The importance of communicating with your team
As a business owner you need to actively work to ensure the lines of communication are effective in your business. To do so actively, either personally in your role of leader or by ensuring your management team are charged with that role, is vital. If you do not it is likely communication will be merely left to “happen”.
If this is allowed, then you will soon see (or feel the impact) that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and a chain of communication will soon become ineffective if the importance of the message is not respected by the entire team.
For you or your management team, here are 4 keys to effective communication in business:
1. Commitment to a culture of effective communication from the top down.
2. Policies and procedures in place (enforceable) to support that culture.
3. Technology is only an enabler of communication (even if it is a powerful one) and is no replacement for a supportive culture and committed management.
4. Building culture (re communication or anything else) requires trust, and trust can be easily broken if management are not walking the talk.
Is there an opportunity for your business to improve its communication? If you would like the opportunity to review your Communication Culture, contact our office for a Business Health Check.
6 keys for success in 2010
1. Get clear on your vision – It is far easier to reach a destination if you have clarity on that destination
2. Make sure you know where you stand – No point pretending you are something you are not
3. Recognise that things changed in 2009 – Particularly if you need finance
4. Identify the Actions that will move you from where you are now TOWARDS where you want to be
5. Most importantly, implement! An action not taken is no more that a dream or a passing thought. It has no impact.
6. Build accountability into your plan – Making sure that you continue to take action by making yourself accountable to someone other than yourself. The best sportspeople in the world have coaches. If you want to reach the pinnacle of performance, shouldn’t you?
MBR Group and Hospitality – Advising a Rock Solid industry
What a relief it is for an industry specific public accountant to have his or her industry speciality in a field where proprietors interact with their customers in a relaxed and leisurely environment, the industry is financially secure presuming the specific business is correctly sourced and funded and its businesses are available to all prospective first time entrants irrespective of their knowledge background and qualifications. Try and name one other industry which has all of these characteristics!
MBR Group have been through two recessions, including Mr Keating’s “the recession we had to have” in the early 1990’s, and have never had a client in the hospitality industry go broke or indeed experience great financial distress from their business. Now, we would like to tell you that this resulted from our great advice and dedication to the cause however in reality most of the credit for these results can be credited back to the industry itself and the people that it attracts to join the ranks of hospitality proprietors.
Hospitality traditionally, in industry speak, included hotels motels and caravan parks. From MBR’s point of view however, hospitality certainly includes motels and caravan parks and also now incorporates a phenomenon to the southern states of Australia (previously only the domain of Queensland and coastal northern New South Wales) called management rights. Hotels, being the regular corner pub, country watering hole and the more upmarket food orientated bistros and restaurants, we believe generally require a proprietor with some industry experience in food and beverage and a knowledge of the industry to have a better chance of survival. Not so the case for prospective purchasers of management rights, motels, and caravan parks. The ability to relate well to people and to maintain a clean and hospitable destination for customers is 90% of the future success of the business. Sure, as in all businesses, it is always helpful to have some financial, marketing and networking acumen, but people skills and a good work ethic are in most cases absolutely pivotal to success in the hospitality industry.
Clearly, other elements come into play when entering the hospitality industry. You need to be able to find a range of appropriate businesses from which to select your business. It was once very wisely written that you only ever buy one bad business! So, you need a reliable and experienced business broker to organise the right introductions in the right locations and to match these with your financial position, lifestyle requirements and family considerations such as nearby schools family support, etc. The financial accounts provided by the vendor must be assessed by an accountant who possesses considerable experience in the industry. The business must be correctly funded in order that the debt can be repaid in no more than a 10 year period with a minimum of personal assets used as security. Finally, you need a solicitor who has experience in the industry and understands hospitality-based commercial leasing. An experienced hospitality broker can assist you with all of these introductions.
Apart from this, the success of the business is in 99% of cases determined by the efforts of the proprietor. It is a wonderful industry for families specifically those with children, young or old, and can achieve financial security for people within a relatively short period of time. This comes with minimal chance of failure given that the above steps are carried out thoroughly using professional experienced in the hospitality field.
MBR Group specialise in the hospitality industry and have clients and contacts to solicitors and finance Australia-wide. We always provide an initial free consultation to all new clients. From an accounting point of view, we could not more highly recommend management rights, motels and caravan parks as rock solid industries in which to be involved. We spend considerable efforts in assisting our clients to purchase the right business in the right location for the right price. Most of our clients only have happy memories of their time in the industry and, almost without exception, our clients stay in these industries often buying and selling into bigger and better businesses and, in many cases, achieve their long-term security by purchasing their freehold premises.
As reputable accountants we feel the suffering of our clients should they experience financial distress – it really hurts. This is something we protect our clients from at all costs. Being so involved in the hospitality industry protects us considerably from clients suffering financial woes and provides our clients with a wonderful opportunity to have the freedom of running their own business at the same time achieving the financial and personal goals which we all crave during our working lives.
The Pareto Principle
To think that the Pareto Principle was developed in a garden in Italy in 1906 examining that 80% of peas came from 20% of pods, and yet that analysis is so relevant today in business and in life.
In your business one of the keys to maximising results is optimum resource allocation. It is in this that the Pareto Principle provides powerful guidance. By focusing on that 20% of inputs that are responsible for 80% of results, you can make powerful decisions about the allocation of resources, be that finance, labour, time, capital or equipment.
To assist the decision making process, identifying and monitoring your key performance indicators can provide your focus.
Every business will have Key Indicators. The question is, how are you measuring and monitoring yours to maximise your results?
Inspiring Business Quotes II
Ten More Inspiring Business Quotes
“Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success.”
– Ross Perot
“A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.”
– Ralph Nader
“The poor go to work — the wealthy network.”
– Robert Kyosaki
“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“People who are resting on their laurels are wearing them on the wrong end.”
– Malcolm Kushner
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
– Milton Berle
“Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor.”
– H Jackson Brown Jr.
“The Dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth’.”
– Dan Rather
“The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialised – never knowing.”
– Jim Rohn
“To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself:
First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?”
– Jim Rohn
Inspiring Business Quotes I
Ten Inspiring Business Quotes
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
– Herman Cain
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“Success is ninety-nine percent failure.”
– Soichiro Honda
“Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.”
– Helen Keller
“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
– Walter Bagehot
“Do or do not, there is no try.”
– Yoda
“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”
– General George S Patton
“I would rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.”
– John Maynard Keynes
“Building a better scale doesn’t change your weight.”
– Phillip Crosby
“What you can measure you can manage.”
– Peter Drucker
MBR Team
L-R: David Buff, Avril Walker, Karen Palmer, Josie Vella, Obeida Abou-eid, Monica Waters, Kathryn Matheson, Suzanne McHugh, Adam Ramage and Braden Johnston
Our staff members are highly qualified and motivated to help our clients achieve their business and personal goals.
They use their skills and experience to provide the right advice for each individual client.
They value the working relationships that they develop with their clients and will go out of their way to meet their client service expectations.
Clients can be assured that the advice they are receiving is the most up-to-date information available in relation to their financial circumstances.
Staff Profile:
- Adam Ramage CPA — Partner and 10x Business Coach
- Karen Palmer — Business Manager
- Kathryn Matheson — Senior Client Manager
- Braden Johnston –– Client Manager
- Josie Vella — Client Manager
- Debra Mc Carthy — Client Manger
- Suzanne McHugh — Trainee Supervisor
- David Buff — Accountant
- Obeida Abou-eid — Accountant
- Dhara Oza — Sales & Marketing Co-ordinator
- Avril Walker — Client Service Co-ordinator
- Monica Waters — Receptionist