Building a Pyrotechnic Business - 7 x 7 ‘Sure Fire’ Accelerants for Entrepreneurs

Acclerant 3 -7 Ways to Light Up Your People

1. Walk the Talk

It’s tough, but the people around you will be able to assess your mood when you walk in to a room pretty much instantly. In an office, that mood can permeate the room in seconds. It may go against the grain but aim for upbeat and smile, smile, smile. If necessary fake it! People will also be constantly checking – rather like a virus check –what you say against what you do. So, if customer service is your thing – as it should be – then make sure you remain customer focused in all that you do and say. Think of your suppliers and staff as customers too.

2. Attitude v skills

There’s a popular mantra that goes ‘Hire for attitude, train for skills’. Ideally you want both of course, and in some circumstances – where, for example, there is an urgent need short term for some pretty technical stuff - then you can park this. But if you’re recruiting people in to the business, and especially if they’re customer facing – then the right people focused, positive attitude is critical. Teams, too, tend to be more successful if members are positive and goal orientated and this goes a long way to creating a positive climate for your business.

3. It’s their business too!

Get people to take ownership of the parts of the business that they have the greatest ability to influence. Be clear with them how what they do contributes to the overall success of the business. Make sure that performance discussions are open, frequent and evidence based. Spend more time looking forward rather than backwards otherwise life becomes a series of post-mortems. Help your people become ‘intrepreneurs’ within your business so that they build their own entrepreneurial skills.

4. Hearts and minds

You want people to bring their whole bodies to work – that’s to say their hearts and minds. Shocking results from a recent survey revealed that more than half of the employees polled felt disaffected from their job and the company they worked for. For a small business, this level of overhead – effectively two people to do one job –is untenable. So, you have the challenge of engaging your people as fully as possible. What we have talked about previously here will help. Take a real interest in your people, find out about their families and what they do in their spare time. And above all catch them doing things right and give immediate feedback.

5. Doing it right

Make sure you’re doing the ‘right things right’ rather than ‘wrong things right’. It’s so easy to get sucked in to stuff that is energising, exciting and inevitably time consuming. But if it’s not moving the business on – and that’s you’re prime goal – then you’re just wasting time and perhaps other resources too. Are you spending too much time travelling around chasing marginal business? Has social media taken over your life? Are terrorist customers sapping your strength? If so you need to get a grip. Keep a diary for a week and see how you spend your time relative to your business priorities.

6. Hymn sheets

What do your people actually say to customers when you’re not there? What do they say on the phone and face to face? In this day and age, what are they saying too about your business on their texts, on Facebook and Twitter? The days of direct control may be gone but you still have the ability to influence. Make sure that uncomfortable conversations and differences of opinion are resolved within your business before they go public.  Get feedback from customers, both satisfied and unsatisfied and even ‘mystery shop’ your business yourself.

7. ‘Could do better’

Too many businesses drift along failing to address self-evident performance issues amongst their staff and suppliers. In the poll about disaffected staff, employers also reported that they felt that 25% of staff were ineffective. This is outrageous!  Is there something in our culture that gets in the way of dealing in a timely and effective way with unsatisfactory performance? The longer you leave it, the more you collude and the more your staff – who will know who the poor performers are – will doubt your leadership capabilities.

And finally, if you’re so inclined score yourself on a scale

of 1 (low) to 10 (high) against these Accelerants.

Building a Pyrotechnic Business - 7 x 7 ‘Sure Fire’ Accelerants for Entrepreneurs

Accelerant 2: The Pyrotechnics’ Toolkit

1. Focus

It goes without saying that there will be a lot going on when you’re running your own business. So, you’ll need to identify and focus on the ‘critical few’ that are going to make a difference to your business success. Amongst the fundamentals will be marketing, sales and cash flow. It’s also important to nurture key relationships including looking after yourself. Time management is of the essence so don’t procrastinate and put things off. Delegate where you can and recognise when you need to talk to experts because you’re moving beyond your own capabilities.

2. A Clear Business Model

Your business model is the way in which you create, deliver and get value for what you do.  This means looking at your business in a very objective way. Park your passion and excitement to really understand what core value you offer. It could be:

·         the actual product or service;

·         your ability to build collaborations and partnerships;

·         the reach of your network ;

·         your Intellectual Property (IP).

Whatever it is, this is the part of your business which you must monetise effectively.

Remember that the value may be monetary but it could come in other ways like altruism and personal satisfaction too. Many people who run their own businesses give generously of their time and experience.

3. Finding ideal customers

There is a tendency particularly when starting a business to believe that any customer will do. This is true up to a point because customers who buy are the acid test of your proposition. But don’t fall in to the trap of believing that all customers are good customers. Take time to identify the characteristics of good customers for your business (What do they buy? How often do they buy? Do they pay on time? What do they say to others about you?) and then make sure your marketing and sales activities are targeted at them.

4. Profit before turnover

This is, of course, closely related to the point above. Chasing more business to generate a higher turnover doesn’t in itself automatically generate more profit. There’s a saying ‘Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity’. Be very sure by understanding your costs and margins that every additional £1 of turnover delivers the appropriate benefit to the bottom line. Know your numbers and don’t lose control of your pricing – it’s the road to ruin!

5. Saying ‘No’

Can you see a pattern emerging here?  In the same way that your body is a temple so is your business. Don’t be afraid not to take on or to let go of customers who don’t meet your ideal customer criteria. For many businesses the 80/20 rule (or Pareto’s Law as it’s called) applies. Over time you will find 20% of your customers deliver 80% of your profit - in some businesses it’s even more marked, say 5% of customers/95% profit. Understand who these key customers are – pamper them and don’t let the long tail of the 80% wag your business for you. Watch out too for terrorising suppliers who want your business– just be totally but politely frank with them.

6. Being curious

Ok, so to counterbalance all the control stuff, take time to stay alert to what is actually happening in your business. If you’re meeting your goals then that’s great. However, be just as curious when you do better than you expected as you are when doing not so well. What is happening that you didn’t expect? What can you do to make more of this if it’s good news?

It’s helpful to stay in touch with what your competitors are doing – you may get some actionable hints. Who are the movers and shakers in your business – global, national and local? Pick a few and track what they are saying.

7. Failing quickly

Think of your business as a series of short term experiments. You’ll get some things right you’ll get some things wrong. If the balance is positive then you’ll be moving in the right direction. Don’t dwell on stuff that hasn’t worked but don’t lose sight of it completely. Just because something didn’t work once doesn’t mean it won’t work again – getting the timing right is everything.

Worst case is that actually your fundamental proposition is wrong and you need to start again completely. Don’t worry; if you’ve failed quickly you will have time and hopefully resources to move on. Remember too that you’ll be joining the ‘Serial Entrepreneurs Club’ – many business investors like to see you’ve got this T shirt!

And finally as for Accelerant1, if you’re so inclined score yourself on a scale

of 1(low) to 10 (high) against these Accelerants.

Building a Pyrotechnic Business - 7 x 7 ‘Sure Fire’ Accelerants for Entrepreneurs

Accelerant 1: Lighting your own Fire

1. Passion: Passion is a key ingredient if you are running your own business. You cannot expect anyone else to care more about what you do than you.  Your passion is an accelerant that is transmitted like wildfire through everything you say and do. People will notice it and respond positively – this is how you start to create a presence and build your business.
2. Motivation: If passion is a high revving engine, then motivation is the drive train. Without either you and your business will lack direction and energy. Motivation is not something you can outsource. So when you get out of bed in the morning get yourself into a positive frame of mind. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is high. You need to be about an 8!
3. Half empty v Half full: How do you see the world – are you an optimist or pessimist by nature? If the latter, frankly you’re in for a very tough time. You need a positive mind set - seeing opportunities and challenges rather than problems and barriers. If you have a negative thought, think about how you might re-frame it in a positive way. Teach your mind to see the good before the not so good – it can be done!
4. Handling Rejection: There’s going to be a lot of this and it doesn’t really go away. The temptation is to view all rejection as personal but this is not usually the case. There’s a saying that there is no such thing as failure – only learning! It’s important then to understand where you can what the basis of the rejection is – it may cause you to revisit what you do and the way you do it.
5. Planning for Success: One of Stephen Covey’s ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ is to begin with the end in mind. If you’re just starting out then it clearly helps to know where you want to end up. Why? Because it will shape what you do and how you go about it.. It’s often helpful to think about what you yourself might be doing when the business is successful and capable of running itself.
6. Bias for action: Frankly it’s no good waiting for other people to do things for you – for just the right moment – you just need to get on with what needs to be done. Banks, governments, friends, family will all have their own agendas and go at their own pace. It’s no good thinking if only this, if only that. You need to take responsibility and make things happen. It’s very rarely that things are absolutely perfect – so make the most with what you’ve got.
7. Reaching Out: Are you one of those guys who doesn’t like to stop and ask for directions? If so, think again and next time give it a try. You won’t know all you need to know to run your own business. Successful entrepreneurs build a support structure around them – people they can turn to for knowledge yes, but also people they can turn to for empathy. Choose your people and networks carefully to make sure they can deliver on both counts

And finally, if you’re so inclined score yourself on a scale of 1(low) to 10 (high) against these accelerants. I’m going to ask my network what they think a good score should be.

Note: Accelerant 2 will follow shortly