Did you struggle with balancing life and business this holiday season? The holidays are notoriously tough for everyone, but especially so for business owners. There are busy days, days when the business is closed, times when you need to be off work, times when your employees need off and more. It’s easy to get wrapped up when you’re busy working, planning and running the business, but you have to slow down!

The holidays, regardless of your religion, are a time to step back and take time to focus on family and friends. How did you spend your holidays? Have you figured out how to take the time off that you need while still running a successful business? For many owners, it’s all about having the right systems.

Increase Your Personal Time by Improving Your Business System

Business systems are an important part of creating and effective, efficient and profitable business. Many owners aren’t sure how to design a good business system or how to re- design the one they already have and that means the policies and procedures that allow for a well-organized and smoothly running business are often not in place. This can easily cause an “out of control” feeling. Focus on examining your business systems and making gradual improvements over time. Make sure to also find ways to pass small tasks onto other members of your business team. If your business is too owner-dependent, it can hold you back, especially during busy times and times when you want time off!

Gain Freedom from Your Business by Honing your Leadership Skills

You can also free yourself from your business by improving your leadership and delegation skills. Many business owners forgo leadership for doer-ship because they know how they want things to be done and, as a result, end up micromanaging their staff. Instead of delegating tasks, they act like employees instead of owners. You need to make sure you have a business – not just a hectic job! Make sure you take the time to delegate small and unimportant tasks and work on trusting others. If you can ensure those smaller tasks to your staff and managers, you can avoid headaches and find more freedom.

Make 2104 the Year You Achieve Balance Between Your Business and Personal Life

As we begin a new year, it is an ideal time to re-evaluate how your business is running and make plans for improvement in 2014. It’s time to think more strategically about your business, to think long term, see the bigger picture and be proactive.  The Growth Coach process has been in business for twenty years helping business owners and executives drive success in their businesses and fine balance in their lives.  Join the thousands of business owners who have used our proven process to gain clarity on what it is they want to achieve and to bridge the gap between where they are currently, their reality, and where they want to go: Take the first step and call me at 503-312-3145.

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]“The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible: he stood under the arch.”-Michael Armstrong

Employees want to be held accountable!

Keeping employees accountable for their responsibilities, assignments, goals, promises, etc. is a critical success factor. As leader, you too need to remain accountable to your word and promises. Without accountability, a culture of excuses takes over an entire organization – it is a deadly cancer.

Too many leaders do not hold their people accountable for reaching established goals or performance standards. Such lack of accountability is one of the deadly business mistakes.

What’s currently happening in most small businesses?

Meetings are held, issues are discussed, solutions are proposed, and goals are set. Unfortunately, the story usually ends there. Implementation is weak at best. Follow-up is missing. Follow through is missing. Accountability is missing. Ideas, strategies, and tactics never get off the ground. Many promises fall through the cracks. What a waste of time and talent.

Why does this mistake happen?

Because many owners are not truly functioning as leaders. They are not monitoring progress on goals. They are often too busy in the details of the business to focus on the performance of others or the overall performance of the company.

Moreover, too many business owners try to be liked instead of respected. Holding people accountable can be confrontational at times. Many owners avoid tension, conflict, and on-going performance reviews. Such avoidance is dangerous to your business and the development of their employees. Business owners can’t be everyone’s buddy. As a leader, you need to be respected, not necessarily liked. Above all else, you are their boss and a challenging coach that demands the best of each player.

Your leadership and other strengths are not worth much if you are not able to achieve leverage and results through other people. Keep reminding yourself and your management team that the greatest assets of your business are your people![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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“Accountability breeds response-ability.”-Stephen Covey

Employees want to be held accountable!

 We should meet with our key employees or managers at least once a month for a one-to-one, good-old-fashioned accountability session. Remind them of our expectations. Help them to grow and improve. Again, when we create clarity of expectations and standards, there is less confusion and more effective delegation and accountability.

As a reminder, we should be very careful about letting our employees become our social friends. We need to remain objective to make decisions in the best interest of the company. Trying to please or be liked by everyone is a sure bet for disaster.

 Give people the responsibility, freedom, resources, and support required to get important things done.

Let them know they will be held accountable for certain results. Continually remind them of our expectations. Monitor their progress and intervene only when necessary. Give them feedback. Praise an employee’s progress on goals in public and criticize their poor performance in private. However, in public, we can feel free to express our disappointment and frustration to our entire team. Just save the harsh criticism for an individual for behind closed doors. Praise in public; criticize in private.

 Here are some basic ground rules for effective accountability:

• Never let committees, groups or multiple persons be accountable for making things happen.
• Make sure one person/one champion is responsible and accountable for each key assignment.
• Establish goals and clarify due dates for results.
• Conduct regularly scheduled follow-up meetings to gauge progress on goals and hold people accountable.
• If they consistently fail to get important things done, give them different jobs or replace them with new people.

Do not allow poor implementation to infect your business. We have only two choices; we can establish a culture that tolerates excuses or one that insists on strong performance. Do we want more excuses or execution of goals?   For improved results, we must start leading and holding our people accountable.

 People want to be held accountable and challenged.

They also want constant feedback on their performance. They want to learn and to grow. They even desire a healthy environment of discipline. This helps them develop and reach their potential. Accountability is beneficial feedback that shows we care. Make certain our employees feel appreciated and important – they crave it!

Keep reminding yourself and your management team that the greatest assets of your business are your people![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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“There are no magic wands, no hidden tricks, and no secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success, but with time, energy, and determination you can get there.” – Darren Rowse, founder of ProBlogger

Eight Marketing Strategies for a Small Budget

Everyone knows that building a business takes time and persistence, but it also takes effective marketing.However, most of us don’t have the luxury of starting a business with a six-figure budget. So how do you throw yourself into a solid marketing plan with a teeny marketing budget? Here are some strategies we’ve found work for our clients. Just remember that when you’re spending less money on marketing, you’re likely looking at spending more time to achieve great results.

 Here are Eight Inexpensive Marketing Tips

1) Leverage Relationships:

You certainly have people in your life who will benefit from the success of your business, like your banker, your CPA, your suppliers, your vendors, etc. Determine who would make good informal sales agents for your business by considering who will benefit most from your growth. Once you have that figured out, go to your contacts and ask those people to support your growth efforts through leads, referrals, testimonials, etc.

 2) Work with Current Customers:

Your current customers know that you have a great product or service to offer to the community – and they know people who can benefit from what you’re offering. Ask them for introductions and referrals to other potential buyers or ask them to provide endorsements or testimonials, or see if they’d serve as references. Also, every time you work with customers, ask if there are any needs you haven’t met. There is always more you can do (and charge for.)

 3) Build your Referral Sources:

Take a look at your best referral sources in the last year. Where has most of your business come from? First of all, make sure you thank those people or service providers for helping to build your businesses and then create a strategy to stay in touch with these sources as often as possible. Now consider how you can copy these results. If you’re an estate sale company and your best referrals have come from realtors, how can you meet more realtors?

 4) Make Working with You Easy:

If you’re asking someone to do business with you, consider offering a money-back guarantee. A credible and specific guarantee will bring in much more business than it costs you. If you’re uncomfortable providing a guarantee, consider why. Is there something you need to improve in your system to make your business less risky for customers?

 5) Reach More at Once:

There are only so many hours in the day, so situations where you can influence multiple people at once will serve you well. Consider hosting special events or seminars for customers, referral sources, and prospects. If you can combine your event with people who would make strong strategic partners, you can tap into their networks as well.

 6) Spread the Word:

Even in the Internet age, having a public relations strategy is important. Get to know your local media outlets and reporters and be sure to share stories about changes in your business, especially expansions in staff or services. Get to know the executive directors of the various organizations in your target market.

 7) Use Social Media:

Building social media pages is a slow process, but it’s important to be able to connect with any potential customers on any platform. If you don’t have a Facebook page and a potential customer searches for you on Facebook, how will that look? If you have loyal customers, ask them to write reviews for your Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn pages. Those are powerful messages to potential customers! You can also use LinkedIn to build your personal referral network by leveraging groups. There’s plenty of free training out there for exactly how to make that work.

 8) Leverage Indirect Competitors:

Are there competitors in your market you wouldn’t necessarily go head-to-head against when looking for customers? Maybe you are in slightly different markets or you serve different populations with a similar service? If you’re a residential painter, can you build a relationship with a commercial painter to let leads flow both ways?

 Do you have low-cost marketing strategies that have worked for you?

If you’re struggling to make strides in marketing – or any aspect of your business – it’s time to see what working with an experienced coach and consultant can do to help you grow your business to the next level.

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“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only  means.”-Claudian

As leader, we must be a Role Model for others!

Know that we set the tone, pace, environment, and personality of our company. By our consistent actions, we establish what the company values and what gets rewarded. We lead by example and to a large extent, shape the culture of our organizations.

In large part, we maintain the culture.

In large part, we maintain the culture by participating in the interviewing, hiring, reviewing and rewarding of our employees. We need to always make time for these critical activities.

Above all, we should try to create a culture where our people feel appreciated and important and where they believe that they can reach their potential – full use of their talents. William James said that “the deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” If we achieve such a supportive and fear-free culture, we will have created a successful company with solid retention of our employees.

Make coming to work enjoyable

Also, make coming to work enjoyable. Identify, celebrate, and remember our companies victories. Capture them in stories that we repeat, especially to new hires.

Our leadership and other strengths are not worth much if we are not able to achieve leverage and results through other people. Keep reminding yourself and your management team that the greatest assets of your business are our people!

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“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”-Henry David Thoreau

We should be asking our employees for input

Do you regularly ask your employees for input, to share their thoughts and suggestions? Do you allow them to contribute ideas and then buy into the direction and goals of the company?

Don’t attempt to go it alone

Attempting to go it alone rarely succeeds. In the business world, results have proven again and again that the most powerful decisions that move a company forward are not those of a strong, authoritarian president. Instead they are decisions in which both the employees and management have come together to find a solution.

Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart who became one of the richest men in America, believed in hearing what people, especially his employees, had to say. Once he flew his aircraft to Mt. Pleasant, Texas, and parked the plane with instructions to his copilot to meet him one hundred or so miles down the road. He then flagged a Wal-Mart truck and rode the rest of the way to “chat with the driver.” He said, “It seemed like so much fun.” It was also a great learning experience.

Dallas-based Chili’s, one of the nation’s five best-run food service chains, according to Restaurants & Institutions magazine, is another company with a leader who listens to employees. Norman Brinker, Chili’s chairman, believes that responsive communication is the key to good relations with both employees and customers. He also has learned that such communication pays big dividends. Almost 80 percent of Chili’s menu comes from suggestions made by unit managers.

 Seek input from your employees and start listening!

Our leadership and other strengths are not worth much if you are not able to achieve leverage and results through other people. Keep reminding yourself and your management team that the greatest assets of your business are your people!

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