There are times when we all get sluggish, struggle with self motivation or the hurdles feel that just that little bit high to jump. On bad day it could be plain lazy. Making things happen during these hours/months (hope it’s not years) can be difficult. Heres some potential ideas:

1. Each week do something different. Something you haven’t done before. It doesn’t have to be sky diving but visiting an art gallery, kayaking or sitting in a coffee shop with a good business book will do!

2. Every so often take a ‘team time out.’ Take your people to the cinema, for a walk, bog snorkelling (we Brits do strange things) or visit another business you admire. It gives your team a different perspective, makes them feel valued and gives them a break.

3. Take time out yourself. Its tough running a business. Take time out for at least an hour a day to think. The best ideas often come when you are away from the office, away from staff and away from customers.

4. Every quarter do some house keeping. Set aside half a day when everyone throws out the stuff they don’t need anymore. Brochures, files and paperwork. It’s an opportunity to create a feeling of a fresh start.

Hope it helps….!

Getting very bored with being bombarded by these networks being set up with the promise they are different. Are they hell! And some social networks are not any better.

Don’t get me wrong there are some great ones about who really make a difference to their members but there is an over supply and little differentiation. Perhaps a better way of looking at making contacts is to identify five people who are amazing, lead their field, have interesting ideas or run a business that you admire.

Meet with each of them once a quarter…..ask each one for one contact they can introduce you to who is just as exciting and so on. Surely so much more productive than speed dating!

The three C’s for independent consultants, sole traders, free agents, freelancers and graduates:

Curriculum Vitae - the skills and competencies that you can confidently show where you add value to a customer and demonstrate a return on investment

Credibility - who can publicly swear by what you do and have experienced your added value

Customers - the kind of customers you have, not the number of customers you have. Loyal and advocates of everything you do

Is what you are doing this week, every week, reinforcing the above? Specifically, are you constantly working on your three C’s?

Ran a seminar recently for people running their own business who were independent consultants. We discussed what key things they needed to concentrate on from a personal development perspective. I’ve had a think and came up with this:

1. Having the courage and imagination to re create yourself daily

2. Nothing short of excellence (see previous post)

3. Disrupt the status quo in your industry/sector/market place

4. Work with exciting customers who stretch you, push you and enjoy working with you. Poor, bland customers will waste your time, contribute little to your business growth and after three years you’ll should be getting rid of the bottom 30% of your customers anyway

5. Grow through customers not products or sales. Consider each customer as a route to growth but true growth not just for the sake of it

6. Be genuine and authentic, anything less will bite you on the bum/as at some point

7. Actually have fun. If you’re not enjoying yourself, you’re doing the wrong thing. (I think Tom Peters once said this)

I’m sure there is more…..

As of now, immediately, like right now, start doing only excellent work. Stop for a minute and think about it! Imagine you are a serving in a coffee store. For your own sake, nobody else’s, you decide to set the standard for serving customers, giving the customer an exceptional experience they have not had in a long time. You decide what that might be and you do it now.

You refresh it, change it and develop it as you getter better at it. You might do some research to see what other stores are doing but you keep the standard high, you keep pushing the experience upwards and you never stop. How long does it take to do this? A second, yep, that quick and you start with your next customer. Never look back, never compromise that position, never do anything that might set you back.

Never mind serving coffee, you can do this in your business right now. People will look at you strangely, wonder what the hell has happened to you, but it’s only because they just don’t get and perhaps never will.

Seriously, there are different types of customers despite what we say. Spending time on the right customers is imperative, anything short of that is a waste of time. Right now go to your customer database, portfolio or list. Do an analysis and grade them into:

A’s - regular customers who provide lots of business, generate cash and profit for you and who are great to work with

B’s - new customers who have bought a few items or you have worked on your first project for. They offer huge potential to contribute to the growth of the business

C’s - businesses who are regular but offer little profit but are cash generators. They are occasionally bad payers

D’s - pain in the backside/ass to deal with, don’t pay on time and don’t contribute much in profit or cash. They certainly don’t add value to your brand profile.

Identify how much profit the C’s and D’s are generating….then sack them….yep get rid immediately! Use the extra time, energy and money to focus on keeping the A’s and B’s happy and gaining more new customers in these groups. Brave but a no brainer!

In this sometimes confusing, complex and computerised world, simplicity seems far from reach. Perhaps many of us design a complex world to feel a little more comfortable. John Meada in his fab book ‘The Laws of Simplicity’ talks about how we can redefine the word ‘improved’ by thinking about making things simpler rather than making things more complicated. In fact, it’s an intelligent look at adding value rather than adding things on. His ten laws are:

1. Reduce - the simplest way to achieve simplicity

2. Organise - makes a system of many appear fewer

3. Time - savings in time feel like simplicity

4. Learn - knowledge makes everything simpler

5. Differences - simplicity and complexity need each other

6. Context - what lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral

7. Emotion - more emotions are better than less

8. Trust - in simplicity we trust

9. Failure - some things can never be simple

10. The One - simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful

In the most simplistic of terms….need I say more…get the book! It makes a great, if a little interesting read.

Just touching on yesterday’s post relating to creativity. Where does it exist in a small business? Everywhere I guess and in places you least expect. Perhaps in the creative process, those best positioned are the people that are ignorant, young, new to the business and inexperienced . They don’t know how things are supposed to be, they are not blinded by what happens at the moment. They haven’t fallen into the trench of existing beliefs and don’t carry the baggage other people might.

Being new and inexperienced you see things differently, see things other people have failed to notice and they imagine ideas that other people who are narrow, focused and experts just can’t. They don’t know what they are supposed to see, are not organisational captive and, in many respects, haven’t had the life sucked out of them by systems and procedures.

Occasionally, being ignorant is bliss, seeing new ways of doing old things, having a different perspective and thinking about ideas your company has never thought about.

Stimulating creative thinking in a small business is not the most common thing to do. Most entrepreneurs generally have most of the ideas…or do they??? Once a business has grown to a certain size, not all the answers or great innovation will come from the founder. Quite often us small business owners think we are the fountain of all knowledge.

Challenging the people that work in our business is one of our fundamental roles but how many times a day, week, year do we go out of our way to do it. Creating an environment where our people feel they can spark their imagination and then develop their ideas is crucial to future success. Here’s a few ideas off the top of my head….

1. Recruit people who make you feel uncomfortable, people who will challenge you and your customers

2. Always, always recruit happy people and those that have the right attitude. Technical skill can be learned

3. Set some of your people a task of finding new uses for old ideas

4. Give your newest recruit the oldest problem your business has, then give them the time and resources to solve it. Believe me they will

5. Create a culture that rewards success and failure but doesn’t accept inaction

Don’t forget, great ideas come from the creation of dumb, stupid and impractical ones too!

As managers of small businesses we are constantly fighting and struggling against the flow. Customers, staff, suppliers, competitors and shareholders are all competing for our attention. Our minds can get buried in the day to day operations, the immediate dangers and the problems we think needed solving yesterday. Our concentration becomes the floor rather than the horizon, and what we should be focusing on disappears into oblivion. Just to help you think about things ask yourself these few questions:

Reflect on how well you  focus on

Opportunities rather than problems?

Purpose rather than tasks? 

Meaningful rather than money?

Real work rather than busy work?

Long term rather than short term?

Flexibility rather than control?

Trust rather than doubt?

Positive rather than cynicism? 

Then think about where you need to be spending more time. It may mean some change, it may mean changing a lot, but, being able to change where we spend our time as managers is a reflection on our ability, first, to reflect on our own growth needs, but also on where we create the most value.