10 Steps to Succeeding in Turmoil

Step 1. Mindset There are dozens, if not hundreds, of books and audio CDs on the subject of the importance of keeping your attitude and mindset positive. The big questions are, first, ‘why should I do this?’ and second, ‘how?’ Firstly, let’s discuss the ‘why’. How many people do you know who have an attitude that seems negative, no matter what day it is or where you meet them? This type of personality can drain the energy out of an entire room. (Maybe rephrase to sound less emotional and more factual). Negative thoughts are like a virus; they move in, replicate and attempt to take over a healthy host. Positive thoughts are the antidote and spread just as quickly. Choose to be a cure not a cause! The question is how can we keep a great attitude all the time? Frankly, we can’t. We all have upsetting or distracting events occurring throughout our day. The trick is how quickly we choose to catch ourselves and turn our attitudes around. And as for the ‘how’? Keeping a positive attitude is a choice. Positive people read different books, they listen to different things in their car while driving, they hang out with other positive people, they hire only positive people in their company. Step 2. Planning Ask yourself this question: is my five-year business plan strong enough to support my family, even in the face of disaster? Is the plan accurate, and will it provide my family the lifestyle we have always dreamed of? Do five years seem too far away to plan? Start with a year. You can be assured that all great business people have consistently done a good job of planning out at least one year in detail ahead and five years as a broad framework. In addition to having a solid 1-Year Plan in place, they take the next logical step of breaking that plan down into four manageable stages of 90 Day Plans. But wait, even 90 Day Plans are not enough! You must then drill down even further into Weekly Action Plans. Just imagine how powerful it would be for your company if every employee had a clear understanding of the most important 4 or 5 activities they must deliver on each week! Step 3. Financial Mastery In my experience, 90% of business owners do not understand the most important numbers of their business, the real bottom line. What could be more imperative than knowing the margins your company makes on every product or service you deliver? Do you know whether you are currently spending above or within your means? We can discuss this further but it can be very interesting to turn the books upside down by deciding how much you want to pay yourself...The Profit...Then identify your actual overheads, what your actual profit margin is.... What percentage is your utilisation of your maximum potential production (this could be expressed in terms of billable hours, units produced, available stock or access to stock etc)...Then how much you will need to turn over to achieve the desired profit...This may seem very simplistic but in real terms it will clearly identify the impact of factors such as discounting, cost of carry to much or too little stock, wastage and much more. Other factors that you may wish to consider are taking the opportunity to re-negotiating the lease on your building, resetting the terms and conditions of your borrowings negotiating new arrangements with suppliers. Consider strategically taking advantage of early payment discounts to some of your vendors. And lastly, it is always a good practice to have a personal budget for your household. But in this area, remember to never make any payment before it is actually due unless early payment discounts are to your long-term advantage. Step 4. Manage your cash flow A company may seem profitable on paper but also suffer from low cash flow. When looking at your numbers, keep a few things in mind: It is simply smart practice to keep your inventory clean and lean, as low as it can be without sacrificing effective delivery to your customers. Take a close look at your payment terms for suppliers. Are your overtime dollars necessary, or at least under control? Are you taking advantage of flexible work schedules to possibly reduce some fixed costs for salaries? Step 5. Marketing This is an area of great opportunity and also great risk. There are two targets for your marketing efforts: one is focused on getting new leads or prospects, and the other on retention of your existing clients. Far too many business owners focus 98% of their time and resources on pulling in new customers while there past and present customers languish. If we consider the fact that it’s six times more expensive to get new clients than keeping the ones we already have, shouldn’t we considerable spending much more time and effort on keeping the ones who already like us, trust us, and buy from us? The answer is a resounding yes! Also when you are ready to pursue new business, make sure you have a great system in place to track every lead that comes in. Your marketing budget could be reduced, or at least better focused, when you have the data to know which marketing strategies are successfully feeding new business your way. It is also vital to at least explore the emerging opportunities to affordably and effectively market using proven and also cutting edge strategies. Step 6. Sales The bottom line here is simple: train, train, train! Make sure you have the most talented sales team, and that your team has performance goals and accurate information about the current performance of your business. Your sales team must also be RESULTS oriented. It is imperative that every sales person is a strong contributor, or it may be time to start recruiting. After all, there is a lot of great talent looking for work these days. Step 7. Fundamentals Now more than ever, you must have the right team in place. You and every member of your team must be effective at making good time management choices. To this end, it could be cost-effective to provide your staff with a course in time management. And remember, an organization is always a reflection of its leader. If you are not very good at preventing distractions from taking you off target, your company won’t be either. Lastly, now more than ever, your customer service must be EXTRAORDINARY. Step 8. Continuous Learning With so many professionals required by regulation to continuously upgrade their level of professional education, shouldn’t you do so as well? Now is also a great time to expand the cross-training of your team. The top line of your personal knowledge is also the top line of your company’s knowledge. Unfortunately, most leaders -- in fact, most people -- spend more time designing their yearly vacation plan than they do designing their personal development plan. Step 9. Accountability Are you ready to be held accountable? Most business development focused people love the freedom of not being closely managed, but many lack the self discipline to stay focused without someone higher up to report to. A plan designed to drive financial performance is a necessary tool to make your business thrive and grow. Every member of your team should understand the two most important goals for your company during any given fiscal period. You must have in place a simple Performance Appraisal system which emphasizes accountability and reinforces the positive outcomes you expect. You also need a well communicated system of dealing with poor performance, plus the discipline to redirect staff toward those behaviours required for top performance. Step 10. Professional Support Just imagine the excitement and satisfaction of building a business that thrives and grows in adversity while learning to not be dependent on you 24/7! This final step is critical. Make sure you have surrounded yourself with talented supporters: Talented business development, marketing, design and multimedia people who have a passion to see you thrive. It may be the last thing you want to spend your money on but consider the value of having people around you who are free of any other motivation than helping you to prosper and expedite your acceleration toward financial and personal freedom. Your path to success can be as easy as counting to 10. For the next 30- days, before making business decisions mentally journey through these steps and see how you measures up. After the month is over, you will have the steps memorized and a set of habits established that will lead to a lifetime of better business! Red Meets Blue works with your business to create media and marketing solutions through graphic design, website development & video production