• “Oh here is a good idea!”
• “I might never have this opportunity again!”
• “I must create this new product!”

They chase the shiny objects and get off track and lose focus. Someone once described it as being like a five year old on steroids! February being our Focus Month we will share five favourite focus techniques to overcome the Shiny Object Syndrome.

Focus on Finishing

Do you wake up each day and excitedly announce to the world that “today I am going to finish something!” Probably not! It is so much fun starting new initiatives. It is not so much fun finishing things. That is why our lives often include half done projects that have slowly ground to a halt. So believe in yourself; you started something because it was a great idea so finish it otherwise it won’t be a great idea!

Focus on Building Relationships

Forget transactional selling. Customers buy from you because they trust you.  They trust you because you have built a relationship with them. Instead of focusing on the next great sale, focus on building relationships. When you meet new people nurture the relationship in a positive and professional manner:

• Follow up with them
• Do what you promised
• Keep in touch
• Help them

As you build your trusted community, stay in touch and provide value at every opportunity. Our guarantee; if you build relationships you will get customers!

Focus on the Numbers

Numbers never lie! Identify your three or four critical numbers and stay focused on them. Measure them and when they fail to reach expectations initiate corrective action immediately. Avoid the pitfall of “we will make up the shortfall next month” because you won’t! Some examples of critical numbers:

• Numbers of new people met
• Marketing costs
• Revenue
• Profit
• Size and quality of your contact database
• Numbers of active clients

Focus on your Ideal Client

Not long ago we identified a gap in the market that we knew we could fill. We did some initial work on creating a program to fill the gap and were about to embark on its development and launch when reality hit us like cold water. While everything about the program and the gap it would fill was correct we realized that it would not be suitable for what we knew was our Ideal Client. With great sorrow we dropped the idea.

For more about Ideal Clients see the June 9^th 2011 blog-Not Everyone Wants To Buy From You.

Focus on Staying Focused

Here are some techniques you can use to stay focused:

• At the start of each quarter document what MUST be achieved by the end of the quarter (i.e. 90 Day Focus)
• At the start of each month document how much of the 90 Day Focus must be achieved by the end of the month (i.e. 30 Day Focus)
• Do one IMPORTANT thing before opening your emails
• Laminate your Vision and hang it on the wall
• Set aside 4 days a month to work ON your business

When the Shiny Object comes knocking put it in the Parking Lot; i.e. that folder or notebook where you put all your great ideas. Remind yourselves of the need to focus on the prize. To focus on those things that will bring success to the business so that one day you can sell it and then open your Parking Lot and chase the shiny objects.

Be sure to visit our website at  yourplanningpartners.com

Plan the Future

The first step is to develop a strategic plan to map out the future of your business. This is not the back of an envelope that has a few scribbles on it about the revenue you want to generate.  It is a carefully thought out plan that contains measurable three year objectives, each of which are broken down into one year goals and strategies. The criteria for an effective strategic plan are:-

• It must be SMART. That is, Specific, Measurable, Appealing, Relevant and Timed.
• It must be documented.
• It must be communicated to your team. That is, anyone who supports you or is helping you.
• It must be used on a daily basis.
• It must be flexible because we expect the unexpected to happen!

Stay Focused

A strategic plan alone will not get you off The Fragmented Focus Treadmill™. You must ensure your activities are reflective of your strategic plans and is focused on the critical issues. Each quarter identify those things from the plan that you must focus on if your plans are to be successful. We call this the 90 Day Focus™.  Then from this each month develop your 30 Day Focus™. With this tool you will stay focused on the “important” things and when you do get interrupted with an “urgent” matter you can deal with it quickly and get back to your focus. You stay off The Fragmented Focus Treadmill.

Delegate

Doing everything ourselves is one reason we lose focus. We must delegate work that we shouldn’t be doing and can probably be done much better by other people. Delegation does not require employees. We can always outsource. Here are our Nine Steps to Successful Delegation:

1. Identify one process you are doing that you really should delegate.
2. Document the process, including deadlines.
3. Determine the skills required.
4. Identify the person who matches those skills.
5. Teach them how to do the process.
6. Give them the necessary authority and resources to do the work.
7. Monitor the results.
8. When everything is working … let go!
9. Go back to #1.

With a Strategic Plan to provide the road map to your future, your 90 Day Focus™ to keep you on track and the delegation of those activities you shouldn’t be working on …. you will be having fun! and you will be focused, and you will be off the Fragmented Focus Treadmill.

Complete your Small Business Scorecard to find out how you are positioned for your business growth.                               

 Focus on the future …

“To make a great dream come true … you must first have a great dream.” Your vision is that dream. It is a passionate desire so strong, so important it becomes imbedded in the subconscious. You must have vision. You must know precisely where you are going and why. You must articulate a vision that is so clear you can see it in every detail. You know where you are going; and you know you will get there.

Setting powerful three year objectives is another means of keeping focused on the future. Knowing where the business must be in three years time provides the destination from which the road map can be built. Objectives provide your team with a common purpose.  Objectives focus your activities towards the future.

Focus on the present …

Successful people do what they should be doing and let others do everything else. It sounds so obvious and sounds so simple but we all know it is very difficult. And yet, if we are to emulate the practices of successful people we must find a way to focus our energies on those present activities we do well. We must find ways to delegate the other stuff otherwise we will remain caught in the stagnant pool of mediocrity.

 Focus on the business you are in …

Entrepreneurs love creating new things and so when our business starts to become routine it is natural that we start looking for something new to do. But people who build successful businesses do so by sticking to their knitting. They understand what their business is and they don’t stray into areas that dilute their focus. They know that the business must keep getting better and better at what it does and not being all things to all people.

In his book ‘Good to Great’ Jim Collins describes how many of the companies that failed to become “great” deviated from their core business. They went into buying frenzies that took management attention away from their business; they lost their focus.

Focus on the Critical Success Factors …

You cannot manage everything. You must identify your two or three critical success factors and focus your management time and energy on them. The critical success factors are those things that must happen if your goals and objectives are to be met.

Focus on staying focused …

The reality of running a business is that as soon as we walk through the door in the morning the unexpected happens. And that is the way the day unfolds. So how can we possibly stay focused when we must deal with the urgent matters as they arise? Either by not reacting to the urgent (sometimes impossible) or having a mechanism that quickly returns the focus to the important activities once the urgent matter has been dealt with.

We have decreed ~ February is Focus Month. Through the month we will share proven ways of staying focused. If you have some time to share please let us know by emailing nick@yourplanningpartners.com.

Complete your Small Business Scorecard to find out how you are positioned for your business growth.    

My first response was, “well we knew that!” Then my second response was “but lot’s of people don’t”.

Canadian Small Business provides jobs for almost half of Canada’s private sector. That means small business is the largest single employer in Canada.  And, that doesn’t even include all of the out sourced services we use.  Doesn’t it make sense then that if we support building strong, successful small businesses we will be building a strong, successful Canadian economy?

• Wonder if the government recognizes that?
• What do you think the Canadian government should do to support greater small business success?
• What do you think we can all do to strengthen small business?

We have been preaching to all who will listen that the base of the Canadian economy is built on Small Business Owners.

What are your thoughts?

Be sure to visit our website at  yourplanningpartners.com

The Perfect Business supports the life style you and your family want. This covers everything from personal income through to life balance. It means the business is not consuming every minute of your life. It means your family and/or friends are not complaining about your constant absences or starting to exclude you from family events. It means you are receiving an income commensurate with your role and responsibilities.

The Perfect Business is one you enjoy passionately. You love the nurturing, leading and guiding that successful businesses need. You get great delight in seeing your people grow professionally. You get excited every time a new customer comes on board. You are proud of your business.

The Perfect Business has value so one day, when you are ready, it can be sold. Yes it might be far away over the horizon but the reality is there. One day you will not be around to run the business and you cannot take it with you. Or, more likely, one day you will want to do something else; retire or start another business or take up stamp collecting. Whatever it may be you will still need an income. Your business is your retirement income.

So in short the Perfect Business:

1. Supports the lifestyle you and your family want
2. You enjoy passionately
3. Has value so one day it can be sold

Do you have the Perfect Business? If not what are your plans to turn your business into the Perfect Business? Leave a comment to this post or email me at nick@yourplanningpartners.com. Have a great year building your Perfect Business!

For articles about business ownership go to www.yourplanningpartners.com

According to one survey, 68% of people make New Year’s Resolutions and 8% of those people succeed in achieving those resolutions. Why? Because we set goals but we don’t address what needs to change to make our goals a reality. And yet we know if we don’t change what we do, we won’t get a different result.

M.J. Ryan’s book ‘This Year I Will … How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True’ is full of the tools, inspiration and insight you need to create strategies to help you create the new habits you need to meet your goals.

She is quick to point out that no matter how small or large the goals they all require learning new habits and making change. Achieving the success you want is not going to be a quick-fix. It is a journey and always a difficult one.

There is a good reason it is difficult. Despite what you may think, it is not simply that you are weak, unfocused and have no self discipline. As Ryan explains, your brain works to keep your bad habits front of mind and therefore extremely difficult to get rid of. It seems our brains become “hard wired” to old habits. Never fear, there is an answer other than brain surgery to remove the problem. You need to create and build new behaviours to help your brain grow new pathways.

The book is divided into five parts to explain how best to build those new behaviours. Each part has practical exercises and a summary. You need to:

1. Prepare to Change – Whoever thought you had to prepare for change?

2. Get into Action – On your mark, get set, GO!

3. Keep on Going – The tough part!

4. Keep Your Promise – Twelve tips to keep your promise to yourself.

5. Maintain Conscious Self Creation – You are what you let yourself be.

M.J. Ryan tells her own personal stories and shares inspiring quotes and insights all to provide the direction and motivation you need to muster up the energy, determination and aspiration to sustain all of those good intentions.

Happy New Year! Judi – For articles about business ownership go to www.yourplanningpartners.com

For example they found that the great companies, of which they only found eleven from the hundreds they researched, were fanatical about getting the right people “onto the bus” before they embarked on their journey. And in doing so they followed three key principles:

Principle 1: When in doubt, don’t hire – keep looking.

Principle 2: When you know you need to make a people change act now!

Principle 3: Put your best people on the biggest opportunities not the biggest problems.

A culture of discipline; that’s what Collins and his team found was prevalent in these eleven great companies. But, do not confuse the culture of discipline with the discipline of a tyrant. And do not confuse the culture of discipline with the discipline of bureaucratic hierarchies. No, this does not mean that you rule with an iron fist and it does not mean that you must populate your organization with MBA organizational theories. Good-to-great companies are rigorous, not ruthless.

One of the remarkable disciplines of these eleven great companies was their ability to say NO! How difficult this is in the small business world. How difficult it is to turn down an opportunity to make money even if the opportunity is far removed from our business’s unique ability. Much of our work is keeping our clients focused on delivering what they do best to a client base that loves and respects them. To quote Jim Collins: “The real question is, once you know the right thing, do you have the discipline to do the right thing and, equally important, to stop doing the wrong things?”

 www.YourPlanningPartners.com

This witty and practical book uses stories to show examples about human behaviour and then introduces the tools we need for making the changes we want to make more easily.

They have taken the complex issue of change management and broken it down into practical ways to make change happen.

Of course, the first thing to do is to identify the real problem so you can identify the real thing that needs to change.  The beginning of the book walks you through some ways to assess the real issue as it is so nicely stated “clarity of the situation often dissolves resistance to the change”.

Here are three of many practical tools introduced in this book:

• Find the bright spots – identify the areas where there has been success.  What worked?  What made it a success?  How can you duplicate that in another situation?
• Shrink the change – make it more digestible and easier to implement.
• Tweak your environment – change the surroundings or the processes not the people.

I won’t go through the explanation of “the elephant and the rider”.  I will give you the hint that it isn’t your fault you haven’t been able to make the changes you want to make.  It is the way your brain works … it’s the emotional and the rational at odds with each other.

If you are looking to make change in your life … read this book.  Enjoy new habits!  And learn about the elephant and the rider.

For articles about small business visit www.yourplanningpartners.com

John Warrillow believes you should sell your business but he recognizes that too many of us build a business that is so dependant on us it has little value to potential buyers. In his book Built to Sell he shows us, through the eyes of a fictional business owner called Alex, how we can create a business that has real value; a business that is:

• Teachable; the products and services can be created and delivered by employees and/or technology without help from  the business owner.

• Valuable; the business has specialized in doing one thing better than anyone else.

• Repeatable; there is a steady stream of recurring revenue.

John takes us through a journey of 8 Steps. However, he writes the book from his own experiences and so each step is amply supported by the lessons he has learnt from selling his businesses. Some examples:

• “Step 1 – Isolate a product or service with the potential to scale.” Well that makes sense; make more of them without having to add resources.

• “Step 4 –Stop selling everything else.” Ouch; that sounds tough and it is!

• “Step 6 – Find a Broker.” Shows us how to find the right broker for our business.

Alex seeks help on his journey from a mentor called Ted. And so we have the added bonus of Ted’s Tips. A couple of examples:

• Tip #5 – Avoid the cash suck. Once you’ve standardized your service, charge up front or use progress billing to create a positive cash flow cycle.

• Tip #11 – You need at least 2 years of financial statements reflecting your use of the standardized offering model before you sell your company.

This is a practical how to book. It is not a book on how to maneuver through the legal complexities or accounting conundrums of selling a business. It focuses on how to build a business that has value so you can have conversations with business brokers that result in a binding offer.

For more visit www.BuiltToSell.com   For articles for the small business owner visit www.YourPlanningPartners.com

Alex knew absolutely nothing about designing or making hats but he did know what he wanted. So he paid people to work under his guidance and created prototype after prototype until he finally got it right. He then went on to develop his famous sailing shorts but ran into serious difficulties because the designers he worked with just didn’t get it. So what did he do? He turned to the clothing experts working for the US military for their advice and the shorts were born!

What is the lesson here for us business owners? You can’t know it all and you can’t do it all. Find the people who can execute your ideas and then manage them closely. Second lesson; if you are as passionate about your idea as Alex was about his hat don’t give up.

Despite his belief in the shorts no one seemed to share his enthusiasm. So he decided to abandon them and gave them to the Canadian team competing in the 1983 America Cup; the Grand Prix of the competitive sailing world. That did it! Interest grew and today we still have the famous Tilley shorts.

From all of this Tilley Endurables was born in 1984 as a mail order business run from Alex’s home. Less than 30 years later there are 6 company stores, thousands of retailers around the world carrying the Tilley line, an international mail order business, a catalogue that has won awards and a range of travel clothing from underwear to outerwear to headwear.

Like all our business stories the company was not an overnight success and did not grow without serious challenges. They decided to expand into the US starting with Boston. Like many a Canadian business before and after them they assumed the US would be the same as Canada only bigger. They were wrong; dead wrong. They were close to bankruptcy when finally they retreated from the US. Years later, much wiser and financially stronger they successfully grew their US market.

You cannot have a story about Tilley’s without mentioning their retail store located at their headquarters in Toronto. All business owners should go there to see how to make the customer experience a WOW experience! The design is striking, the staff are helpful and knowledgeable and everywhere are pictures and messages from the Tilley community. How Tilley has been successful in building a strong and loyal community must be the subject of another case study. They have built their business on the testimonials of their customers. They don’t advertise their business; their customers advertise their business!

So what happened to his boring business? He finished with that in the very early days of Tilley Endurables so he could focus his attention on building the business he loves. And he travels extensively. By his own estimate he has been to over 1,050 cities in over 50 countries. He is living what his company preaches.

For articles for Small Business Owners visit www.yourplanningpartners.com