Choosing what NOT to focus on
Walter Miller, who runs a terrific bookkeeping and outsourced CFO firm responded to my prior email about doing vs. being and I thought his reply was insightful enough to share with you all (with his permission): I am constantly having to pare down my to-do list. I'm trying to focus more on the to-do's that move the needle of strategic progress. For my brain, that looks like 3 or less to-dos/goals that are considered MUST DO at any point in time. The rest (and there are often many of them) get labeled NICE TO DO. Many of the nice to-do's get done but not at the expense of the must do. My problem in the past is that my goal plate was overloaded with tasks of all sorts and priorities. In … [Read More...]
5 words that will move your team members to deliver better work
You took the time to clearly lay out the assignment. You confirmed with your team member the process they would use to accomplish it. They agreed that the time frame was good and that they had the skills and tools they needed to get it done. But when they deliver it to you, you are disappointed. It’s just not great work! You expected a lot better, and you really believe they are capable of it. Now, what do you do? You don’t want to have a big back and forth about the quality of this work, but you can’t send it to the client like this… I’ve got a simple sentence that will turn this situation around for you. You don’t have to get your shorts all in a knot, just plan a time to … [Read More...]
Who tells you that your ass is hanging out?
Her goals were straightforward. Win more new business. Complete projects on-time and under budget. Make more money. Sounds like a formula for success, right? So we worked to fire up her marketing so there were more leads coming in. We instituted project reviews to make sure the work was good quality and was getting out on time. We set her up with a bookkeeper who would keep the books up to date and provide feedback on what needs to be collected, where the cash leaks were, and how profit was shaping up. This should be an easy process to follow, right? But it didn’t work. She hates writing proposals, so leads were coming in, but the proposals were piled up on her desk. … [Read More...]
Managing the worst employee on your team…
You know the one. She’s late a lot; not just to the office, and to meetings, but her work doesn’t even show up on time. Usually, when you call her on it she blames someone else. The truth is she’s going in 100 different directions at once, and all the things she’s doing are important. You can never tell what her priorities are. But she works hard and she’s totally committed to the company’s success—in fact—we wouldn’t be here without her. Do you know this person? Is it you? We’ve talked a lot this week about leadership, but the truth is, the hardest person to manage is yourself. How do you think it looks to your team members that you constantly harp on everyone to fill out their … [Read More...]
What’s different about your “management” job?
When you started your business you wore all the hats. But as your business has grows you have to give up some of those hats and instead take on the job of the "manager" or team leader. This is one of the toughest transitions for people to make. You have to change what you do, how you do it and how you look at your self. Managers spend their time differently When your business grows managing is your primary job, so you don’t get to spend much time “doing the work”. So if you were someone who was designing beautiful things, you now lead other people who design beautiful things while you go to meetings to provide input and guidance, talk to clients, and resolve issues. This is the core … [Read More...]
Do you want to build a chicken coop or a house?
I have a friend who owns a farm. It’s a small farm, but still; he’s got chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, cows, and produce in the summer. I went up to visit him for a weekend and we spent the better part of the weekend building a chicken coop. Just the two of us, with some power tools, lumber, and his knowledge of carpentry. He also significantly remodeled the 100-year-old farmhouse that they live in. That took more than a weekend! It involved a lot more people; plumbers, electricians, concrete work for the foundation, earth movers, forklifts, all kinds of equipment. For the two of us to build a chicken coop in a weekend was a reasonable task. But he would have been foolhardy to … [Read More...]
Before you pass out…
On most Saturday mornings I get up early. My school aged son watches cartoons for a while and I amble into the kitchen to start my batch of sourdough bread. I usually brew up a cup of tea and then start mixing the bread. It takes about 3 hours of on and off kneading and rising for the bread to be ready to proof. During that time I plan meals and order groceries for the week. (I’m a big Amazon Fresh fan.) It’s a slow, very domestic start to my weekend. I tell you this to illustrate that, for me, Saturday (and Sunday) are times that I don’t work. Occasionally, (as in 4 - 5 times a year) I’ll pop into the office for a couple of hours on a weekend; but I try to spend every weekend off of my … [Read More...]
Why you can’t “fix you team”
One of the things I say to new advisors who join our team is that clients always want us to fix “the team”. Clients tell us, “They [meaning their team members] have terrible attention to detail, they never follow through, they are always missing deadlines…” (the list goes on and on). Of course they are right, the team does have these problems — and those problems are holding the company back from the growth that the owner is looking for. The question is, why do those problems exist? Is the problem with the team, or is the root of the problem higher up? Which is more likely? Have you built a hiring process that successfully screens for out the applicants who don’t follow through … [Read More...]
What gets measured gets rewarded
“How do you know you are doing a good job?” Early in an engagement with a new client I usually go around and ask this question to each of the management employees in the company. It’s a simple question, but having employees who are clear about the answer is key to driving employee engagement and accountability. If you don’t know what success looks like for your job it’s hard to figure out how you are going to make it happen and it’s hard for you as the leader to know when it is happening. When I ask employees at the beginning of an engagement they frequently respond with some mix of: “If there’s less yelling I’m doing a good job...” “No one’s complaining so I guess I’m doing … [Read More...]
To-do or To-be
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. ~Abraham Lincoln. It’s likely that every person reading this email has some kind of system for managing their “to-do” list. On my computer I can identify at least 4 pieces of software that I’ve used at one time or another to track my to-dos and help me stay focused on “doing” the right things. Currently, I’m a Todoist fan FWIW. Yet I’ve never seen a gravestone inscribed with anyone’s checked off to-do list. Oh, I know some folks who try to turn their to-do list into some kind of badge of honor — they love to talk about how busy they are, about how many tasks they have on … [Read More...]
How to generate leads
When a business can successfully and reliably generate leads then it makes the whole business run better. So how do we generate leads? The conventional wisdom today is to build a “lead magnet” on your website and then do a ton of outreach, advertising, and promotion to drive traffic to that “lead magnet” to build a list of leads that might be interested in your services. This method will work, as long as you are: a great direct response copywriter, who knows exactly what your market needs, who has the contacts and to do outreach, has the technical know-how, structure, and time to build and provide on-going support an online funnel, and has the budget to buy … [Read More...]
Feed the top of the funnel
When we are looking to grow our business there are a lot of avenues we can pursue; better proposals, better presentations, sharpening our pricing, networking, advertising... But there's only one thing that's likely to consistently grow your business, and that's more leads. The more people you talk to who are actually interested in buying your services, who have a clear need (that you can meet), have a budget and a timeline, and who can make a decision, the more deals you will close. Yes, if your presentation is weak and your proposal stinks it's going to take more of those conversations than is you have the perfect pitch and proposal. But unless you can consistently generate … [Read More...]
The one thing your business can’t run without
Right now your business depends on you. In order for your business to remain healthy you need to be healthy. Yes, the goal is to have a day when that’s not true, when you can spend a month in the Bahamas and no one misses you, but today is not that day. You are still central to the life and health of your business. Since this is true, your health and well being are the most important asset your business has, and needs! This may seem obvious, but if you are sick, too stressed to focus, or so tired you don’t have the energy to make good decisions or compete key tasks, your business is in jeopardy. So when I hear stories of business owners who are pulling all-nighters, who are working … [Read More...]
What’s your job? 4 things business owners must do themselves
Many business owners that I know will create job descriptions for their team members, but how many of us have a job description for our own job? We create job descriptions to set expectations with our team members. We want them to know what we expect them to do. Business owners need this too! I think one of the hardest things about owning a business is that there are about 1000 things for me to do, but I can only get 100 done (maybe less?). Which things should I focus on? Your job description should help you with that. So what should be included in the Business Owner’s job description? There’s 4 things that every business owner needs to do: 1. THE BUSINESS OWNER MUST SET … [Read More...]