Reports that matter – growing your business

If you are committed to growing your business, or even thinking about it, you need to be aware of the axiom “what you can measure you can manage”.

In simple terms this means to actively manage your business, you need to be measuring it’s performance. Not what you would call earth breaking news, is it?

So what will make the difference?

THE RIGHT REPORTS AT THE RIGHT TIME

No point discovering your average daily cash-flow is negative in 12 months time!

You need to identify what information you need to understand your results, and the timeframes you need them.

The right reports:
The reports that you need to help you grow your business will be determined by your individual business situation, and whilst “off the shelf” suggestions may be relevant, understanding how the activities in your business impact on your goals is more powerful if dealt with specifically with you and your management team.

The right time:
There will be reports or key operational metrics you need to know daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually. The timing will depend on the speed of impact, but to understand if your business has had a great day, week, month, quarter or year in relation to key metrics will help you make the best business decisions.

These reports should have a standard target so you know if you are ahead of the game (or not), and this standard target should be updated based on all information available. The reports should be a part of your management plan, or even better, a key piece of your GROWTH plan.

Trends can be measured, campaigns effectiveness can be measured, and impacts of strategies can be measured even more accurately.

At MBR Group we work with our business clients on what we call the FAB 5: Growth, Profit, Cashflow, Asset Value, and Risk Protection. Utilising reports on key business metrics enables us to assist our clients in a positive way. If you would like to learn more about how great reports can help you grow your business email adam@mbrgroup.com.au

By the way, the right time to do that, is NOW!

To subscribe to our newsletter designed to Add Value to business owners, go to our home page here

Productivity Doesn’t Happen By Itself

This post is taken direct from the newsletter of David Allen, the “King of Getting Things Done”

The GTD system has helped my personal productivity and enormously aided the ability to relax… enjoy the article…

There are three things that have to happen in order to define our work and be maximally productive about it. And these three things don’t happen by themselves. We have to train ourselves to do all three, and until we establish them as automatic, habitual behaviors, we have to exert a conscious redirection of our focus to get them done.

We have to:

(1) Make decisions about what we are going to do with our “stuff” and the next actions required to do it (what would “doing” look like?) “Stuff” is un-actionable until we’ve decided the outcome and the next step to move toward that result. Things on lists and in stacks and in email generally repel instead of attract us to get involved, until we decide what exactly our intention is about them and whether the next step is a call, draft a response, buy nails, set a meeting with someone to discuss it…, etc.

(2) Put those outcomes and actions down in written form, if we don’t do them in the moment we think of them. Even if we decide what we need to do about something, if it’s filed in our “psychic RAM” we run serious risk of losing sight of the option and (worse) we create instant failure and unnecessary stress. That part of our psyche seems to have no sense of past and future, and it acts as if we should be doing everything it’s holding on to all at once.

(3) Look at the reminders (when we can effectively use them and move on them). Even if you have decided the next step is a phone call you need to make, and even if you have written that down somewhere, if you don’t look at the reminder when you are at a phone and have discretionary time, you risk missing an opportunity to move something forward when it might be the best thing to do, given all the variables. When you are in a certain context, you need to reflect on all the things that could be done in those contexts, to be the most efficient. And you need to know what it’s OK not to be doing, even if you could do it there. If you don’t, something in your core knows that you’re not optimally handling your agreements with yourself.

These three behaviors combined are a master skill set for knowledge work. Yet virtually everyone I encounter could significantly improve the consistency with which he or she does these three critical productivity activities.

We were not taught these practices growing up. The workaday world of our parents did not require these critical behaviors of knowledge work. People just showed up, and did what obviously needed doing—they could see it in front of them. Few people work in that kind of world any more. These days, just showing up and expecting to work on what’s visibly been put in front of them, is hoping for a retro world that doesn’t exist, and is likely to be experiencing mounting stress that is not going to get any better.

“The ancestor of every action is a thought.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.”

-Jean de La Bruysre

Full credit for this article to David Allen, the mind behind GTD.

Decisions x Actions = Results

Almost all business owners I speak with want to improve their results. (I wonder why the others are still in business, or how much longer they will be in business for). But of those that do want to grow and improve their results, it is a select few that are making it happen.

What is the principal characteristic of those business owners that are improving their results consistently?

The commitment to ACTION!

The headline of this article is a recipe for change. If you want to change your results, you need to not only make decisions to change, you actually have to take ACTION.  All of those business owners wanting to improve results have made a decision to change, but so many are doing the same thing today as they did last week, last month, and last year.

So taking different actions will change your results, and making Great Decisions then Powerful ACTION will lead to Improved Results.

So ask yourself what decisions you have made to improve your results in the past that you have failed to take action on, and then consider what the future may hold…

One action I strongly recommend is documenting your decisions, determining the actions and then building accountability around the actions.  If you would like to discuss how this has worked with our clients to improve their results, make the decision to call or email me.  Once you have made the decision, take the ACTION! Call me directly on 0418-142-562 or email me at adam@mbrgroup.com.au

Updated Fuel Tax Credits Now In Place

From 1 July 2010, the fuel tax credit rate for heavy vehicles that use fuel such as diesel or petrol and travel on public roads is 15.543 cents per litre. This rate change is due to an increase in the road user charge.

A heavy vehicle is defined as:

• one with a gross vehicle mass (GVM) of greater than 4.5 tonne, or
• a diesel vehicle acquired before 1 July 2006 with a GVM equal to 4.5 tonnes or more

To determine your eligibility, you can start with the online tool by clicking here and if you need further assistance, call our office on 03 9385 7700

Motivating your team to grow your business

Unless you are the only person in your business, then the success will be determined by the performance of others.

To get the most out of others, how can you motivate them?  In sales, we should always be looking at what is it about the product or service that creates need in the customer or client, and how can we make sure we communicate that effectively.

So to motivate our team, we should use the same logic. We should look to motivate based on what is in it for our team members.

Now for some of us we can offer a great work environment (think the Google offices), some can offer flexible working arrangements (work from home, telecommuting, etc), a career path, or commission bonus pay structures.

These are all things that may motivate our team, some will work for some people and not for others.

But what about those workplace environments that to not lend themselves to any of these? An example that springs to mind is waiting staff in a cafe. The environment is a cafe, and whilst it could be a groovy cafe with a highly fashionable interior, the team don’t have a “corner office with bean bags” or if they do, there is not the time to use them. The opportunity for flexibility is limited to hours and the roster that is in place, and whilst this may be flexible from an hours perspective, you can’t wait on a table from home! If the cafe is relatively small, or the key management team is small, then a career path may not be on offer, and whilst the team may be bale to impact the tips they receive, the ability to put a meaningful reward or bonus scheme in place is limited.

So how could we as business owners motivate such a team?

Think back to your first job, and it is likely that it may not have been high on glamor or pay, but you can probably remember the types of things that gave you a buzz.

Firstly, it is highly likely that your team will be motivated by the thought of “a job well done”. So if you can provide training and support to make sure they are doing the very best they can, they will feel “masters” of their roles. This is also a great way to help “modify” any behaviors that are not aligned with the mission of the business.

Second, if you can provide them with a level of control over how they do their job, then that autonomy can be a powerful motivator. If they know that by doing the right things at the right time in the right way that they will continue to have that control over their role, that will encourage ongoing excellence.

Third, purpose. Now in some ways, you might consider that a career path or a bonus structure is “purpose”, but as business owners you have the right and even the obligation to impart a purpose to your team. If, for instance, it was clear that their purpose was to ensure that customers walked out extremely likely to recommend to friends and associated that they visit your business, then the likelihood of your team performing in a way to support this will increase.

And, in the case of a cafe, tips may indeed be a fourth motivator….

But the most important thing is to remember that no matter what the business you are in or the roles that your team are required to fill, by looking beyond pay scales, you can indeed find alternate motivators. They may not be obvious at first, but by looking, the chances of finding them increase exponentially.

If you would like to subscribe to our enewsletter, register on our home page.

For a more personal approach to growing and developing your business even more, feel free to contact me on adam@mbrgroup.com.au or +61393857700

The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business: A Book Review

When considering how I can help my clients grow their business, I am constantly aware of the saying that a business is a reflection of the owner, so to grow the business, first look to help the owner grow.

Expanding knowledge is one of the keys to personal growth, and so reading books is a powerful way for a business owner to grow. And in the tech world we live in, we can read a paperback, hardcover, ebook on a kindle or other electronic device, or listen to audio books. We really have no excuse for not developing ourselves by reading.

Over the last week I have been enjoying the style of Bob Phibbs, aka “The Retail Doctor” and his book “The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business”.

This book has been written in a way that will allow Retail Business owners to pick it up and start using the strategies within hours, and the practical tips and suggestions will ease the implementation process.

Of course, a book alone will not grow a business (du-uh!).

So here are some of the key reasons to read the book, and then most importantly, ACT!

1. Know your numbers. Along the lines of “what you can measure you can manage” simply means you should have a strong grasp of where your business is at now. If not, go to it!

2. Merchandising. The art of not only displaying sale items, but store layout, shelf heights, and more. Importantly your merchandising should be tailored to YOUR market.

3. Employees. Unless you sell everything in your store yourself, deliver it yourself and follow up all of your customers yourself, you are going to have employees. These are your team-mates in the game of winning business, so make sure your team knows where the goals are, and you have the right people in the right positions.

4. Selling. You need to understand your sales process, and then stretch your process to maximize the effectiveness. Different products and markets require different processes, but without a process that results in sales, it’s all over!

5. Training. Once you have an effective process, and the right people in the right positions, then training them to ensure they are doing the right things is what will really provide you with leverage. Get this right, and the reliance on you to sell yourself is gone.

6. Coaching. As an owner it is my belief we should all have coaches, but your team needs a coach too, and that might have to be you, or it might be an external resource. Either way, coaching will lift their performance to the next level.

7. The Internet. You just have to know what it means now to your business, and now is the time to be planning what it will mean tomorrow, and how you are going to make sure it helps your business grow.

8. Your turn. So over 200 pages of strategies, tips and suggestions. But if all you do is read them, then the pages will have little impact. It is you deciding to act that will drive growth, so how are you going to commit to actions. Coaching makes you accountable to your decisions and plans, so that is a great way to drive the growth in your business, get a coach.

And then Bob gives his list of 13 steps to being a top salesperson. This list is a great summary of the key points in the book, and could form your checklist moving forward. If you have salespeople today, and you give them this book, then the 13 steps can form part of their performance measurement.

So this book gets a recommendation from me for all business owners, as if you own a business, someone is selling something for you (or you are doing it yourself). An easy read, 230 pages plus index of practical suggestions and strategies that can help your business grow.

If you would like to understand how the power of coaching can turn these strategies and others into actual results in your business, email me now adam@mbrgroup.com.au for a copy of our business growth magazine and the opportunity to attend a 3 hour Business Grow session.

Also don’t forget to register for a free copy of our e-newsletter on our home page