adequate tools and equipment to do a challenging job.

Business owners should take note because higher job satisfaction leads to a decrease in absenteeism and lower rates of staff turnover– great profit drivers in any business!!!

Steve Eastwood
Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne
www.smallfish.com.au

Should you manage your staff?

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 03:59:00 GMT

I recently had a meeting with one of my clients- OfficePCs who provide awesome IT support of hardware and software to businesses within the ACT region. Some work was being completed on improving some structured processes around the people management in the business.

For this task, I was fortunate to be able to leverage the resources of my HR guru (and wife) Stacey to help with the process, so instead of just one Small Fish, they got the help of ‘school’ (sorry for the fish pun)! This got me thinking about the performance management process for businesses and although my Canberra Small Fish colleague Richard Everson recently posted a blog on Performance Management I thought a few ideas on the topic were still appropriate.

In my free coaching sessions, it is apparent that the area of process around managing people is often missing. Businesses start with a small team-usually the owner, and as they grow to employ people, quite often the system to implement a structured and detailed process to manage good and not so good performance is overlooked until an issue arises.

So what should you do?

My HR consultant recommends the following simple process loop to implement and manage this from a start-up standpoint:

1. Understand the overall business goals and objectives (Your Vision)
2. Establish individual performance goals linked to the vision, and identify the key skills needed to achieve the vision (this should be a collaborative process with those involved)
3. Improve the performance with ongoing performance coaching and feedback (and document all discussions)
4. Evaluate the performance based on the objectives and targets (so you need to track them)
5. Reward the performance (this can be financially, verbally, or whatever your organisational culture dictates). The old adage of what get measured improves, and what gets rewarded gets repeated is true, we all love positive recognition.

The key message is the same as with most aspects of business. You need to have a process and a system for all aspects, and due to the fact that people are your biggest cost (usually) and your biggest asset as they grow $$ for you, you must establish one now if you don’t have it in place.

The time is right now to review your process in this area and ensure your staff is your number one asset. Should you need any help, of course feel free to contact me for a free coaching session, and who knows you may be able to get the awesome support from Stacey too!

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Get your business online

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 06:31:00 GMT

If your business doesn’t already have its own website – then you absolutely must read this.

Google and MYOB have joined forces to create Getting Aussie Business Online with the mission to help Australian businesses to benefit from the opportunities of the Internet.

As they say, a website today is like a phone - every business needs one. Their goal is to help 50,000 Australian businesses get online with their first website.

But this is so much more than just a free website, it also includes:

• A trial of $75 worth of Google Adwords
• A free business listing on Google Maps
• Ongoing tips and education
• Plus a free .com.au domain for 2-years!

We think this is a fantastic initiative, and it now means there are absolutely no excuses for anyone in small business not to be online. Check out some success stories.

To find out more about how this works, watch this video, then get started with getting your business online. It only takes 15 minutes!

Kristian Reiss
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

Budgeting - Keeping Your Business On Target!

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:14:00 GMT

Many small businesses only think about doing a budget when they have cash flow problems. A financial budget is like a financial scorecard for your business to which you can compare actual results throughout the year. Without it, how will you know where your business is financially?

Not having a realistic budget is a bit like driving along a straight road with your hands off the steering wheel. At some stage, your business will start drifting off the straight and narrow. When planning a budget, start with the vision you want your business to achieve for the year. What does the vision mean for profit, sales and cash flow? How will it impact your margins, fixed costs and variable costs?

If you think this is all too much effort, think again. By just going through the process you will get a good understanding of your business and where it is heading. If you don’t understand your business, you can’t expect it to be a success.

So where do you start when setting a financial budget? Sales which is the engine of your business. You should look at industry and economic cycles, not just what you sold last year. What has changed and what is likely to change? Next you should consider your costs taking into account your business objectives, price increases, promotional campaigns etc. Talk to your staff, they will be able to provide business insights and they are more likely to commit to the plan if they are involved it its development.

Budgets and forecasts are about planning for profit. But just as important is planning for cash flow. A cash flow forecast is necessary for you to foresee likely cash shortages. Knowing when they could occur allows you to plan to borrow cash or reduce inventory to cope with any shortfalls. Do you have genuinely useful financial and cash flow budgets? They are essential management tools!

Plus a couple of quotes:

Action
A good battle plan that you act on today can be better than a perfect one tomorrow.
General George Patton

Motivation
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker.

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coach Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

Why The Best Small Business Ideas Fail!

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:01:00 GMT

There are many statistics on the number of small businesses that never make it past the first year of trade. I have seen figures as high as 90% quoted! Why do some of the best business ideas fail miserably?

I am sure some are just great idea’s that never quite translate to the consumer. For most it is a simple case of not knowing what they are getting themselves into. Here are five of the biggest blunders that you should watch out for:

1. Limited (or no) capital
Building a profitable small business requires an input of capital and if you ask around I am sure most successful small business owners will say “estimate what you think you need, then multiple by 10!” Don’t forget that it is not just money you will need. Consider time and energy as part of your capital. If you are trying to build a business whilst working full-time or even part-time something will eventually have to give.

2. Lack of commitment and discipline
Many small business owners underestimate the time and commitment needed to achieve success. There is enormous discipline required. You no longer have the structure of a job to go to every day. There is no one to fire you if you don’t turn up for a week. Your time is your own, you must use it wisely. Long lunches and lack of commitment and discipline will crush your business.

3. Not understanding your target market
I cringe when I ask business owners who their target market is and they answer “everyone”. You must identify your target market or you will fail to develop a sales message specific enough to entice anyone!

4. Lack of planning
Plan, plan, plan! It is imperative that you have a comprehensive plan before you even think about that great new business idea. Business plans and marketing plans don’t count if they only exist in your head. Get those idea’s down on paper and use this as your road map to success. Update regularly and be specific in you goals.

5. Manic Marketing
Choose a marketing mix that suits your business. Once again if you have not identified your target market you will struggle to get your marketing mix correct. Monitor your marketing weekly and stick with it! Many businesses throw bits of cash at random marketing efforts without any monitoring. If they don’t get a lead in the first week they decide that particular marketing effort didn’t work and they move on to the next. Give your marketing efforts a fair go before declaring failure.

I could go on and on…. but I won’t. If you are committing any of the above sins then give yourself a stern talking to! Or call me and I will do it for you!

Check out this you tube clip for a great idea that failed! Given the chance I would love to “Live the dream”. Rumour has it that it was nothing to do with lack of planning, apparently the companies founder was doing something a little dodgy and ended up in a bit of trouble.

Melanie Miller
Small Fish Business Coach Gold Coast
www.smallfish.com.au

Focus On Your Strengths

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:42:00 GMT

Many of us are familiar with the process of an annual performance appraisal. I was taught to follow this format:

• Look back
• Review the good and bad
• Look forwards
• Set goals, focus on areas for improvement

Sounds like a plan!

Perhaps there is another way? Consider this approach:

• Look back
• Identify what you are good at and and enjoy doing
• Look forwards
• Plan to do less of the stuff you don’t enjoy, or are not good at, and more of the stuff you are good at

Let’s face it, its easier to spend time doing what you’re good at. It adds more value, causes less grief. Hopefully there’s someone else in the organisation who loves doing the stuff you don’t. If not, go external.

We’re all good at something. Are you aware what your strengths are? Here are some clues to help you identify your strengths. You know your good at something when:

• Time flies by when you are engaged in this activity – you’re in ‘the flow’
• What seems difficult to others is effortless for you
• Others seek you out to assist them with this activity
• Your hobbies and outside interests include this activity – for example you are a member of Rostrum because you love communicating with others or your personal blog page looks amazing because you love design
• Some of your greatest triumphs have been built around this strength – the great deal you negotiated, the project you managed

Any bells ringing yet? You may not be able to identify your strengths right now, but it is imperative for your future success and achievement that you begin the process of discovering ‘your gift’.

Do you spend the majority of your day in that activity? Many of us may be aware of our strengths, but are in a role where we are not able to fully exploit them. Change this. Actively seek out positions that allow you to use your strengths on a daily basis. This may take time, and involve some risk, but the benefits are huge.

As the body of human knowledge expands exponentially, it is no longer possible to be a successful ‘generalist’. No single scientist can grasp all the key concepts of such a broad field. In the field of medicine, specialists are becoming more and more focussed as their areas of expertise become more complex. The point is, specialists are in demand. And it is highly unlikely that you will develop expertise in a given field if you are not passionate about it. On the other hand, if you build your career around your area of expertise, you are leveraging your strengths to offer something truly special, and valuable.

Often business owners start a business to allow them to indulge in their passion. The keen fisherman opens a Tackle Shop, the amateur photographer turns professional. Along the way, the business of business can overwhelm them and the passion may be lost, or pushed to the background. Businesses succeed when they are built and operated with passion and when their owners are specialists in their field. Are you the best at what you do?

Richard Everson
Small Fish Business Coach Murrumbateman
www.smallfish.com.au

Illawarra Business Woman Of the Year 2011

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:42:00 GMT

Illawarra Mercury 31st March 2011

“CARMEN Rudd and Natalie Viselli have been named as the Illawarra Business Woman of the Year and Illawarra Young Business Woman of the Year.

The prestigious awards were announced when Illawarra Women in Business (IWIB) directors Glenda Papac and Delyse Del Turco yesterday hosted the third annual IWIB Illawarra Business Women's Awards.

Mrs Rudd was recognised for her role in developing Wollongong Serviced Apartments into a leading accommodation venue, developing an innovative new business called Illawarra Concierge and using her business successes to make a difference to many people in the Wollongong community and around the world.

She was chosen from 20 finalists for making many significant contributions with her time, talents and resources.

This year's awards had double the number of entries from 2010.

In accepting her award, Mrs Rudd acknowledged her late father Paul Gauci for inspiring her in business.”

Increasing Revenue - Using The Sales Funnel

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:51:00 GMT

One of the Drivers of Profitability is finding ways to increase Revenue (often referred to as Turnover, or Income, or Sales). It is possible to increase sales by understanding and improving the sales process that exists within your business. When I refer to your sales process, I am referring to the process that starts with Marketing or Prospecting activities, and ultimately leads to a customer making a decision to buy your product or service – and all the stages along the way. This is sometimes referred to as a Sales Funnel.

It is called a Sales Funnel because of the simple realisation that not everyone is going to buy our product or service. We talk to many, many more people in the marketing stage than the number that ultimately end up becoming customers. Hence the analogy of a funnel – wide at the top, narrow at the bottom.

A Generic Sales Process Diagram and Funnel Description can be downloaded here.

Having a defined and consistent sales process will improve sales performance, leading to more sales. It also allows you to monitor and potentially improve performance at each step. For example, you might measure “percentages” of how many people progress from stage to stage (or overall), and consider how that can be improved along the way. Remember, small changes can produce large results!

These “percentages” are useful in another way too. If you are trying to meet specific sales targets, and you know your percentages, you can use this information to “reverse engineer” how big a pool of prospective customers you will need to have to find enough customers to meet your sales targets. Then all you need to do is fill your funnel with the right number prospective customers. It sounds easy – and really, it is! It just requires hard work, focus and determination (and adequate resources).

How well defined is your sales process? Can you improve your performance?

Kristian Reiss
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

Wombat Selling In Two Minutes

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 02:17:00 GMT

Seamus says “read Wombat Selling (256 pages) or read the 2 minute essence of same with critical analysis, plus four and two thirds bonus joke pack, Great value and only half a page. The choice is yours.”

Firstly people buy what they want,

when they want it,

from whom they want at

the price they want to pay. (S O’Brien - 2011)

You can alter this by applying tried and true sales techniques to swing the pendulum in your direction but like all pendulums it will return to its equilibrium. That is people buy what they want, when they want it from whom they want at the price they want to pay.

As the master said “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” (Jack O’Brien - 1962 to son on Banjo).
I propose that you can’t sell anything just remove the barriers to doing business inherent in systems, people and processes of all enterprise, ID who might most likely want your stuff and communicate in such a way they can buy if that’s what they want.

Secondly, people do not buy what they need or what others think they need or should want. They buy what they want as well as what they have no choice about buying (taxes, road tolls, Ego Caramel Magnum). Otherwise the main roadsides would be crowded with organic market gardeners selling fruit and vegetables to passing motorists driving small electric cars.

You might have noticed the MacDoogles is everywhere and the car parks are full of large four wheel drive truckettes.

UNCHECKTOCHECK

Nanoo... Nanoo (Mork to Ork - 1978)

Seamus O'Brien
Small Fish Business Coaching Illawarra
www.smallfish.com.au

Riding The Recovery

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 01:47:00 GMT

The other day I found a useful little book at the newsagents which is good value at under $10. It’s titled Riding the Recovery
and is authored by Alexandra Cain and David Koch (Wilkinson Publishing). It boasts “101 success strategies for business and life”.

It’s an easy read and a good checklist for all business owners, and offers some useful tips. It provides information and advice about: financial discipline and responsibility; maximising government incentives for small business; increasing cash flow; becoming more entrepreneurial and innovative; winning more business; and working less and achieving more.

One recommendation in the book is to get a business coach. “A business coach is a wonderful way to get a different perspective on your business. Ask people in your network who they use as a business coach and what they think of them to find someone who can make a real difference to your business. The beauty of working with a good business coach is that they can help you define your strategy, work out your business priorities, and help keep you focused on what you need to be doing to execute the strategy.”

Neil McVicar
Small Fish Business Coaching Coffs Harbour
www.smallfish.com.au

The Unlimited Opportunity That Exists Within Every Business

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 04:18:00 GMT

I once heard a great lesson on the “Meaning of Life” -Gross Margin –by Tim Atterton a Champion of Entrepreneurship and Small Business.

Tim has since updated his definition and calls it ‘the real income of any business’, which he says has powerful undertones. I’m sure you’ll agree with him. With his permission I am pleased to share it with you.....

You only need to know 3 lines in your Profit and Loss Statement....

Revenue (Sales)

Cost of Sales &

Gross Profit.

All other things are less important and here’s why...

Imagine your Profit and Loss Statement has a metaphorical dotted red line drawn below the Gross Margin.....

The potential to improve the profit below the red dotted line is mathematically limited to ZERO!! Try as hard as you want and eventually you’ll have no fixed costs and no business- its virtually impossible. You can’t ring the landlord and tell him you’re not paying the rent!!

On the other hand... the capacity to increase profit ABOVE the line in any business is mathematically UNLIMITED!!! This is where good small businesses focus their energy.
Tim says there are only 4 ways to do it:

• Resist the temptation to discount or cut your prices or give discounts – even if your competitors are doing it.
• Raise you prices a little and often –no need to put a banner out saying “price increase today” – keep it under the radar.
• Reduce your cost of sales
• Sell higher margin products and drop low margin products

All these initiatives will go straight to your bottom line and improve your Nett Profit. That’s what it’s all about!

Thanks Tim – I’ll never forget that great advice and it certainly helped me in my business.

Steve Eastwood
Small Fish Business Coaching Melbourne
www.smallfish.com.au

Organisational Culture

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:50:00 GMT

One of my clients, Sharon, owns a hair salon. She employs a team of 6 ladies, the youngest is just 16. I’m sure you can imagine, she has her hands full keeping the team focussed and working together. It’s not because they’re not good at their jobs, it’s a challenge business owners face every day – it’s just human nature. The juniors feel threatened, the seniors feel they are not being listened to… and why can’t we read our text messages at work?

We thought a workshop on Organisational Culture might be a good way of addressing a range of issues effectively. Here’s an outline of what we’re going to cover.

Definition of Organisational Culture
• Very simply, the way we do things around here. The shared values and beliefs of the team.

Why Are We Here
• Our organisational culture impacts on how we deliver our brand and our customer service. And these impact our sales. Get it right, we grow. Get it wrong, we close!

Where Do We Start
• We start by agreeing the Vision and Mission of the organisation. These are largely dictated by the business owner as the business should be a reflection of the owner’s dreams and aspirations. We are planning to invite the team to make a contribution to the Vision and Mission statements, as both should include a team member’s perspective. But at the end of the day, the owner has the last word. “It’s my bus, if you want to come for the ride, you do it my way”.

We’ve been doing a lot of work refining the Vision and Mission of the hair salon and we think we’ve got it just about right. Briefly, Sharon has many years of experience and, after seeing ‘how not to do it’ she is keen to get it right. She loves the skill and artistry of long hair styling and works very hard to keep up with contemporary styles and techniques. She and her team regularly receive training from some of Australia’s top stylists and Sharon provides paid skills training to her team every Wednesday. (In case you haven’t realized it by now, she is serious about ‘getting it right’!).

Code of Conduct
• We then move on to discussing the specifics of a ‘code of conduct’. How are we going to treat each other at work? Rather than produce a huge list of rules – do’s and don’ts, we will be focussing on shared values. For example – ‘respect’. Sharon is keen for the juniors to give their more experienced colleagues the respect they deserve, but of course, it goes both ways. We should all treat each other the way we would like to be treated. We will look at these values from the perspective of ‘The Team’ and ‘The Business’. What does each team member expect? At least a ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. What does the business need to deliver to it’s customers – the phone to be answered promptly and courteously by the person closest, even if that person is a junior who may not know all the answers.

Some other values we hope to share – a customer focus, professionalism, recognizing achievement, shared contribution… we’ll see what else comes up.

Who Is The Enemy?
• In any hierachy there is bound to be some competition. We are hoping to turn that competitive focus outwards. Instead of competing against their colleagues, Sharon is hoping we can direct these competitive energies into outrunning her competitors. And winning doesn’t mean crushing them into the ground, it means rising so far above them that they are no longer in the same race.

I’m looking forward to it. The team are a great bunch and I’m sure, after the workshop, they’ll realise that work is a fun place to be when everyone agrees to work together.

Richard Everson
Small Fish Business Coaching Murrumbateman
www.smallfish.com.au

Networking Your Business

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:30:00 GMT

As business owners, there is constant effort applied in various forms to seek new business. This is (hopefully) done via a detailed and targeted Marketing plan, which taps into your Target Market and segments to give the most success, but there is one area that costs a lot less and can get you closer to potential clients much easier and quicker. This is by networking.

Networking is ‘creating a group of acquaintances and associates and keeping it active through regular communication for mutual benefit’ according to www.Businessdictionary.com. In regards to business and more importantly your business, this means putting yourself in alliances with those of whom you can potentially do business with, or who can refer business to you. This is an extremely powerful method because, as our human instincts work, we would much sooner deal with people we know or trust, and by being part of a network, or referred by one, the level of trust and your integrity in enhanced.

So how do you network? This is often the hardest part mentally, but not in reality. Firstly understand what it is you do in business, then search local business networks in this area on Google as a starting point and I am sure you will find many options. The local business council or Chamber of Commerce is also a good starting point. Talk to people in your field or in business as they will have associations or groups they can recommend, as too will your accountant, lawyer, financial planner, or even your business coach? All these people will be able to point you in the right direction.

Once all your homework is done, the biggest challenge is to actually go! Make a calendar commitment for the events; make it a part of your working week to actually schedule to network yourself and your business. Then attend the events.
There are two different types of people you will come across at a networking event. The first one is one who is blatantly out to promote their business, their product or service and get sales from the group- nothing wrong with this, but some people may find them too ‘in your face’. The second one, is one who attends these events, and focuses more on meeting people, finding out about them and their business and making any relevant suggestions to people they may know who can do business with them. These tend to be more successful longer term as people get to know them and like them, therefore start to refer or give business to them. The question you need to ask yourself is which approach suits and fits your personality, and approach to potential networking.

Networking is powerful and will help your business, make sure it is a part of your marketing strategy.
Of course, as business coaches, we can help direct you to any potential networks that may suit your needs, so feel free to contact us with any queries.
Happy Networking!

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

The Silver Lining Around This Financial Cloud

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:39:00 GMT

I’ve been meeting with a lot of very interesting business owners lately. People are dealing with all kinds of challenges, but of course the economy is hanging over every decision. It’s increased pressures on many dimensions, both personally and in business.

But there’s some key things we need to remember about these times. First, EVERYONE has to deal with the economy. It’s not like the planet is beating you up personally, even though it feels it sometimes. Your competitors are dealing with the same situation, as are your partners, suppliers, and customers. So don’t take the entire weight of the world on your shoulders.

Second, customers are more price-sensitive than they were 5 or 10 years ago. They’ve always been sensitive to the tradeoff between price and value, it’s just that the balance has shifted towards price. That doesn’t mean people don’t care about quality and value anymore – in fact, I’ve spoken with many quality-oriented businesses that are starting to see the balance shift back a little. It will change slowly, so make sure that you have some good deals for those customers who have to pinch pennies. There’s lots of them. If you develop a good relationship now, they’ll continue buying from you as things recover.

Third, recognise that a time of turmoil always rewards creativity. It’s quite exciting to talk with so many people who are trying innovative things – switching over to cheaper digital media for their marketing and customer service, or combining products into new bundles and packages, or restructuring their services. What these people are discovering is that these ideas would have had great value ANYWAY, it’s just that the economic stress forced them to ask the tough questions and get creative. They’re doing things which are different, which make them stand out from the competition.

And remember to take time to work ON your business. This stressful situation can cause you to try to work 24/7 – yes, even while you’re sleeping. But take some time to think about the larger picture, what will sustain you for the long term.

Car Dierschow
Small Fish Business Coaching Fort Collins
www.smallfish.com.us

Equation For Success

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:25:00 GMT

Andrew Carnegie was one of Americas richest millionaires at the turn of the century. His formula for success almost 100 years ago is still valid today.

1. Direct energy towards achieving your goals
2. Always have a positive mental attitude
3. Have faith in your own capabilities
4. Give more service than expected
5. Take initiative to turn desire into action
6. Seek new and better ways of doing things
7. Discipline yourself
8. Organise your thinking
9. Learn from your defeats and mistakes
10. Have underlying enthusiasm to achieve

Nigel Hobbs
Small Fish Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

Are My Staff Any Good?

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:23:00 GMT

For all those businesses that have staff, hopefully you have a system of detailed and thorough training in place. Your staff need to be able to provide the level of service that drives consistency and quality in each transaction- to give the customer a desire to come back again and more frequently. A recent personal experience showed that while we may have some good basic process, it is the ‘unknown’ that differentiates the ‘good from great’ businesses. (Read Jim Collins’ articles)

One advantage of being a business coach is the flexibility of my working day. This means I can do some of the ‘fun’ things, like shopping, during the day. While the standard grocery items can be acquired from the big two supermarket chains, I like to get good quality meat, so I go to a local butcher.

This particular day I was seeking a Scotch Fillet cryovac pack and went to the local independent butcher. I was greeted pleasantly, I explained what I wanted and was subsequently shown my options which were all good and I was looking forward to a great consumer experience. This was until I asked an ‘unknown’ question to the young guy serving me…”Where does the beef come from?” There was a short pause, then the reply of “From a box out the back!’ Clearly this was going to be a bit tougher to extract the desired information.

“Do you know where the meat that went into the box came from?” I continued.

“Nah, it just comes from a truck, in a box and we put it on the shelf…..do you want me to have a look on the box?” he continued reluctantly.

“Yes please that would be great”, I replied more out of curiosity as to how this would play out.

Eventually I got a response after he had disappeared out the back for some time and got the reply of it coming either from “Victoria or Queensland” so I still don’t really know!

My point is ask yourself whether your staff training process covers adequate information to respond to the left field question, as they will and do come. Do they have the basic knowledge-base to cover what should be some standard questions, such as a supply line for a butcher, as this shouldn’t be a left field question - it is what they sell!

On another occasion I was conducting a business meeting with a butcher in Wanniassa. His product looked great, so I asked him about his scotch fillet and then asked where it was from. Immediately I got ‘Swan Hill’ as the response, but then also I was told that recent flooding was potentially going to cause some risk to this and he may need to amend that supply. On this occasion the knowledge on his product was highly detailed and conveyed with a sense of passion to me as the customer. Not only that, the product was excellent and I will definitely look at making the extra drive to see Jordo at Jordos Chop Shop vs. my local guy.

What level of service do you offer to your customers?

Tony Ozanne
Small Fish Business Coaching Canberra
www.smallfish.com.au

Work Personalitiy Types - Understanding Your Team

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:01:00 GMT

Some time ago, I came across an incredibly useful model to help you identify the progression between different work personalities that exist within your team. It is called the Work Personalities Model, and it identifies two specific dimensions of personality in the workplace – Level of Happiness and Willingness to Express. It then maps out a progression (or regression!) between 4 different work personality modes in your team - from Prisoner, Survivor, Whinger to Volunteer.

Obviously, it would be good to be surrounded by a team of “Volunteers” – however it is also useful to understand the dynamics behind how people progress between the different personalities. We should also resist the temptation to suggest that if they’re not all volunteers, it is a negative. For example, one positive about a “Whinger” is that they are willing to express themselves. A lot of people as part of a team will move back and forth between Whinger and Volunteer mode. So, if you want to know what’s not working in your business – ask a Whinger!

Watch out for the “Survivor” in your business. It is very hard to run a high-performing business with a team of Survivors. They are more interested in self-preservation than the company or even their own ambitions.

Finally, the “Prisoner” tends not to make much contribution at all. They may even attempt to sabotage things. You will probably need to consider letting them go if they cannot be helped – however they are usually so detached from what is going on, they will probably end up leaving anyway.

The Work Personalities model can be downloaded from the Small Fish website here.

Which personality are you? How about your team?

Kristian Reiss
Small Fish Business Coaching Perth
www.smallfish.com.au

Future Thought

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:28:00 GMT

The Future! What is your future? How often do you think about the future? Does having children make you more concerned about the future? I know I think and discus the future a lot. It is the last wild unknown frontier!

I find the future to be an amazing and fascinating opportunity both personally and professionally. There are always so many big unanswered questions and yet history plays such a big part in helping us find meaning. In recent times I have had 3 experiences that have led me to the future so I thought I would share them with you.

Take a look and let me know what you think of the future and in particular how your business will play a role. It is crucial that we know and understand how to make the best decisions that will impact our personal, business and community sustainability on a planet that is being inundated by more humans with less natural resources.

My experiences started with meeting Craig Rispin at the Flying Solo Live event in 2010. Craig is a professional futurist and has an amazing knowledge that he calls upon to make sound predictions (for want of a better word) for the future. He came over to the Small Fish stand and began sprouting information about new and innovative ideas on the internet. He literally blew my mind. The pace at which new and exciting topics came from his brain just stopped mine from working. He was an inspiration and I can highly recommend Checking him out.

My 2nd experience was recently on Facebook. Mind turned off, whizzing past all of those nonsense status updates I came across this awesome topic that made me stop and look. The topic was A day made of Glass. This is a fantastic example of how a business is planning for the future and delivers that vision by the fastest growing form of mass media.......YouTube. Check out the video here.

And thirdly, I was sent a website after an excellent lunch discussion with passionate views on what the future holds. My friend Grant provided me an excellent insight into the criticality of businesses getting it right when they plan for meeting the needs of future consumers. Take a look at this excellent example of thinking about the future right now by Siemens.

There you have it. My brief little insight into the future. If you like cars, you will probably have also seen the exciting new concepts at the 81st Geneva Motorshow, very sexy! So, if all of that doesn't get you thinking about the future, then lets do lunch. I love to meet people that think about it as much as I do. See you in the future.

Simon Thomas
Business Coaching Sydney
www.smallfish.com.au

A Blatant Advertisement

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:41:00 GMT

Like business coaching all registered clubs are certainly not equal.

Just this week, I had the worst meal I have had since four years ago when I had a box of 5 hour old chicken with half cooked potatoes, (from a franchise operation with red lettering) one Christmas eve as I was madly driving madly to a gig in Queensland.

Both the meals, (this week and the red chicken meal) featured chicken, the same cheap frozen peas and was just as inedible.

Food summary YUK!! The first one went into the garbage at the next fuel stop, this week’s sat on my plate as I tried to hide my disgust from my fabulous hosts until it was removed. I really hope it found its way to garbage as well.

This week’s meal was uneaten at a registered club and while sometimes club food needs a little expectation downgrade, often you can eat it. And there is more...The club which had obviously seen better days (1962 when last renovated) was the venue of an important address by a bevy of foreign dignitaries. The club had failed to test its PA system when they set it up, so the Australian representative of a foreign Government and other very special dignitaries had their voices distorted like some weird new pop song. Club management then attempted to rectify their lack of care and attention to day to day detail by setting up new microphones and disrupting the dignitaries address.

Given what they had done to an Australian Chicken earlier in the night I guess that representative of a foreign government could expect no less. Still what a debacle.

I will not name the club because that would help no one.

I have just stepped into my second registered club of the week. I admit I have been to this club twice in the last two weeks, but I am not a member (yet). As I was warmly greeted by a perfectly attired desk clerk who had me sign in, I heard from the bar adjacent to the sign in desk a voice saying “Your coffee Sir." I looked across at the bar and the club's assistant manager was speaking to me and beaming next to him was the maître d who beckoned me across the room. Low and behold there was a cup of coffee made for me with 1 Equal and a little almond thingo on the side. “Care for coffee Sir?” he said.

How special.

New fresh, personal and exciting. I was made to feel refreshed and I just loved it.

I will name this one The American Club Sydney www.theamericanclub.com.au

Now the blatant advert.

Some say to me, as I tool around speaking to business people, “Oh I have had a business coach and .......”.

I say to you (of you who have had one before) just like all registered clubs are not equal neither are all business coaching organisations.

Small Fish is new, fresh and exciting. It will make you feel special and you will just love it

Seamus O'Brien
Small Fish Business Coaching Illawarra
www.smallfish.com.au

Creative Marketing

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:48:00 GMT

I had a chance to go to the inaugural meeting of the local Executive Center Roundtable this morning. It was a good example of taking some good ideas in marketing and adding a creative twist.

On the face of it, this group looks a little like many of the networking and leads groups that have grown like weeds here in northern Colorado. From what I’ve seen, this is a huge trend all over the globe as small business owners discover the power of marketing via referrals and personal connections.

What’s interesting about this particular group is that it’s not sponsored by a networking and business-building services company, nor was it started by an individual who was struggling in their business development. That covers most of the other networking groups I’ve seen. Instead, this is sponsored by The Executive Center, which provides office space for startup and very small businesses, as a way to provide professional, productive office space.

Why would such a company want to sponsor a networking group? It’s actually a carefully considered strategy. First, value is given to clients of the Center when they interact with each other and with other similar small businesses in the community. Second, new clients for the Center could very well stem from people who participate in the Roundtable and see the value that the Center can provide. Third, this will probably result in referrals for new clients for the Center.

Kudos to Amanda, who took an idea that has great energy in the local market, and added some unique aspects which serve her target customers to bring in new business.

As an extra bonus, I saw this morning that the waiting list to get into this meeting was as large as the people who came – the limit stemming from the size of the room. This shows that a buzz has been created in the community, something that we all strive for but often find so elusive. Just a few hours after the meeting, the next one is nearly full, and will no doubt have a waiting list by the time you see this. It’s quite possible that a second similar group will be able to start, thus expanding TEC’s marketing reach to a whole new set of entrepreneurs.

This is a great lesson in marketing creatively!

Carl Dierschow
Small Fish Business Coach Fort Collins
www.smallfish.us

Work Less, Achieve More

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:26:00 GMT

The concept sounds attractive, but can it be done? ‘Work Less, Achieve More’ is actually the title of a book by Fergus O’Connell, an Irishman famous for his project management skills. (No, this is not a joke!). In his book, Fergus uses simple language to outline how applying a few ‘guiding principles’ of time management can actually allow you to achieve more by doing less work. He applies the principles to managing your job, improving the efficiency of your organisation, and, without getting too deep, your life.

Here are the basic principles:

• Work efficiently. Fergus acknowledges the work of David Allen and his Getting Things Done approach as a great starting point. Fergus, and many others, have a great respect for David’s approach to ‘efficient time management’.

• He takes this one step further. He notes that for the vast majority of us, no matter how efficient and organised we are, we will not be able to get through all the work that we believe we need to do. His answer - don’t do some stuff. He calls this ‘extreme time management’! Here’s his ‘filter system’ for doing less – say ‘no’ nicely, but often; prioritise viciously and use a little planning to avoid a lot of ‘firefighting’.

The key to making this system work is knowing what your priorities are. If you have a clear idea of what is important to you, you will know where to focus your time. Things like your health, your family and your livelihood will take priority. Now drill a bit deeper. What are the key elements that drive success in your job? Keeping your existing clients happy is probably high on the list. Finding new clients is probably also important for many. What are the fundamentals of success in your role?

Do you know what is on your ‘Big List’ right now? Take a moment and write it down. If you don’t know, it’s probably a good time to do some deep thinking.

How many things on your current ‘to do’ list are crucial to achieving these things, how many are ‘sort of’? Cross the ‘sort of’ jobs off right now. Do the ‘vital few’, turn off the lights, go home and take the dog for a walk.

One of the ‘vital few’ things you should do each day is plan for the following day. Make sure that whatever is on the top of your list is the #1 priority for the next day. Fergus gives this tip for determining your top priorities. “I have to get this done today. Planets will collide, stars will fall from the sky, bosses/wives/my business coach will be grumpy, share prices will nosedive if this thing isn’t done”.

With this insight for you to ponder, I will finish this week’s blog post with a promise to share more next week. Now, what’s next on my list?

Richard Everson
Small Fish Business Coach Murrumbateman
www.smallfish.com.au

It's About Getting Things Done

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 02:54:00 GMT

Seth Godin has been catching my eye again by stealing our catch phrase – “It’s about Getting Things Done”

Stealing maybe an overstatement but he’s written about three ways of getting better performance from people, illustrated by a book about a basketball coach (it’s got the word ‘coach” in it, so I read it). As usual, Seth is speaking my language – you get better results from your people, not by hounding them or by pitting them against each other but by giving them a platform to succeed and excel. It’s a bit scary but, ultimately, rewarding. Not only that, it’s respectful and decent, too.

How do you manage your people?

Jon Dale
Business Coaching Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au

Abattoirs Of The Human Soul

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 01:34:00 GMT

More TED inspiration. An idea worth spreading – How to Achieve Work-Life Balance

Nigel Marsh (author of Fat, Forty and Fired talks about one of our favourite subjects – how to achieve work-life balance. He makes some good points (and his perfect day sounds pretty good, too)

• Certain job and career choices are incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a young family.
• Even the good corporations (not so much small businesses, perhaps? We’re run by people and people care. Big companies lose that human sense) are set up to wring as much out of us as possible. It’s up to us to achieve it for ourselves because they won’t. (They are the abbatoires of the human soul – the bad ones, anyway)
• Elongate time frame over which you judge balance
• Approach balance with balance – you need to attend to your emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual sides. And small things count.

I sort of agree with him, at least that it is something we want and that we need to take charge of it for ourselves. But even in an incompatible job, you can take charge and I’m still stuck with my own personal view of work-life balance. Do less work. Simple.

Jon Dale
Small Fish Business Coach Byron Bay
www.smallfish.com.au