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This seems like a pretty good idea to me – personally I think we put too much distance between doing business and being human. This is a really insightful presentation by Tara Hunt, who spells out the challenges with finding happiness and most importantly, how we can take this knowledge and apply it to our business for a much happier outcome. I like it.
What are the things you have STOPPED doing in your business and how much is this costing you?
I caught up with a new client recently who was experiencing a pretty major financial downturn in her business. In fact her revenue had dropped by almost fifty percent in the past two years. This decline had been gradual but the end result was that her business was now in big trouble.
We sat and chatted about the things she had been doing over the past couple of years to try and get a grip on what was going wrong. Sure, we could blame some of the impact on the economic conditions, but nowhere near a drop of fifty percent. This lady had built her business up to a very successful level over about five years and then she started to expand, setting up some satellite offices and even a franchise or two.
This expansion started about two years ago – you guessed it, the same time that her main office started to go downhill. Of course it is easy to see that her focus was on the other new and exciting business opportunities, not on her core business and that is what caused the problem. But how did this lack of focus actually translate into day to day activity in her primary business? Well I will get to that.
Once we had figured out the lay of the land and where she was right now, it became clear that we had to put some serious effort and energy into the main business and we had to do it fast. So I started to rattle off the list of things that I would do to get the cash register smoking such as increasing communication with existing clients, develop more targeted and inspirational promotional material, follow up sales religiously, instigate a refer a friend campaign, get out in the community and tell the network what is happening in the business, do some media releases etc etc.
As I worked through this list my client was shaking her head somewhat forlornly and I asked her why? She said she used to do all of these things I am suggesting when she was building up her business, but she stopped doing them a while back, actually about two years back, because she got too busy focusing on her expansion.
Sadly this is a common story that I am hearing on a regular basis. Businesses often struggle financially not because of what they are doing but because of what they are not doing.
Now as we stop doing things the affect is not that clear immediately. The impact is often gradual and it can sneak up on you, just as it did with my client. I know that it is hard to keep going, to keep putting energy into your business day in and day out, but it easier to do a little every day as opposed to having to do a huge amount to save the business if it gets into grief.
My question to you is “what have you stopped doing in your business and what affect is it having?”
There is no doubt that many parts of Australia are still struggling with the impact of the GFC. Whilst I don’t want to be negative, rest assured it has a way to play and we will certainly have new challenges to deal with. But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Getting advice on what we can do to change the way we think is imperative. Here is a short interview with Tony Robbins – a master of the art of changing the way we think and turning negatives into positives.
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Being succesful in business is as much about being good at managing people as it is about doing what it is we do really well. From my own experience becoming better at not only managing people but simply communicating with people is vitally important. Unfortunately most of us don’t have a lot of formal training in this area and we learn as we are going. These “touchy feely” business principles are often not given the credence they deserve but that is changing.
Many years ago I was lucky enough to work with a man who was an instinctive master of managing people. He was compassionate, encouraging, patient and supportive. At the same time he was a strong leader who naturally brought out the best in people. I was always impressed by his attitude of constant and positive encouragement for everyone around him – his staff, his suppliers, his customers – everyone. Everyone loved him and respected him. Customers came out of the woodwork to buy from him and everyone would go the extra mile to do anything for him.
In simple terms, if we want to build a succesfull business (and have a rich and rewarding life), we need to get better at interacting and communicating with other people. We need to look for the good rather than the not so good.
What are about those people who always seem to find fault, the ones who are intent on criticizing those around them? In reality this constant fault finding or “bringing down” says more about there own issues than anything else. People who are inherantly unhappy with parts of their life (or all of their life) subconsciously look for negatives in others instead of positives. How encouraging is someone in this state of mind? When you are around someone like this, understand why they are negative and it makes them easier to cope with.
So how can we be more encouraging of others? In reality it is easy – here are just a few simple ideas:
1. Start to compliment those around you for the work they are doing. Tell them they are appreciated.
2. Take some time to get to know people. Ask them about their life, their dreams and their aspirations. See how they start to radiate energy when they start talking about their passion in life.
3. Stop, think and then talk. All too often we “blurt out” words that can be really hurtful or negative to others because we don’t really think it through. It is always best to take a few seconds and consider what it is you are about to say.
4. If you need to criticize the work someone is doing for you, compliment the person first and criticize the work. In other words try something like this “Bill you are always so diligent and your attention to detail is excellent. This report you just finished has a few holes in it and I would like you to review it to bring it up to your usual high standard”. This approach is much better than – “Bill are you an idiot? This report stinks? What were you thinking? ”
5. Go out of your way to compliment people you meet in the course of your day about something they are wearing or something they have done. This might be a taxi driver, bus driver, waitress, someone helping you on the end of the telephone, the grocery store cashier – anyone. This makes you start to look for positives in people rather than automatically looking for negatives.
6. Remember a time that you were really praised by someone you have a lot of respect for. How did that make you feel? This is the feeling you want to instill in those around you as often as you.
7. Become a master of EMPATHY. Learn to put yourself in the shoes of the person you are talking to. Think about life from their perspective. Think about what issues they may have and empathize with them. It is hard to be negative when you truly look at life from another persons perspective.
I am spending much more time talking about attitude these days because I believe that it is such an important factor for success. If you can become a beacon of encouragement you will soon see many changes in your life. The more you encourage and support others the more you will be encouraged and supported by others.
Give it a go today. Make a point of being supportive and encouraging to every single person you meet today, especially those closest to you. See how your day pans out. I can guarantee that it will be a good one.
Oh, one last thing – to make this work you have to be sincere, hollow compliments don’t work. Whatever you say, mean it.
Have a sensational day.
This is a very cool video clip of the powerful song “ONE LOVE”. The story regarding the clip and PLAYING FOR CHANGE as a world movement is well worth taking a few minutes to watch. So enjoy the clip and then visit PLAYING FOR CHANGE.
Andrew Griffiths