Business Building

There’s no getting around the news—foreclosures, bailouts and breathtaking stock market swings. It’s real. It’s upon us. It can be scary.

Though we can’t control the economy, we can control our perception (and reaction) to it. Every crisis creates a positive by-product—opportunity. It’s more important than ever to think creatively and adapt “on-the-fly” to seize those opportunities. Companies that do so will thrive, even during the most challenging times.

Here are some survival strategies for tough times:

Don’t Panic. Be a Leader.

Fear plays a role in the ups and downs of the stock market. Don’t let it create the same volatility in your business. Plan ahead based on facts, not fear.

Executives and managers today are increasingly acknowledging that laughter is good not only for personal health and well-being, but for career success and overall workplace wellness as well. Around the office, laughter can motivate and facilitate team building, improve stress management, and increase productivity and morale....

Consider this:

• The Harvard Business Review (September 2003) reported that executives with a sense of humor climb the corporate ladder more quickly and earn more money than their counterparts.

• University of Wisconsin professor Stu Robertshaw cites one corporate study in which the firm experienced a 21 percent decrease in staff turnover and a 38 percent decrease in Friday absenteeism after incorporating humor into the workplace.

• In a study, David Abramis of California State University determined that employees who have fun on the job are more productive, more creative, are better decision-makers and team players—and have fewer absentee, sick and late days.

There’s a spring in Marissa’s step, and she simply radiates positive, upbeat, can-do energy. She’s “in the flow.” Good things continue to happen in her work and personal life with seeming effortlessness.

Contrast this with Kelly, who puts in twice as many hours at work—super-long, hard hours every day—yet rarely achieves what she’s striving so hard to create.

What’s the difference? Hint: It has to do with Marissa’s ability to attract what she wants. However, this kind of attraction has nothing to do with looks.

Rather, it’s about Marissa’s ability to attract abundance by living in a way that’s in tune with her purpose, her passions, her most vital and alive self.

The law of attraction. It’s not just some woo-woo theory, it’s scientific: like matter attracts like. It’s similar to a radio broadcast: when tuned into a particular station, you will only hear (attract) the frequency of radio waves that match that station’s signal. And when that happens, everything seems easy, not a struggle.

Between our cellphones, our planners and our e-mail inboxes, we have organized ourselves and our time. And if you ever doubt the importance of these systems, recall your panic the last time you lost your planner.

Yet as important as these systems are, most of us don’t take advantage of what systems can do to improve our businesses. Systems are simply ways of automating or structuring processes so that they can occur systematically without so much thought or attention—and by more than just one person, so that the business can continue to run if the owner takes a vacation.

Figuring Out What to Systematize

For most of us, there are dozens of similar repetitive tasks, large and small, in our businesses or jobs that could be systematized. To identify where you can apply systems, step back from your enterprise and try to look at it objectively. Ask yourself questions such as below:

Where are your frustrations? This is an important test for two reasons. First, you are more likely to be frustrated if you are redoing tasks that bring no particular satisfaction. Second, you are going to be frustrated if you have to relearn a task or “recreate the wheel” every time a specific need comes up.

Rationale for Outsourcing

Outsourcing can maximize the efficiency of all of your resources—people, time, money and energy—because you and your staff can focus on the primary purpose of your business and use your unique skill sets. In the meantime, other companies with different primary purposes and skill sets (e.g., accounting, human resources or information technology) can do what THEY do best. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

As well, the resulting ability to be laser-focused on your specialization enhances and increases your credibility, and you become more attractive to people who are looking for the precise solution that you or your company offer.

An Outsourcing Attitude

Outsourcing requires an attitude shift and a willingness to surrender some control. It can feel uncomfortable at first, and that’s what leaves some people stuck at the same level year after year.

Ethics are a set of principles of right conduct. Integrity is the strict adherence to this set of principles, which does not waiver depending on the circumstances. For businesses and individuals to operate at their fullest potential, both ethics and integrity need to be solidly in place.

“I would go so far as to predict that most new businesses and entrepreneurs who do not have a solid ethical foundation will fail within five years,” writes Peter Koestenbaum, author of The Philosophic Consultant. “Conversely, those who do behave ethically will thrive, both financially and in other ways. Every conscientious businessperson should make it a priority to explore what ethical behavior is, and how he or she can make ethical decisions.”

It’s no secret—whether you’re in a corporation or running your own business—that we’re all working to achieve the same common goal: to make money. But profit motive doesn’t need to overshadow the truth that, ultimately, business is about service. Service means making clients’ needs as important as the desire to increase profits.

“Oh dear!” cried Chicken Little, “the sky is falling. I must go tell the king.”

The expression “the sky is falling” has become synonymous with a person jumping to an irrational conclusion and working everyone they meet into a panic.

It can be argued that this is happening with the current economic situation—the public is being whipped into mass hysteria.

Whether or not you believe the economic “sky” is falling (or that it’s already crashed around you), tough times have always provided great (and lucrative) opportunities. The trick is to know what to look for.

If you’re alive, you have new ideas at work every day: what would make this process more efficient, how to motivate your key players better, how to win that contract you’re after, etc. But how do you generate brilliant ideas, those blockbusters with the potential to change people, businesses—even destinies?

Consider some of the following ways to go from everyday ideas to brilliance:

Listen and observe. Notice what others are doing and saying. Engage your whole self—your physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual self—in viewing your world and the world at large.

Create the spark. Don’t just wait for great ideas to cross your path…do something to stimulate the creative juices. Travel. Read as much and as widely as you can. Make it a habit to meet and talk to new people every day. Or get even more intentional and start a brainstorming group.

Look for problems. What difficulties do you encounter on a daily basis that need a different solution? Too often we get inured to problems. We metaphorically walk around the heap of laundry in the middle of the room rather than move it into a laundry basket, or better yet wash it. Give yourself full permission to get negative. What bugs you?

“Buy one, get one free!”

“You’ll ALSO receive these valuable bonuses!”

“Order today and we’ll throw in another complete set of Ginsu knives, absolutely free!”

The idea of added value is not new—those Ginsu ads from the 1970s are still a brilliant example of increasing the value of an offer to make it more attractive to the prospective customer. But, these days, value is more important than ever.

How often have you invested in a personal growth training to try to improve something you felt you were not good at? Perhaps it was marketing, sales, personnel management or public speaking. For most of us, trying to improve our weak areas in operating our business or managing our department comes with the territory. Whatever the area, we feel as if we are required to do battle with what we don’t do well.

As it turns out, the majority of people around the world feel this way. In their groundbreaking book Now, Discover Your Strengths, authors Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton say that across all ages and cultures, people are more concerned about their weaknesses than their strengths. We believe that our weaknesses matter more in holding us back than our strengths matter in advancing us.

That’s nonsense, say the authors—widely held nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless. In their provocative theory, they suggest that the better strategy is to play to your strengths, building upon your core talents, and work around your weaknesses. You can work to add skills and knowledge to increase your performance in any area, but unless you are building upon one of your innate talents, your efforts won’t produce exceptional results—some results, yes, but not dramatic improvement.

The history of successful partnerships proves the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Consider Lewis and Clark, who helped open a vast, uncharted frontier for an ambitious, infant nation 200 years ago. Or Rogers and Hammerstein, whose musical theater collaboration has rarely been matched.

The beauty of good partnerships is that they expand resources, influence, potential and results. Simply put, good partnerships produce good results, whether they are forged between solo entrepreneurs, between departments within a company or between any imaginable configuration of individuals, programs, organizations or initiatives....

But such collaborations don’t just happen. To be sure, people can find themselves thrown together to get a particular job done or partnering with another out of convenience. Such partnerships, however, can produce as many problems as solutions.

For partnerships to be productive, the partners must be compatible in vision, approach and work processes; they must know how to communicate with each other, when to stand firm on an issue, and when to compromise. The participants must share risks and responsibilities, and treat each other fairly. This kind of relationship fosters trust, which in turn, is the foundation of a successful endeavor.

Improving profitability requires first that you focus on it. When you talk about your company do you describe it as a “$2 millions (sales)” company or a “$100,000 (profit)” company? When you talk about how you’re doing at the end of the day or week or month, is it in revenue or profit terms? Are your incentive schemes based on revenue or profit? Do you even know from month to month what your profit is?

Though the specific steps will depend on the nature of your enterprise, here are several suggestions for sharpening your profit focus and finding ways to enhance the profitability of your business.

Pay yourself first. This doesn’t mean you write yourself a check before you pay your employees, but that you account for yourself at the salary you deserve, rather than “what’s left over.” What do you think your time is worth? $100 an hour? $500 an hour? What would the profitability of your company look like if you paid yourself that? If you don’t like the answer, then dig into the underlying reasons.

Develop a “Profit Paradigm.” Let’s say your business is currently producing a 10% profit. The conventional approach to trying to raise that number it is to examine your overhead and/or cost of sales and look for another 1-2% at the margin. That approach will often produce some results, particularly if you build in a process of constant reevaluation. But another strategy is to target a 20% net profit and figure out how to restructure your business to achieve it. Impossible? Maybe, but don’t underestimate what you can come up with by taking a more radical approach.

One of the advantages of wearing a lot of hats is that you can show up at a meeting or tackle a problem from various perspectives. If you are in a sales meeting, your production manager “hat” can keep you from giving away the store in order to get a customer. In a procurement decision, your sales “hat” can keep you from paying too much for materials. And through it all, wearing your CFO hat can keep your business solvent. Some even argue that wearing a lot of hats enhances the creative process. At best, you are cross-pollinating each of your tasks with a little wisdom and experience from other fields, which makes you better at all your “hats.”

But successfully wearing many hats, like effectively multi-tasking, isn’t necessarily a skill you are born with. It is, however, a skill you can learn and refine. Since there is no way to escape it, you might as well enjoy it—without becoming schizophrenic. Here are some tips:

Inventory your hat rack. In his classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey explains how to consciously define and nourish each of the roles you play in life. The same logic applies within your business life. Don’t just think of yourself as “entrepreneur” or “business owner,” but delineate all the separate roles and think through how you approach and perform in each.

Without a doubt, coaching is the hottest approach to enhancing the performance of the people in an enterprise—whether it’s teams of coaches working with managers in a Fortune 500 company, transition coaching for new C-level executive hires, or coaches working with the owners of small businesses or sole proprietorships. It is clear from the increasing acceptance and investment in coaching, among the broad spectrum of business in many countries, that we believe coaching works.

But how well does it work? And how hard is it to measure?

In recent years, there have been a couple of detailed, well-documented studies that put the ROI of major coaching engagements within Fortune 500 companies between 600% and 700%, depending upon how improved retention was calculated.

But studies of this precision—funded by the corporate clients—are generally too costly to be meaningful as a sustained way of assessing the business benefits of coaching even at the level of large corporations.

Moreover, the issue of the benefits of coaching is, if anything, even more relevant to small business. For many firms considering hiring a coach, the notion of funding a major study to assess the results is laughable, yet it is critical that they be able to associate the benefits they are deriving from their investment in coaching.

Improving the tenor of our thoughts may seem to be a modern idea, but as Twain’s quote indicates, the fact that we can make our own misery by what we dwell upon is an age-old concern.

Why We Should Care About Our Thoughts

According to the Stress Confidential Helpline, scans on patients’ brains have indicated that the types of thoughts we have influence the balance of brain chemicals. So by learning to think more positively we can cause chemicals to be secreted that boost our psychological and physical health.

Indeed, it’s well-documented that among the ill, those who remain hopeful and have a positive attitude tend to do better.

Also, when we focus on the worst aspects of a situation that has happened to us, we ensure that our experience of it will be the worst it could be. Fortunately, the reverse is true as well.

Before allying with another, it’s important to understand what you want and need from a partner, and what you have to offer. Consider reputation, scope of services, compatibility of style and culture, commitment, financial capacity, skills and resources. Following are 10 questions that may be helpful in this process:

1. How might my company’s mission, ethics and values attract and be compatible with this business? In what areas might they conflict with those of the business?

2. How might an alliance with this business/department serve my primary customers and the community?

3. What benefits might this alliance provide to help my business/department further its mission?

Owning a business can be great, as long as you go in with your eyes open. Here are common misconceptions:

1. I’ll be my own boss. Your customers become your boss, and can hire and fire you like any corporate superior.

2. I’ll have more free time. You’ll likely work more hours until your business is ready to thrive without you.

3. It’s just me…I don’t need a business plan. Every business needs one. Without it, you’ll just drift like a leaf in the wind.

Great ideas can mean the difference between mediocrity and huge success, between boredom and passion. Whether you want to streamline a process, write a best-selling headline or start a killer business, consider the following tips:

1. Stimulate creativity. What helps take your mind in different directions? A day off? Chasing your 2-year-old? Dancing? A mastermind group?

2. Notice what’s not working. The heart of a problem is rich with possibility for creative solutions.

3. Get your pen moving. This writers’ trick works in all kinds of scenarios to generate great ideas. Just start writing.

Every dream, no matter how small or strange, has a message for us. Dreams give us hints of what is to come, point out opportunities we are missing, and suggest creative solutions to problems we face. In the 1970s, producer Jerry Weintraub dreamt of a dazzling marquee that read: “Jerry Weintraub presents Elvis at Madison Square Garden.” He followed his dream and brought Elvis back on the road, making millions.

To find out what your dreams are telling you, here are some things to listen for.

The yes/no feeling after waking. Jessica felt stifled by her job but was afraid to quit and strike out on her own. After a tumultuous day she went to sleep early and woke in the morning with a peaceful feeling of resolve, knowing that, in spite of her fear, leaving her job was the best decision.

Networking functions just like those childhood “Connect-a-Dot” pictures. One person leads to another and another and, eventually, a new client or customer is revealed.

But with all the networking groups that exist, which ones are best for you? And how can you get the most out of each mixer? The following seven networking tips will help you not only improve business but also make interesting new friends and acquaintances.

1. Explore your opportunities. Joining a variety of networking groups gives you access to the widest range of people. There are generally four types of groups: business networking groups, such as LeTip International; geographic groups, such as your local Chamber of Commerce; service groups, such as Kiwanis; and industry-specific associations. Attend a group at least three times before deciding whether it’s for you. Groups don’t have to carry the “networking” label to be good opportunities. What about community groups connected with schools, sports, theaters? Where do people in your business’ target market gather?

2. Farm, don’t hunt. Many approach a mixer with the hope or expectation that they’ll make a new client from that event. You’ll find more success, however, if you view networking as a long-term process. Get clear on why you’re networking. “It’s more about farming than it is about hunting,” says Dr. Ivan Misner, co-author of Masters of Networking and Founder of BNI, a well-known international business networking group. “It’s about cultivating relationships with other people.”