Grow Your Therapy Business

• What do you want to achieve by being in business?
• Do you just want to make money?

If so are you sure there are not easier ways of making money than running your business… if you are a solopreneur or small business person working very long hours dealing with staffing crises, shortage of cash-flow and reducing the salary you pay yourself every month so that the business keeps moving you will know that there are easier ways of putting food on the table.

Are you doing business to serve your clients, to make a real contribution? I know for me I am in business, as a business and life coach, to support others to reach your potential and achieve financial freedom and give them power over your own destiny and make your own choices. I will use all the skills, knowledge and experience ( good and bad!) I have to help, support and challenge.

As a business owner you have a unique contribution to make to the world. What is it? or put it another way… what would be missing in the world/ would not get done if your business didn’t exist?

Over the next week just think about and write down the answers to these questions. the more specific you can make them the more powerful your business.

Let me know why you are in business.

In this series of weekly posts I will ask a question for you to think about over the next week. The aim is to get you to think about your business from a different perspective, what they calling working ON your business not IN your business.

Most modern businesses state that they have a mission statement for their business. What is a mission statement? it is a short sentence written by a company or business that reflects the identity, values and purpose of the business. I always think of it as being a possibility that we set for ourselves and that we aspire to, that we are inspired by and that get us up in the morning saying “yay! bring it on”. If you are not getting up like this every morning maybe you need to think about this…

Some examples of mission statements:

Apple: “Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility in everything we do. The companies we do business with must provide safe working conditions, treat employees fairly, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made. ”

Esporta: “Our goal is to be the leading premium health & leisure club organisation in the UK, passionate about service excellence and dedicated to earning the long term loyalty of our members through rapport based relationships-Esporta-continually striving to help you improve the way you look and feel”

Nike: “To Bring Inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”

Starbucks: “Establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining
our uncompromising principles while we grow.”

Virgin Atlantic: “Safety, security and consistent delivery of the basics
are the foundation of everything we do.”

Where you have a bigger business, it is even more important that there is a cohesive vision for the business as described in the mission statement. There have been some very powerful vision statements in the past.. from Martin Luther King’s ” I have a dream” speech to J F Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon and bring him back home to Winston Churchill’s ” We shall fight them on the beaches”. In a way a vision is a rallying cry that engages and inspires. If you are a small business or even a solopreneur you still need a vision for your business. Mine is to deliver ” insight, integrity, inspiration”.

However, it is crucial that you ensure that the vision is engaged with, and people can see and experience what is being lauded in the vision statement. If there is a mismatch there is a huge loss of trust, respect and business. In his great book, Unmarketing by Scott Stratten he devotes a chapter to great customer service and living a mission statement of the Wynn resort in Las Vegas and, by contrast another example of Walmart where there is a mismatch between the experience and the reality.

Over the next week just think about and write down or revisit your vision for your business. And perhaps the more crucial question to ask is:

What Are You Doing To Make Your Vision Live For Your Business?

Do you go and check what the service is like that you receive? If you run a therapy business what would people think and feel when they first come in. It is for this sort of feedback that businesses pay to have mystery shoppers. What if you treated every customer as a mystery shopper? What if you thought every customer could enhance or ruin your reputation by their experience? That question is rhetorical…. they can. If you don’t believe me go and look at twitter. So the question is: What are you doing to ensure excellence of service? What are you doing to ensure if there has been a breakdown that that is addressed as a matter of the utmost urgency?

Do Let me know below.

Using a different perspective gives you an opportunity to see where you can make changes that will shift your business. If you want more information or support through my coaching programme do contact me via twitter/ facebook or my website.

Good luck
Gill

First of all… what is a Unique Selling Proposition? It completely sets you apart from the competition, it is what makes you different, it’s why people come to you and buy from you rather than anyone else. if you don’t think and believe you provide the best service or product and you are committed to always doing that, then you need to go back and make sure that you do believe that.

What Makes Your Product or Service the Best?

Sometimes it helps to think how you would like your customers or clients to describe you, ” Oh you are the business that……….”.

Be realistic and honest. if you don’t think your product or service is best, why not? What do you need to do to improve, or what can you do to provide something that is special… and in demand?

One of my favourite TV programmes is “Mary Queen of Shops” where Mary Portas goes around to small shops, who clearly cannot compete with supermarkets on either price or convenience and generally turns them around. In each case, where the shopkeeper is open to trying new things, she encourages them to differentiate themselves in terms of the service they provide, information about do it yourself by a hardware store, vegetable deliveries by a greengrocers or a local food delicatessen in a village store. What she is doing is helping the shoppers to find how they can differentiate themselves.

And then you need to explain why you are the best and why your customers should buy from you. Why should the customer buy from you.. and only you?

The classical example of this is Fedex in the US who rebranded themselves with the tag line ( that specified their USP), ” When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”. For the customer they know that they will get their parcel to the destination the following day.

To think about developing your USP answer the following:

• Where is there a gap in the performance or gap in the market or niche, or where do people feel pain?
  ( Fedex realised there was a gap in the need for reliable urgent service and reorganised their delivery system to a hub system).
• How can you describe that in one simple sentence?
• How can you prove that, or give a guarantee to your customer or client?
  An example of this is Domino Pizza’s guarantee, ” delivered within 30 minutes or your pizza is free”. They realised the” pain” of their customers was their hunger when they didn’t want to cook
• What do you need to do to deliver ( or over-deliver) on your promise?
  For this you need to think about the systems that you have in place, the training and procedures and policies you need to implement to ensure consistent excellent quality.

Decide and write down how you are going to differentiate your business from them. A word of warning: if you are planning just to give a low price service, you need to think about how your clients will think about you, how much harder you will need to work in order to make a living and how your competitors may react (they can probably sustain a lower price longer than
you can).

If you cannot differentiate yourself from them then why should customers come to you rather than them? It isn’t necessarily anything particularly earth-shattering.

An example—my USP

If it helps perhaps I could share my own USP (i.e. how I differentiate myself from my competitors). I am a life coach based near Bristol in the UK. If you search Google you will see there are some 285,000 results for “life coach Bristol”. I do not advertise any longer, so how do I attract customers?

I specialise in business coaching in the niche of therapists (obviously!);

I have actually run my own businesses, which gives me credibility;

I have additional professional qualifications (I am a chartered accountant);

I have taught business on professional courses, at the local further education college and at degree level;

I see clients face to face, or over the phone (actually skype, although it does have a tendency to drop out at the crucial time!) or do email coaching (this is a growing trend I have noticed over the last year);

I make an effort to be friendly and approachable, so people feel comfortable to ask me “stupid questions”… not that they are ever “stupid questions”!

An example of how your USP may look

Yours will obviously be different, but an example could be:

You are a massage therapist based in Birmingham in the UK. There are 348,000 hits on Google.

What is your specialism? Thai massage? Hawaiian? Sports? Aromatherapy?Swedish?

Do you have other qualifications which may be relevant? (nurses usually do quite well here as people trust them and assume that they know what they are doing)

Do you have other life or career experiences that will give you an understanding of potential clients (being a stressed parent could really help you to empathise with similar clients)?

What other activities do you do/could you do to help establish yourself as an “expert” (if you don’t have anything yet, why not get involved in your therapy’s governing body);

How are you going to deliver the service? Maybe you will be joining a well-established clinic with a good reputation? Or can set up a very peaceful therapy room that can act as an “oasis” for your clients?

What are your personal attributes that will attract clients to you?

What makes you more unique, more valuable, and more visible in the market? You’ve heard the old saying “Differentiate or Die” right? In our highly competitive world, you have to be unique and fill a special niche to be successful in the marketplace. Yet one of the most harmful mistakes small businesses make is not being unique and positioning themselves as the best choice in the market. How do you show that your product or service is the best?

Use a Unique Selling Proposition or “USP”. Having a USP will dramatically improve the positioning and marketability of your company and products by accomplishing 3 things for you:

1. Unique – It clearly sets you apart from your competition, positioning you the more logical choice.
2. Selling – It persuades another to exchange money for a product or service.
3. Proposition – It is a proposal or offer suggested for acceptance.

The Force That Drives Your Business And Sales Success

Your USP is the force that drives your business and success. It can also be used as a”branding” tool that deploys strategy with every tactical marketing effort you use such as an ad, a postcard, or web site. This allows you to build a lasting reputation while you’re making sales. The ultimate goal of your USP and marketing is to have people say to you… “Oh, yes I’ve heard of you. You’re the company who…” – And then respond by requesting more information or purchasing.

The Federal Express Example:

Federal Express (FedEx) dominated the package shipping market with the following USP: “Federal Express: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” The deployment of this USP allowed Federal Express to emerge as the dominant leader in the industry, taking market share rapidly, and also increasing its sales and profits.

In today’s competitive market, your business cannot thrive if you are using the same old “me too” marketing that everyone else is using. Your small business absolutely positively has to have a USP that “cuts through the clutter”, separates you from the competition, and positions you as the best choice… the ONLY choice.

Building your USP takes some effort, but it is absolutely worth it because of the added advantage you’ll have in the market. Using a powerful USP will make your job of marketing and selling much easier, enabling you to more easily increase your sales and profits for the same budget.

Winning USP Examples

The following are 6 powerful USPs that alleviate the “pain” experienced by the consumers in their industries..

Example #1 – Package Shipping Industry

Pain – I have to get this package delivered quick!
USP – “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” (Federal Express)

Example #2 – Food Industry

Pain – The kids are starving, but Mom and Dad are too tired to cook!
USP – “Pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free.” (Dominos Pizza)
(This USP is worth $1 BILLION to Dominos Pizza)

Example #3 – Real Estate Industry

Pain – People want to sell their house fast without loosing money on the deal.
USP – “Our 20 Step Marketing System Will Sell Your House In Less Than 45 Days At Full Market Value”

Example #4 – Dental Industry

Pain – Many people don’t like to go to the dentist because of the pain and long wait.
USP – “We guarantee that you will have a comfortable experience and never have to wait more than 15 minutes” or you will receive a free exam.”

Example #5 – Cold Medicine Industry

Pain – You are sick, feel terrible, and can’t sleep.
USP – “The nighttime, coughing, achy, sniffling, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine.” (Nyquil)

Example #6 – Jewelry Industry

Pain – The market hates paying huge 300% mark-ups for jewelry.
USP – “Don’t pay 300% markups to a traditional jeweler for inferior diamonds! We guarantee that your loose diamond will appraise for at least 200% of the purchase price, or we’ll buy it back.”

How To Develop Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Your USP is the very essence of what you are offering. Your USP needs to be so compelling that it can be used as a headline that sells your product or service. Therefore, since you want to optimize all your marketing materials for maximum results, create it before anything else (such as advertisements and marketing copy).

Print this article and jot down your ideas to construct a “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP) for your business. Follow this easy 7-step process:

Step 1: Use Your Biggest Benefits:

Clearly describe the 3 biggest benefits of owning your product or service. Let me be blunt. Your prospect doesn’t care if you offer the best quality, service, or price. You have to explain exactly WHY that is important to them. Think in terms of what your business does for your customer and the end-result they desire from a product or service like yours. So, what are the 3 biggest benefits you offer? Write them down on a piece of paper…

1.
2.
3.

Step 2: Be Unique:

The key here is to be unique. Basically, your USP separates you from the competition,sets up a “buying criteria” that illustrates your company is the most logical choice, and makes your product or service the “gotta have” item. (Not your competitor’s.)

Write your USP so it creates desire and urgency. Your USP can be stated in your product itself, in your offer, or in your guarantee:

• PRODUCT: “A unique baseball swing that will instantly force you to hit like a pro.”
• OFFER: “You can learn this simple technique that makes you hit like a pro in just 10 minutes of batting practice.”
• GUARANTEE: “If you don’t hit like a pro baseball player the first time you use this new swing, we’ll refund your money.”

Write your ideas on paper now…

Step 3: Solve An Industry “Pain Point” Or “Performance Gap”:

Identify which needs are going unfulfilled within either your industry or your local market. The need or “gap” that exists between the current situation and the desired objectives is sometimes termed a “performance gap”. Many businesses that base their USP on industry performance gaps are successful.

For example, Dominos Pizza used the “Pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free” USP to become wildly successful. This worked because of the need or “gap” in the market – After a long day at work Mom and Dad are too tired to cook. But the kids are starving and don’t want to wait an hour! They want pizza NOW. Call Domino’s.

So, what are the most frustrating things your customer experiences when working with you or your industry in general? Alleviate that “PAIN” in your USP and make sure you deliver on your promises. Write your ideas on paper now…

Step 4: Be Specific And Offer Proof:

Consumers are skeptical of advertising claims companies make. So alleviate their skepticism by being specific and offering proof when possible. Write your ideas on paper now…

Step 5: Condense Into One Clear And Concise Sentence:

The most powerful USPs are so perfectly written, you cannot change or move even a single word. Each word earns you money by selling your product or service. After you get your USP written, your advertising and marketing copy will practically write itself!

Now take all the details about your product/service/offer from the steps above and sculpt them into one clear and concise sentence with compelling salesmanship fused into every single word. Write your ideas on paper now…

Step 6: Integrate Your USP Into ALL Marketing Materials:

Variations of your USP will be included in the ALL your marketing materials such as your…

• Advertising and sales copy headlines;
• Business cards, brochures, flyers, & signs;
• Your “elevator pitch”, phone, and sales scripts;
• Letterhead, letters, & postcards;
• Website & Internet marketing.

Step 7: Deliver On Your USP’s Promise

Be bold when developing your USP but be careful to ensure that you can deliver. Your USP should have promises and guarantees that capture your audience’s attention and compels them to respond to you. Having a strong USP can make your business a big success, or a big failure if you don’t deliver on it thereby ruining your reputation. In the beginning, it was a challenge for Federal Express to absolutely, positively deliver overnight, but they developed the system that allowed them to deliver the promise consistently.

Conclusion:

Using a powerful USP is the driving force that builds your business success. Build your USP and use it to optimize your marketing materials for maximum results.
Home > Encyclopedia > Category > Sales > Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Definition: The factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the competition

Before you can begin to sell your product or service to anyone else, you have to sell yourself on it. This is especially important when your product or service is similar to those around you. Very few businesses are one-of-a-kind. Just look around you: How many clothing retailers, hardware stores, air conditioning installers and electricians are truly unique?

The key to effective selling in this situation is what advertising and marketing professionals call a “unique selling proposition” (USP). Unless you can pinpoint what makes your business unique in a world of homogeneous competitors, you cannot target your sales efforts successfully.

Pinpointing your USP requires some hard soul-searching and creativity. One way to start is to analyze how other companies use their USPs to their advantage. This requires careful analysis of other companies’ ads and marketing messages. If you analyze what they say they sell, not just their product or service characteristics, you can learn a great deal about how companies distinguish themselves from competitors.

For example, Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, always used to say he sold hope, not makeup. Some airlines sell friendly service, while others sell on-time service. Neiman Marcus sells luxury, while Wal-Mart sells bargains.

Each of these is an example of a company that has found a USP “peg” on which to hang its marketing strategy. A business can peg its USP on product characteristics, price structure, placement strategy (location and distribution) or promotional strategy. These are what marketers call the “four P’s” of marketing. They are manipulated to give a business a market position that sets it apart from the competition.

Sometimes a company focuses on one particular “peg,” which also drives the strategy in other areas. A classic example is Hanes L’Eggs hosiery. Back in an era when hosiery was sold primarily in department stores, Hanes opened a new distribution channel for hosiery sales. The idea: Since hosiery was a consumer staple, why not sell it where other staples were sold–in grocery stores?

That placement strategy then drove the company’s selection of product packaging (a plastic egg) so the pantyhose did not seem incongruent in the supermarket. And because the product didn’t have to be pressed and wrapped in tissue and boxes, it could be priced lower than other brands.

Here’s how to uncover your USP and use it to power up your sales:

• Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Too often, entrepreneurs fall in love with their product or service and forget that it is the customer’s needs, not their own, that they must satisfy. Step back from your daily operations and carefully scrutinize what your customers really want. Suppose you own a pizza parlor. Sure, customers come into your pizza place for food. But is food all they want? What could make them come back again and again and ignore your competition? The answer might be quality, convenience, reliability, friendliness, cleanliness, courtesy or customer service.
• Remember, price is never the only reason people buy. If your competition is beating you on pricing because they are larger, you have to find another sales feature that addresses the customer’s needs and then build your sales and promotional efforts around that feature.
• Know what motivates your customers’ behavior and buying decisions. Effective marketing requires you to be an amateur psychologist. You need to know what drives and motivates customers. Go beyond the traditional customer demographics, such as age, gender, race, income and geographic location, that most businesses collect to analyze their sales trends. For our pizza shop example, it is not enough to know that 75 percent of your customers are in the 18-to-25 age range. You need to look at their motives for buying pizza-taste, peer pressure, convenience and so on.
• Cosmetics and liquor companies are great examples of industries that know the value of psychologically oriented promotion. People buy these products based on their desires (for pretty women, luxury, glamour and so on), not on their needs.
• Uncover the real reasons customers buy your product instead of a competitor’s. As your business grows, you’ll be able to ask your best source of information: your customers. For example, the pizza entrepreneur could ask them why they like his pizza over others, plus ask them to rate the importance of the features he offers, such as taste, size, ingredients, atmosphere and service. You will be surprised how honest people are when you ask how you can improve your service.

If your business is just starting out, you won’t have a lot of customers to ask yet, so “shop” your competition instead. Many retailers routinely drop into their competitors’ stores to see what and how they are selling. If you’re really brave, try asking a few of the customers after they leave the premises what they like and dislike about the competitors’ products and services.

Once you’ve gone through this three-step market intelligence process, you need to take the next–and hardest–step: clearing your mind of any preconceived ideas about your product or service and being brutally honest. What features of your business jump out at you as something that sets you apart? What can you promote that will make customers want to patronize your business? How can you position your business to highlight your USP?

Don’t get discouraged. Successful business ownership is not about having a unique product or service; it’s about making your product stand out–even in a market filled with similar items.

Of course the question presupposes you have a business plan. if you think you don’t need a business plan, how do you envisage that you will be able to control your business?

I used to fly for a hobby – we started off with microlights and moved onto light aircraft. Even in the microlight, which was about as simple as you could get so as to keep within the weight limit we still had some key instruments giving us critical information, such as the speedometer, the altimeter and the fuel gauge. We always drew a line on a map so we could see where we going to, especially as we were blown off course and needed to know where we were to avoid obstacles and controlled airspace. Similarly, in business, your business plan is the line on your map. You can see where you are going and where you are being blown off course, so that you can take correcting action to get back on course.

Like the speedometer and the altimeter your business plan should show you how fast you will get to your destination and how high. If you measure against your business plan you can see whether you are gig as fast or as high s you forecast. You also need information about cash flow – your cash flow forecast is like your fuel gauge: do you have enough cash to get you to your destination or will you need to refuel ( apply for extra funding)?

The business plan should really be for the owners of the business: to make sure that you have thought through all the various aspects and whether you have the skills to be in business; to determine whether the business plan is workable and whether you have a feasible business. It is also crucial for the cash flow forecast to have something to measure against and control your business against as you go along and if necessary take avoiding action ( reducing your salary – called “drawings”, increasing your sales effort or reducing costs). A free template of a cash flow forecast in excel can be downloaded from my website http://www.growyourtheraoybusiness.com

This week you could revisit your business plan and ask yourself:
Are you on track? If not what corrections do you need to make? Do you need to revise your business plan?

What is Your current passion for your business out of 10, with 1 being completely fed up and 10 being energised and fully “lit up”?

I don’t watch “Little Britain”, but my daughter did and I think one of their sketches that is funny because it is true to life is the dissipated clerk who turns round and just repeats ” the computer says no”. The point I particularly like and rings true is not that the computer doesn’t cope with the situation and is fixed ( that’s not news that’s just life!) but that the clerk is fixed and unempathic! I think she probably gets a “1” on that scale.

The trouble is when we first start up in business we are really enthusiastic and enjoy going out and justifying buying a pile of stationery and a new desk from Ikea ( actually the wrong thing to do when you first start in business but I’ll get to that in a later question!), but soon the pressure mounts up and the anxiety about how quickly the money is being depleted from the bank account ( even if we have done cash flow forecasts). Usually somewhere between six months and a couple of years we find we are working longer and harder and still taking less out of the business than we used to earn in employment. The pressure seems relentless and in all honesty we would be quite happy to give up there and then. If you haven’t got there yet, sorry to disillusion you, I don’t know many self employed or small business people who don’t hit the business equivalent of “the wall” when running a marathon.

What pulls you through? Well it is usually two things, either a steely determination or a passion for what you are doing. When I first started on-line business I chose niches I thought would be successful to run alongside my business coaching and writing which I am passionate about. Mistake. Er sorry! read that as “a learning opportunity”. An expensive learning opportunity ( like £5,000 ($8,000) learning opportunity). I had no real passion for the subjects so when it all seemed to get overwhelming I dropped them, took the learning from it and moved on. Now contrast that with my window cleaner, Roy. He is a lovely guy, ex telephone engineer, who really enjoys his job and is always cheery and chatty and takes a pride in what he is doing and asks if I would like him to come and clean out the gutters ( of course!) and replace a couple of broken tiles ( that would be perfect). I am sure there are times when it is bitterly cold and we have a strong sou’westerly the last thing he wants do to is to climb a flimsy ladder, but his passion pulls him through.

If you are not doing what you are passionate you can guarantee there will be people who are passionate. You can tell those who are passionate: they would do the job whether they got paid for it or not.

The action point for this week is to be really honest with yourself about how passionate you are in your business. Record what you spend your time on during the week and note which parts of the job you enjoy ( probably those where you are skilful and your strengths) and those that you find a chore. A successful business is one that you are passionate about and that plays to your strengths. Ask your colleagues, friends and family what they consider your strengths to be ( we can’t always see them ourselves as we take them for granted). At the end of the week you should have recorded a list of the tasks you undertake with their relative weighting in terms of enjoyment and a list of the tasks you find a chore.

Do you have a low score for your current passion in your business?
If you have a very low amount of time doing what you are passionate about now may be the time to think about shifting your business to something you are passionate about.

Do you have a high score for your current passion in your business but there are a number of tasks that you consider to be a chore? ( I know a lot of people hate the bookkeeping… I hate the filing!)
With those chores ask yourself, “What can I do to eliminate these tasks, make them more efficient, automate them or pay someone else to do them?”

Well you have been looking at these questions for a month now, thank you for staying with me, I hope you are finding the questions and challenge useful. How are you getting on? Do let me know in the comment box. Also if there are areas you would like me to cover do write them down in the comments box.

How effective is your business model out of 10, with 1 being completely ineffective and 10 being very effective and efficient?

I suspect if you are reading this you probably haven’t written down a ten… I suspect you would be sitting on beach somewhere doing your “four hour work week” as per Tim Ferris ( great book, great concept although I suspect in reality when he is not travelling he does work considerably more than four hours a week).

What do I mean by your business model? It is the whole system – the way the business operates, the processes, the brand and the people involved ( whether they are employed or not).
Are you absolutely clear how you secure new customers, retain existing customers and fulfil their needs in the most efficient way possible? Could you replicate what you do? Sometimes it helps to think as if you were trying to explain what you do and how you do it to a new employee and they keep asking “why do you do it like that?”

One thing that can be helpful is to produce a system flowchart for the key processes between different personal involved. The standard format is a an oval represents the start and end, a rectangular box an action and a diamond a decision point. An arrow indicates the direction of the flow.

A system flowchart can even work where you are the only person involved if you “split” yourself into the different roles you take on. For example when I had a request for books I was acting as marketeer & sales person, packer and dispatcher and cash collector sending out receipts as necessary. This was fine when it was first published and I only had a few dispatches a week, but I soon realised that as sales escalated I really needed to outsource it and get it listed on Amazon – which I did. The fact that they take a large slug of any sale was worth it on two points – it reduced my time doing the less productive task of packaging and driving to the local post office at the end of the day and also the book has become available worldwide, so I have a greater number of sales than I could otherwise have hoped to achieve by my efforts alone.

The ideal business is one where you spend the time doing the work that you enjoy doing and where your strengths lie and the rest of the work you delegate or outsource.

Your action point for this week is to work out:

How can you improve your processes to make them more efficient? What can you do to outsource or delegate those tasks that are not your skill set?

The answer I always get is “but I’m in the service industry”. Great! Focus on what you do best and get someone in to take the cash and answer the phone ( or get a virtual receptionist – they are not mega expensive) or automate what you can. Do you really need to send out cheques? Can you do it by bank transfer? The other reply I get is ” but I can do it better myself”. That may well be the case but is it the best use of your time? If you earn £50 per hour,say but can get someone in for £8 per hour a few hours a week to do the filing and other administrative tasks perfect. When you first start I know ot is not easy to do that, but once you have been established any additional hours should be spent building up the business or building up your skill sets and knowledge.
Of course you can’t actually get more hours in a day – if you are working 12 hours a day already are you going to make it 18 hours a day? What you can do though is to focus on your strengths and eliminate, automate or delegate everything else.

How are you getting on? Do let me know in the comment box. If you enjoy these questions do share them with other business owners you know and click on the share button.

Ok if you know what to do why haven’t you done it?

This is not about beating yourself up but just be real… what are you really committed to?
Do you really have the skills?
What is really stopping you – is it a belief that you are not good enough?

What is stopping you from achieving your goals?

Why is that the biggest obstacle?

What do you need to do/ be or have to overcome that obstacle?

What do you have to give up to overcome that obstacle?

This will show you what you are really committed to.
If you say that your goal is to increase sales by 10% over the next year and you have set out an action plan on how and where you are going to market to increase those sales but you have failed to take action you are not really committed to that goal.
If you are not committed to the goal in reality you will not achieve it. In my experience most people say one thing and do another. It is what they DO – their actions that really demonstrate what they are committed to.

It is not about being good or bad but being real and having an honest look at what is so. Like most small business owners you may feel tired and disillusioned ( see the previous question on how passionate you are in business) and the thought of having to put more effort into marketing and talking to your clients or customers is what is really going on.

In this case your commitment is actually to not really moving from where you are, or your fears and security may be a bigger pull than the desire to meet your goals. This is why most news years resolutions fail. I know this is not news to you, but if you want to be a success in business, you have to be clear about what is really important to you, what you are passionate about and where your skills and knowledge lie.

I can almost guarantee you that the main thing you need to do is to change your attitude to business and the way you think about business. This isn’t about getting more tips and tools. Sorry if this is what you were looking for.
Ok, assuming that you haven’t gone off in a sulk it is worth thinking about the following:

Are you frustrated, exhausted or overwhelmed or burnt out?

If so it is probably that you are doing too much and adding to it won’t help. You need to look at what you can get rid of, not what you can add to your day.

First of all you may be looking at the incorrect goal and the action plan to meet that goal… are you sure you really want to meet that goal?

One thing that you can do is to look at all of your goals, personal and business and actually compare them one against the other and rank them.
Suppose you have 8 key goals in various parts of your life by ranking them one against another you get a real sense of what has to happen. When doing the ranking bear in mind what roles and responsibilities you have too.
As a single mother I have as one of my goals to work abroad but that would be in conflict with the needs of my daughter to have a stable home life and be with her friends at school and concentrate on her studies. So I shifted my goals: my long term (3 year) aim is still to travel and work ( migrating as much of my businesses as I can online)
So look at your number1 goal (1 being the highest) and make sure that you are working towards that. For those that are lower down the list what can you get rid of and what you do with a smaller goal? Sometimes you can amalgamate goals and take actions that will meet more than one goal. An example from my own experience – developing an app is a way of marketing my coaching business and is also a way of creating a separate income stream which is not reliant on where I am living, so meets both a shorter term goal ( developing the coaching business) and the longer term goal ( working and travelling).

It is about being strategic…

What do you need to not do?

As a business what can you do less of and still be successful, particularly when you are working on your own?
The first thing you can do is map out your systems and see where you can eliminate, automate or delegate.

In a later question we will look at what you can do to challenge your belief systems.

If you get stuck and are unsure how to do this do email me.

Do let me know how you get on.

In answer to earlier questions you will have worked out your three year goals to meet your vision of where you want to be in three years time, and looking back from there worked out what you will need to have achieved in one year and i order to meet the one year goals, what you will need to achieve in a month’s time, and to meet your month’s achievements what you will need to achieve this week and then what you need to do today.

You have done that, haven’t you? If not then now is absolutely the time to do it. Your goals need to be inspired by your very clear vision and from that vision you can look back and se what needs to occur for that vision to materialise. Just setting goals whether they are realistic, specific or timebound or any of those other good things is a waste of time if they are not drawing you towards your vision and will not get done, or will be done in an ad hoc manner.

Ok assuming you have gone back and done that you now need to work out your priorities. This is going to seem weird but the first thing you need to do is to set aside time when you do nothing on your business. Yes I mean nothing – no laptop, no email messages, no reading around the subject, nothing. Why? Because giving yourself a complete break gives the subconscious time to take stock of where you are and what you are doing. Be honest haven’t you sometimes had your best ideas when you are thinking about something else entirely, or when you are on holiday? If you can make sure you have a complete distraction so you don’t get the opportunity to consciously think about work either.

Giving yourself the occasional twenty four hour break gives you the opportunity to be really present with your family/ friends/ hobbies etc. and it is amazing how sometimes the subconscious works away in the background and the great thing is that it is brilliant for families and friends too to have your full attention for a day.

Because you carve out time when you cannot work on the business ( I won’t be prescriptive about how much, but I have seen a month to six weeks work very well!) it means that you have to be more effective and efficient when you are working.

The same process applies during the day. You now need to set priorities for the day

I have taken the basis of this (and adapted it) from the Steven Covey Book – if you haven’t read it I think it is one of the best business books of all time. First of all categorise your task into those items that are urgent and important, those that are urgent and not important and those that are important but not urgent. If something is not important and not urgent it is something that you can happily leave off the list entirely! If you are running your own business you need o make sure you have one marketing activity a day as that is important, particularly when you first set out when it will also be urgent as well.

Break up your day into either power hours ( actually 50 minutes focused work followed by ten minutes stretch. do something different/ make a cup of tea), or into half hour slots (actually 25 minutes, followed by five minutes breaks – called pomodoros – you can get an app for it on the iphone). Personally, although I used to do “power hours” I found that the half hour slot was better as I could do half an hour’s tedious task and focus on getting it accomplished, whereas the thought of an hour of it would put me off and I wouldn’t get started. Funny how cleaning the bathroom really needs to be done when there is a deadline looming!

Anyway allocate your time to the different slots. It is easy to think ” I must do all the urgent things first” – if you do I can almost guarantee that you won’t do the important but non urgent task. What is important but not urgent? Health is classic one – unfortunately we can’t just go to the gym once and say ” we’re fit and healthy” we don’t need to go anymore, it has to be ( virtually) daily practice. If it is not then it is so easy to say ,” yes I know, I will go next week”. I know I do it myself. We know what to do but don’t do it, because we do not prioritise it. If you do just one important none urgent thing for your half hour slot ( going for a run or bouncing on a trampoline), then focus on the urgent and the important ( meeting a marketing deadline for a press release) then you will have made progress towards those longer term goals that can easily be ignored.

One point s that only answer your emails at one time during the day ( not at the beginning either), ditto answering phone calls. They are almost certainly someone else’s urgent items, not yours.

Well I must stop now, my pomodoro is coming to an end.

Plan Your Time, or more correctly your priorities
First allocate free time where you spend days where you do NOTHING on your business. These give you time to recharge, do other things and give you perspective.
Allocate a priority to each task on your to do list –
urgent and important;
important and not urgent;
not important and urgent;
not urgent and not important
Break up your day into hour/ half hour slots and put the important tasks first ( even those that are not urgent)
TAKE ACTION… Better to take some action and tweak it later than to “get it perfect” and miss the opportunity

There are some things we know that we will not finish, or never get around to. Why? Because we say we are committed to them , but in reality we are committed to something else. An example is me thinking I am committed to having a tidy office, whereas in reality I am committed to spending my time doing something way more interesting than tidying up. Besides I know where everything is.

So:
What have you committed to that you will never cross off your to do list?

If you are never going to deal with it.. be radical just take it off the list.
…And if that involved promising to do something for somebody and it is not your priority then maybe now is the time to reassess your priorities and speak to those affected about what you can and cannot and will or will not do. In most circumstances people are more frustrated if something has been promised and there is no communication about whether it will be done or not than if they are told, politely ( sometimes with a reason but not always) that something will not be done. For example think how infuriating it is if you are waiting on a cold railway station and the train is delayed. The energy we waste stressing about how long it is going to be, when will it arrive, will there be a seat available etc. If there is an announcement over the tannoy ( that we can actually hear!) stating that the train is twenty minutes late we then have a choice… wait for the train or go and grab a coffee.

What do you do that you declare you will never do again? Eating chocolate? Binge drinking? What you DO indicates what you are really committed to

so:
what are you really committed to? What are your hidden objectives?

Have more fun? Do less work? Earn more cash? Usually it is to have easy life. We can chose to have an easy life or a life of contribution.

Sometimes being committed to a life of contribution is tricky which is why you need passion to keep you through those times.

What issues do you do you need to clear up with people?

We promise but do not deliver, we let people down and we try and “look good”. The first step to being real is to take responsibility for what we do, think and how we behave.

Steps to clearing up our past messes:

• Acknowledge and admit to the person affected that we have lied, broken our promises, where we have behaved badly or blamed others and not taken responsibility. That doesn’t mean you have to guilt trip as that will serve nobody.
• Acknowledge how they have been impacted. Really try and see it from their perspective.
• What can you do to make amends? What do you commit yourself to in the future?

An example would be if you are always late you could say that:

• you acknowledge that you are always late and this means that
• they are hanging around and wasting their time and
  it feels disrespectful because by implication you are saying your time is more important than theirs,
  that it has the impact that they don’t believe you when you say you will be there at seven
  and that because you expect them to be late you arrange to meet half an hour earlier than you need to,
  and that they are impacted because they are anxious if they are going to be late for the cinema or whatever it is you are meeting for.

  When you are acknowledging the impact it is very easy for us to skate over this step as quickly as possible as we do not wish to face the consequences of our behaviour but it is important that we flush out and admit to as many impacts as we can. Sorry about that.

• You can make the promise that in future you will be on time and take action so that you organise yourself so that you can be on time in the future.

  This may seem trivial and in some ways it is but is incredible how much energy we waste on things we have not done or conversations we have not had.

  What conversation do you need to do today to clear up a past mess?

Every business has key measures on how the business is going. If you are really in control of your business you need to know what the key measures should be for your business and to be monitoring and measuring those on a frequent regular basis.

I have a number of clients ( especially therapists) who say that they HATE numbers and have the equivalent of dyslexia with numbers. In this case we jointly devise a system based against the goals that they have set for themselves that will tell them whether they are on track or not. This can be done using a “traffic light” system ( red is a warning, orange is caution and green is good or on track). So if a therapist needs three new leads a day each day starts with red and as a new lead is followed up the indicator goes from red to orange to green.

it is easiest if you are visual to have results in a visual form, either graphs or tables. It is doing something that works for you so you know what is going on in your business at all times. Im sure when you are flying off on holiday you would like the pilots to be checking how high they are flying, to miss any obstacles, masts etc; to know where they are coming from and where they are going and whether they are where they expect to be at this time and if they have sufficient fuel to get to their destination.

So you certainly need to be aware of what drives your business.

If you are in a people business you will need to focus on staffing issues: do you know your staff turnover, absenteeism, sales/ profit per employee, satisfaction rating?

For service industries you need to focus on customer satisfaction: do you know the percentage of your customers that rate your service as good or excellent, satisfactory or poor? How is this changing over time? What percentage of complaints do you receive/ returns do you get?

For production businesses you need to focus on productivity: do you know your percentage of quality production and rejects? Your productivity per man or machine hour and the percentage of on-time delivery?

If you have stock you need to concentrate on how much money you have tied up in stock: do you know how many days stock you have? How much risk there is of non delivery if you shorten time, percentage of fast moving stock to slow moving stock?

And every business needs to focus on sales, market position and cash-flow. These are so important that we will explore them further in later weeks.

In the meantime, what are you doing to ensure you have the key information you need to run your business in a timely manner and a format that makes it easy for you to understand?

I do have a couple of entrepreneur clients who state that they don’t need all this because it is in their head and they have a sense of where it is at. That’s great but what happens when they go on holiday or are off sick? Of course the answer could be to never take holidays or go sick but can you guarantee that you will never take a days sickness again until you retire?