Management | Craig Jennings

What Keeps Small Businesses Small

Filed under Covey on Urgent VS. Important, Management by Craig Jennings on July 24, 2011 at 1:54 am {no comments}

Why don’t small businesses grow? Because small-business owners keep making the same mistakes. See if you recognize any of the mistakes below.

Building a small business is a spectacular opportunity. And small businesses are like trees, they want to grow. Why doesn’t yours? It might be time to talk to the gardener!

Most small business owners learn by making mistakes, not just mistakes of execution, but mistakes of thinking. We are quick to learn from mistakes of execution. Mistakes of thinking are very much trickier. And they persist.

Below, 10 of the mental mistakes which keep small businesses small.

1. I work 24/7 to stay small. My compliments on your effort, not on your planning. A business owner who works 24/7 will first achieve errors, then burnout, likely bankruptcy. Working 24/7 is exciting for a while. A lot is happening, you feel creative, effective. But it’s a great way to run your business and yourself right into the ground.

2. Not being aggressive keeps me small. Tell others that you’re small, new and inexpensive. Perhaps they’ll pat you on the head and give you an assignment out of sympathy. Most will just ignore you. You dared to open a business. Now dare to play big, go for bigger customers.

3. Not hiring others will keep you small. Failing to delegate is a critical headed-for-disaster mistake. You probably don’t have to pay people much to do the things you’re not good at, and they’ll probably do them faster and better than you can. Not only that, it’ll give you more time to do what you’re good at.

4. Undercharging will keep you small. You’re playing safe, and starving the business for income. You can’t grow if you don’t earn. And you can’t attract other people to you if you can’t earn enough to support them as well as yourself. As you charge more, you’ll be able to afford more. You always knew the egg came before the chicken.

5. Do the urgent tasks, put off the important ones, a superior method for staying small., It’s easier to do urgent things first, put off important tasks until later. But you’re putting off profit and opportunity. Task selection is a major problem for small businesses, best

addressed with a partner or a coach. Hint: Coaches are cheaper and, in many cases better. Warning: This article is written by a coach.

6. Wait for word-of-mouth to work in order to stay small. Many small businesses take pride in their word of mouth business. But you can’t control it. If you don’t take regular, structured, planned action to get new business, you’ll just sit and watch the telephone. This is far from the “brave new world” you had in mind when you started. There is, however, a referral strategy which will allow you to generate referrals on a structured basis.

7. Avoid “big vision nonsense” to stay small. We haven’t defined our long term strategic objectives. We don’t have a picture of what our business will be like in 5 years. Chances are it’ll look pretty much the way it does now. Vision-building is difficult work, often procrastinated. It can be done in a weekend, preferably away from the office.

8. Why define your mission when you can just do what you want, and stay small. We don’t make tactical plans either. A thoughtful business owner makes long-range strategic plans for his business and then tactical plans for each situation. He plans his work, then works his plan.

9. Study your checkbook to stay small. Your checkbook balance is important. But it’s also a “Trailing Indicator.” It tells you how things are after you can’t do anything about it. There are “Leading Indicators” which will help you grow. They include: Sales calls per week; New clients as a percentage of total clients; Monthly bottom-line profits compared to last year; Monthly sales forecasts. These Key Performance Indicators will tell you how you’re doing long before your checkbook will, when you’re in a position to make a correction. You can link a single Excel spreadsheet to many sources of data, and it can update automatically. Seeing what’s going on will take you 15 minutes. On the other hand, if you don’t make a practice of measuring both your successes and your failures, the latter will quickly outnumber the former.

10. If you’re not growing, don’t change! . “Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’” W. Shakespeare. In fact, you have both time and yourself, right at this moment. If you don’t take full advantage of both, what’s the point in working for yourself? Where do

you find the time? Surprisingly easy. Create one hour of CEO time per day. If you’re an early bird, make it the earliest. Night owl – find a one-hour space in your evenings. Give it your name. Protect it. Call it “Your Hour.” Then, choose one special task to assign to that time each day. You will quickly see positive change happening, and it will be almost effortless.

You can see that there are at least 10 reefs in the waters of small business. In fact, while small businesses account for almost half of our Gross Domestic Product, and 6 million start up each year, 40% are gone in 1 year, 80% in four!

Ocean-going vessels entering harbor routinely engage a pilot. In business-terms, that’s a coach, someone who knows the reefs of action and reefs of mind, and deals with them both. The ship or boat remains yours, but you may safeguard its value with local expertise.

The coach is, of course, me, Craig Jennings, a 13-year business coach who’s started 8 businesses in his life and works with small business owners day in and day out.

See if any of the above issues are active concerns of yours. For a free “strategy session” you can contact me without risk, or cost, at 516 944-6454 or email to craig@craigjennings.com. Website is at www.craigjennings.com.

Playingbigratherthansmallisnothingmorethanadecision. Noteasy,nothard. I’vehelped many others. I can help you too.

Driving With The Handbrake On

Filed under Management by Craig Jennings on July 24, 2011 at 1:54 am {no comments}

Many of my clients are “driving with the handbrake on!” It happens a lot more often than you’d think. Sometimes it’s as easy as just releasing the brake!

Most of us entrepreneurs dive into “doin’ it,” “doin’ it,” “doin’ it.” The quotation is from Michael Gerber’s “The E-Myth Revisited.” Small business is exciting – you chart your own course and no one tells you what to do. Opportunities and problems pop up. You deal with them. But Gerber’s point is that we often find ourselves “Working Without Thinking.” “Small business” means forty percent of small businesses are gone in 1 year, 80% in four. “Gone” means – capital gone, energy gone, customers gone, and part of your life gone. Not good! If you Work Without Thinking, or Drive With The Handbrake On, bad things happen. We can change that!

See if you recognize any of these 3 challenges.

1. You work 24/7. You answer the phone, make, order, ship, wrap, deliver. You borrow, pay, cajole, demand, negotiate. You advertise, write, design, publish, talk, speak, promote. Too busy to think, to plan, to grow – either your business or your business self.

2. You suffer the Tyranny Of The Urgent. You know the difference between urgent and important. But you are so busy handling urgent, you never get to important. And the difference is crucial. Important is where the income and profit is. Many of us never get there.

3. You’re not growing the business. Growth isn’t just about income. Growth is expanding capabilities. For your business to grow, you’re

going to have to import new skills, new people. You’re also going to have to grow your own self.

The desired outcome for making these changes is simple: more growth, more capability, more clients, more income, more profit. Isn’t this what you want? Truly, this is do-able, and critical.

How to make your business grow larger, make more money? How to release the handbrake? In fact, you have to Begin At The Beginning. To begin at the beginning, there are three steps:

1. Learn more about yourself. When you pursue self-knowledge, (which many of us avoid) you’ll learn some surprisingly positive things about yourself. They will make you more confident, more powerful, more effective. That’s a promise. Also, you’ll understand others better, more

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effectively. There are several reasons why entrepreneurs avoid self-knowledge. None of these reasons contribute to your success.

2. Create a foundation. With the power of Self-Knowledge, you’ll develop a Vision, finally a Mission for your business. With self-knowledge, vision and mission complete, you’ll have built a firm foundation, one which most small businesses lack. Imagine a tripod –

stable, firm, efficient. OK, a pyramid – and the higher the better!

3. You’ll delegate – the absolute key to growth. You’ve heard people say – “it takes me twice as long to tell someone else how to do it as to do it myself.” That’s probably true for the first time. But by the second time, growth has taken place. Our “handbrake on” entrepreneur really avoids the freedom that the extra time would give them. Simply put, if you want to grow your business you have to add capability. That means other people who can do things you can’t do, at much less cost to your business. It also means you get to use your own unique capabilities at their highest level.

You Begin At The Beginning By Taking The 3 Steps Most Business Owners Avoid.

First, you and I find out what your strengths are. An assessment gives us surprising answers about you. We stop, we discover where you are really powerful. (Most of us are surprised, and reassured when we find out what we’re really good at.) Consider that, since you are the most important person in your business, you ought to work in the areas where you’re most effective?

Can you imagine saying: “ I want to focus where I’m best, at doing A, B, and C. That’s what I want to do.“

A fringe benefit – you begin to discover that you normally spend most of your time doing D, E and F. Can you give that up? You can fix that, easily and profitably. Please read on.

When you recognize your strengths, and exercise them more, you become stronger! And when you delegate tasks that someone else can do for much less, and give you back your time, your business is stronger.

Also, we discover about other people. Many “other people” think differently than you do. (You always knew that!) But there’s a system you can learn, based on time-honored personnel assessments, to help you bridge the differences. Consider what power it could give you to speak to other people in their terms. How best to persuade a customer, a banker, a colleague? You want to be able to speak to them in terms they understand- and in their terms, not yours. When you clearly understand others, your clients, your employees, and your associates, the result is fewer costly

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misunderstandings and more good decisions.

Second, you complete the foundation for your business. Your business needs a Vision, and a Mission, clearly understood, clearly written, and clearly communicated. Consider a Vision as the picture of the way your business will look in 5-10 years of successful operation. Consider a Mission as a set of critical tasks you will perform. (Vision is the picture on the wall, Mission is the ladder, carefully placed against the correct wall.) Building this foundation can be the difference between success and failure. It is hard, and critical work, which most businesses ignore to their detriment. (You and I can do it together in a week or less.) Do this, and stand at the top of the pyramid!

Third, we add skills to your business. (OMG that’ll cost money!) There are two kinds of tasks which are currently a problem for you:

Tasks which you do but hate to do, and could be much more easily and better-handled by an expert. Also, there are the other tasks – those which you hate to do, don’t do and never get done!

Whether you pay yourself a salary, or just subsist on the percs, you cost your business between $30 and $300 per hour, or more. Right now, $30/hr. buys an awful lot of skill! And if you can delegate at that $30 rate or lower, you get back 10 hours of executive time. If you want growth, the only way to create growth is to grow. You will only grow your business by adding capability.

Big difference! Can you see the difference between the business you have and the business you could have?

What makes this coaching program unique is that we create a powerful path for you to follow that enables you to get the following results:

? You’ll take a step back and avoid the pitfalls of working without thinking. You’ll make better decisions, and make them easily and quickly.

? You’ll discover the greatest strengths of the most important person in your business – you! And you’ll put that new power to work.

? You’ll understand some of the differences between “you” and “them” and find out how simple it really is to bridge the differences when you understand them clearly. The cost of misunderstanding is almost unfathomable. The advantage of clarity is speed, economy, and good will.

? You’ll create a practical Vision and Mission for your business which can be communicated to customers, employees and colleagues. Your firm will be very easy to do business with.

? You’ll be discovering how easy and productive it is to unload executive and employee tasks that aren’t getting done effectively, or at all! And how the business can grow now that you’ve taken that step.

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Here’s what you have done:

1. Agreed to take a step back, and to avoid the pitfalls of working without thinking. 2. Agreed to discover and energize the greatest strengths of the most important person in your

business, you. 3. Agreed to understand some of the differences between “you” and “them” and find out how

simple it really is to bridge the differences. 4. Created a practical and thoughtful foundation for your business which can be communicated to

employees, customers, and colleagues.

You’ve built a powerful foundation before you go to work. In fact, it’s what most small business owners never do, and it is exactly why many small businesses stay

small, or fail.

You may consider a professional business coach, someone who has the expertise to guide you through the places which are new and challenging to you. Big businesses regularly hire coaches for key employees – they find they get spectacular productivity (bang for their buck) from coaching.

You are now on the way to becoming the Chief Executive Officer of your business, and giving up being the “Chief Employee.”

? You’re doing what you’re best at, all the time, and reaching out to others to do what you shouldn’t waste time with.

? You’re talking to others in their language, using their terms, their way of understanding. ? You know what your business is, what its foundation is, and where you’re going. So do your

employees, your customers, and your bankers. ? Your business coach is there for you, to confer with when you confront novel situations or have

decisions to make on issues of risk where you want to consider additional but impartial and disinterested points of view.

“Beginning At The Beginning” will put you at the top of the pyramid. My coaching program will give you the results you’ve always sought. You’ll see what has to be done, have mechanisms for getting it done, and do it with far less effort. Can’t you smell success out of this prescription?

You’ll take an assessment which tells you what your greatest strengths are. It was developed by Clifton and Buckingham, who’ve written extensively on strengths management. You’ll discover why many of us seem to focus on our own weaknesses instead, and why this is such a trap. We’ll discuss how your strengths apply to what you want in your business. You’ll consider how this knowledge can apply to engaging others to help you get what you want.

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You’ll review another assessment which tells you “who you are” and “who they are.” It uses the famous Myers-Briggs model, based on groundbreaking work by Karl Jung, but it’s simple to manage. You’ll discover how different “others” are, and how to bridge the gap to their “otherness.” When you do, they’ll love it. And you’ll reap the rewards.

We’ll work together to build a Vision and Mission for your business. And we’ll work together to keep you out of the pit – to make your business successful. I can be a new partner for you – a partner who doesn’t demand 50% of your income, by the way.

When you work with me, we set a schedule of coaching sessions ahead of time, perhaps 3 a month, perhaps 6. These are planning sessions, not emergency sessions. But, since emergencies do happen, I’m always available, either by phone or by email – which I survey several times each day.

You’ll find that Skype Video is helpful, and priced right – so we can work face to face whether you’re in New York or Australia.

Discoveries, Bonuses and Benefits.

You’ll discover that the self-knowledge you gain will make you an effective CEO, much more adept at hiring or engaging others.

You’ll discover that you have more time. You’re less rushed, more deliberate, more decisive, better compensated. Maybe happier?

You’ll discover that your marketing and your public speaking will have new authenticity, authority and persuasiveness. (You’ll do a lot more public speaking, by the way, and this process will be a new- business magnet.) You’ll clean up your website and it will begin to give you leads.

You’ll discover that running a small (or large) business is now a great deal more fun. Why is this program unique?

1. Because it asks you to do things which most entrepreneurs don’t do and don’t want to do, and helps you do them.

2. It’s tailored uniquely for you, and the business you want to develop.

3. And because it gives you someone who’s been there, done that, and is ready to get down there in the trenches with you to produce the results we both want.

Will this program be a good fit for you?

This program could be fine for you if:

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? You’re willing to do some things differently.

? You are game for some self-examination.

? You are willing to prepare your business for growth. There’s responsibility, and reward here.

? You are prepared to grow not only your business but yourself.

? And you’re ready to accept the exciting consequences – an efficient, successful, growing business with much more money, directed by a word-class entrepreneur – you!

Challenges are everywhere, aren’t they! Is this one you’d like to take on?

If this sounds right to you, please call me for a Strategy Session.

A Strategy Session is all about you. Here we will discuss what you want to do and where you want to go. If you want to release the handbrake, you’ll do it! But that’s the focus of the session.

In our strategy session, we’ll get clear on your goals and objectives. And we’ll decide then whether we can go forward together. If we do so, we’ll work within an agreement which gives us both freedom to change our minds under certain conditions. You and I will understand this agreement before we engage.

Frankly, the relationship between client and coach is pretty personal. In addition to being your coach, I’m willing to be your cheerleader, your supporter, your accountability partner, your consultant, your Advisor. I can lift your spirits when you’re down, praise you when you succeed, and (with prior agreement) kick butt when warranted. But fundamentally, we will win together. I always find this very exciting, and very productive. It will the same for you.

You may want to know more about my credentials. Let’s get that out of the way right here. In brief, I’ve worked for some Blue-chip companies for six-figure salaries, and I’ve also started 8 new businesses in my life, went bankrupt once, sold one for a dandy profit, have 3 working now. I’ve been a business coach for 13 years, and it’s the best job I’ve ever had. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients, one for 9

years, and I’m sure I’ve already been in the territory you’re now exploring.

You’ll have a look at my website, you’ll contact some of my clients, and perhaps decide that this is the right path for you. If so, you’ll retain me as your coach. We’ll discuss the terms – from 3 months at a minimum to a year or more. You can expect some interesting questions. You may find some answers to questions you’ve had for a long time. And you will find someone who’s absolutely committed to helping you get what you want.

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Craig Jennings, at 516 944-6454 or email craig@craigjennings.com; http://www.craigjennings.com

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Owner vs. CEO vs. Chief Employee

Filed under Management by Craig Jennings on January 2, 2003 at 4:17 pm {no comments}

Owner vs. CEO vs. Chief Employee

Good news / bad news:
You and I have the power to win or to lose. We can create a business of extraordinary power, or… Some 500,000 of us end a small business each year, mostly because we just give up. What an amazing movie! It has multiple endings, a cast of thousands, and you and I have a starring role!

Here are some “truths” about small businesses, yours and mine.

1. They’re defined by an idea that appeals very much to you, or to me.
2. They’re usually run without a detailed and well thought-out plan.
3. 3. Owners frequently work twice as hard for half the money as when they were employees.

How are you different from the usual small-business owner? Which of the “truths” above don’t apply to you?

Schedule: I’m going to publish this newsletter monthly. I’ll try to include tips for the businessperson who’s up and running, and for those who are still in the planning stage.

If you’d rather not receive it, just click here.
Tip #1 – Owner vs. CEO vs Employee – how do you manage being all three!

Would you, as an owner or CEO, keep you on, as an employee? My compliments to John Hajisava of http://globalresultsunlimited.com for expressing the concept (and for trying it out on me!)

1. You need to see yourself as a company. You first are the owner. “Owner” means you have money in the business and you want more money out. So you the owner measures each month in terms of return on investment. What did I put in? What did I get back? For many entrepreneurs these are unpleasant questions. But you have to face up to them each month or each year to determine the value of what you own. Did a friend, relative or bank put up some money? They’re asking the same questions, aren’t they! You need monthly answers. It’s the owner’s business to know what’s so. Are you working between 1-4 hours a week as an owner?
2. You need to see yourself as a CEO. You have a vision of what the business can become, a mission, complete with short and long term goals, and a purpose (which last may not be entirely about money.) You are responsible for all the strategies and tactics of running this business, from Marketing and Sales to Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable. Are you working from 5 to 10 hours a week as a CEO?
3. You need to see yourself as the key employee and manager. You are doing most of the work, or making sure it’s getting done. Has the owner provided enough money? Has the CEO created a vision which lights you up, and provided goals which you are striving for? Are the working facilities and personnel adequate to the task. And have you noticed that, as an extremely close relative to the Owner and CEO above, that you take advantage of that relationship and don’t work hard for 40 hours a week.?

Sounds like the Three Faces of You, right?!

Here’s how you get all those personalities to work for the one of you.

1. Agree (with those other guys) that money is the primary reason for being in this business. Be very careful about the CEO who wants to make the world a better place. That rarely pays and is often a cover for not having a clue on how the business is going to work.
2. Create a very simple monthly report. Call it the Owner’s Report. It will include:
* Capital on hand
* Income
* Outgo
* Income – Outgo = Profit or (Loss)
* It can include projections for future months.
3. Create/revise your business plan. I’m assuming that you got started without much of one and have managed OK. If you’ve taken my teleclass you have a 9-point worksheet, if you’ve taken my full course, it’s much more detailed – and the good news is that you’re brilliantly started. But a bank is going to want to see from 20 to 40 pages worth of detail. Half of the plan is going to say in words what’s happening and what will happen. Half of the plan says it with numbers. If you suddenly hear a conversation about “I didn’t start my own business to be a slave to the numbers,” give that “employee” a kick in the ass and tell him to grow up or get out!