Toni Hunter's SuperBlog

People often ask “what is business coaching?” and in truth there are lots of ways to describe it.  In this post, Lee Duncan a well respected business coach that I have worked with for the benefit of my clients, will focus on four elements that work together to get results in any area of your life. 

Business is all about getting results.

For most of us, this means achieving a level of financial success from the businesses we create.  The principles of business are actually quite straightforward, although in practice it often turns out to be more tricky.

A formula that’s useful to focus the mind on what to do next is

Attitude+Goals+Knowledge+Action=Results

The first key to success is attitude.

Henry Ford famously said, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re probably right”.

Just think about that for a moment. If you start out with the notion that you’re going to fail, you will. I know of a psychologist who calls this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It works the other way around though too, which is far more exciting. If you believe you will succeed, you probably will. As a business coach, it’s clear that many clients need some help to have confidence and a positive mental attitude.

Next up, you’ve got to have a goal.

A goal is like a destination for a taxi trip. When you jump into a taxi, the driver wants to know where you’re going to go before he’ll move off. That’s just the same as your brain. If you want to get somewhere with your business, you’ve got to focus on where you want to go before you can move towards it. Goals should be set to be stretching, but achieveable.

The third part of the formula is to have the correct knowledge.

Many of us know what we should be doing to be more successful, it’s just that we don’t do it. On the other hand, sometimes we simply don’t know how to do something and so we remain stuck.

By attending seminars, reading books, listening to CDs and watching video, we gain knowledge. With practice we can turn this knowledge into skills that help us to achieve our goals. Skills like how to write effective sales letters, or how to create a blog, or how to manage staff effectively, can all be learnt by anybody. Great results can also be described as the successful application of the right knowledge. Make the effort to get the learning habit, you won’t regret it.

The final step on your way to results is to take action.

Great ideas are simply notions until somebody turns them into reality.

If you’re an ideas person who finds it hard to bring your ideas to life, you’re a dreamer. If you have no ideas but keep turning the handle and expecting different results, you’re a madman.

The happy middle road is where success lies – a great idea combined with the right actions, taken relentlessly day after day, to achieve success.

When any single piece of the formula is missed, you’ll struggle to achieve your desired results. That’s where business coaching comes in, to help you bring all of these things into alignment for you.

When you achieve results, no matter how big or small, take the time to celebrate and enjoy your successes. Too often in life we beat ourselves up for failing and don’t notice what we have actually achieved. Start to notice how good you are, how successful you are, and you’ll be successful more often and in bigger ways.

Read about the kind of results that Lee’s clients enjoy in a story from a member of the Chris Cardell marketing club who also works with Lee. 

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.

During an economic downturn both individuals and organisations can suffer from adverse pressure, increasing the motivation for fraudulent behaviour.

Organisations are at risk from fraud both internally from employees and shareholders, and externally from suppliers, contractors and other organisations.

According to KPMG (data: July 2009) more than 160 cases of serious fraud, worth in aggregate £636million came to UK courts in the first half of 2009, the highest number of cases in the 21 year history of the KMPG Fraud Barometer.

Fraud has many guises such as ineligible claimants of state benefit, money laundering and unauthorised sharing of databases.

Internal Fraud: Warning signs might include

• Staff who have personal financial problems or have lifestyles not commensurate with their remuneration
• Employees who work late or appear to be under stress without a heavy workload
• Staff under pressure from unrealistic targets set by management or heavy emphasis on performance related pay.
• Internal and/or external complaints about certain people/teams
• Unwillingness to delegate and/or reluctance to take holidays
• Over-friendly relationships with external stakeholders
• New staff resigning quickly as they are uncomfortable with ‘unusual behaviour’ but do not wish to report it

External Fraud: Warning signs might include

• Insistance on dealing with one individual
• Cash only or high volume, low value transactions
• Unusual/sporadic payment behaviour
• Increased prices without explanation
• High staff turnover and/or lack of management control

Obviously, these are only indicators and you should not accuse anyone just because their behaviours fit one of these points!

In a future post I will provide ideas on how to reduce the risk of fraud to your organisation.

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.

Apologies for the length of this post by fellow HBNer and client, Gareth Howell of Agdon Associates, but it is full of information for anyone considering migrating to the new, all singing, all dancing offering from Microsoft.  It also clearly demonstrates Gareth’s knowledge and passion for helping small business.

Moving to Windows 7 from XP is painful: reduce it with virtualization.

It’s old news that Windows 7 is now available and the response has been pretty positive. In fact, far from the response being “well, at least it’s not Vista!) respectable people have been singing its praises. However, there is a sting in the tail: it’s not possible to upgrade directly to Windows 7 from XP (at least not in the sense of being to upgrade and then carry on working).

The upgrade path from XP requires a clean installation and the preservation of your personal files only: no applications are migrated across.

This is a major problem for anybody who chose to avoid Vista, relies on a PC for their day to day business and doesn’t have a spare. Re-installing applications can (literally) take days if one includes the inevitable upgrades and service packs that have been released since you bought the installation media. Of course, this also assumes that you have the original installation media. Oh, and the license codes.

Take heart though, if you follow my (fairly) easy to follow sequence of steps, you can migrate to Windows 7 without losing productivity.

In summary, we’re going to use virtualization technology to preserve your XP environment in the new Windows 7 world and disconnect the process of re-installing applications from that of upgrading Windows. What we will do is:

• Buy a new, larger, hard disk
• Clone the old XP installation on to the new disk
• Boot from the new disk and upgrade to Windows 7
• Create a Virtual Machine to contain the original XP installation.

Once you have gone through this process you can choose when to re-install specific application on Windows 7 because you will still have access to them on XP from day one.

At the end of this process you will have a clean Windows 7 environment plus seemless access to your XP environment; using the excellent “Unity” feature in the latest VMware Player

So, in more detail

Step 1 – Buy a new, larger, hard disk

Buying a new disk makes this all so much easier, though there is a gotcha if your machine is a laptop. I’ll get to that later.

The chances are that you will need a larger disk anyway. In my case my T60 had a 120GB drive, of which about 80GB was used. That means we need at least 80GB of free space on the Windows 7 environment in which to store the Virtual Disk that contains the original XP environment.

In my case I bought a 320GB Seagate drive. This was bigger, faster (7200RPM rather than 5400RPM), quieter and more power efficient. All for £48.00 !

The gotcha!

This only applies to laptops that have space for only a single hard disk. The point is that in a while we will need to have two bare hard drives attached to the computer, and most laptops allow for only one. There are two ways around this. One involves using a third external hard drive (either USB connected or network connected), the other requires a USB connection kit with which you can connect a bare drive to your computer.

As I already had one of these adapters, I went for the latter, but I will cover both options.

Step 2 – Clone the existing XP installation on to the new disk

There are a number or ways to do this and your choice will depend on whether you have the appropriate software and how the new drive is attached to the computer.

Option 1 involves using your backup system (you do have a backup system don’t you !). Option 2 uses a technology such as Norton Ghost to image one drive to the other.

Option 1: Using your backup System

I use Windows Home Server to backup all the computers in the Howell household, so I knew I could use this to move to a larger disk.

• First, I made sure I had a full backup on the Server (it happens automatically every night, but there’s no harm in forcing a manual backup just to be sure).
• Second, I swapped the new drive for the old and booted the T60 from the Home Server Restore CD.
• Third, I followed the wizard to restore the last image from the Server and rebooted. In the wizard, I chose to create a 200GB partition for XP as I intend installing Windows Server 2008 in the other.

At the end of this I had the original XP environment running from a larger disk with plenty of free space.

Option 2: Using Norton Ghost

Caveat: Although I have used Ghost to clone disks before, I did not use this approach this time because I was upgrading a laptop and needed USB drive support. This is not available by default in DOS. I know there are solutions to this, but I decided to take the line of least resistance.

With this approach, you attach both disks to the machine, then boot the machine into MS-DOS and use Norton Ghost to clone the disks.

If you are working with a Desktop where both hard disks are internally attached via ATA or SATA, and you can get the necessary software, then this approach is much faster as it avoids the need to restore from a backup. There are several resource on the Net that can guide you: try entering “Clone disk with DOS GHOST” into Google.

Step 3 – Upgrade to Windows 7

Despite your not being able to do a true upgrade from XP to Windows 7, you can still buy the Upgrade version of Windows 7. It just means that the installer checks for a valid XP installation before installing Windows 7. Upgrading is just a matter of running the setup program from the Windows 7 DVD and opting for an Advanced Installation. You will be warned that all your files will be wiped: hence the need for a full backup.

Don’t forget to choose the correct partition if, like me, you opted to create two partitions on the new disk.

Incidentally, I didn’t elect to install all the updates as part of the installation process. I probably should have but I was in a bit of a hurry. Instead, I ran Windows Update straight after the installation was complete.

One point to note was that I gave the T60 a new machine name so that the backup process preserved the old XP installation as well. Also, you will want to have both “computers” on the network at the same time. At the end of this, you will have a clean installation of Windows 7 with no applications installed.

The next immediate step in my process was to install the Windows Home Server connector and perform a backup. Note: you will need to ensure that Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 has been installed for this to work properly.

Step 4 – Create a Virtual Machine for Windows XP.

At this point we have a functional Windows 7 environment and we have a known good backup of the old XP environment. We also have another hard disk with the original XP environment installed on it. What we now need to do is virtualize the XP environment.

Virtualization is the process by which a single computer (called the Host) is able to run a number of Virtual Machines (called Guests). By the wonders of virtuallization, each Guest believes it has complete control of a physical computer. In fact it can only see virtual devices that are then mapped on to the physical resources of the Host computer.

Once again, you have a choice of how to do this as well as choices over whose virtualisation software to use. Both Microsoft and VMware Corporation have excellent desktop virtualization products. Personally, I have been using VMware Desktop since version 1 and I know it’s very good. In this case, luckily, we don’t need the (paid for) power of VMware Desktop, we just need the less capable, but free, VMware Player.

We also need another VMware utility called VMware vCenter Converter. Converter converts a physical machine into a Virtual Machine [VM]. Physically, the VM comprises a collection of files located on the filesystem of the Host computer. When VMware Player is run, it loads the files for a particular Guest computer and causes the Guest computer to run, interact with the screen, network, printers etc and access a virtual filesystem on a virtual disk.

You need to decide where you are going to store the converted VM. Eventually it needs to reside in the Windows 7 partition on the new hard disk. Whether or not you can go straight there or have to go via a third disk depends on your computer. If you can have both the old and new hard disks installed at the same time (true for most desktops), then you are OK. If not, true for most laptops, you can either:

• Use the drive adapter to connect the new bare disk to the laptop, or
• Use another external USB drive of suitable capacity as a temporary home.

Either way, you are going to create a new VM containing the XP environment.

1. Replace the original hard disk.
2. Either connect the new hard disk via the USB adapter, or connect the third external USB drive.
3. Boot into Windows XP, then download VMware vCenter Converter from the VMware website (it’s a free download but you will need to register).
4. Use the Converter software to create a VM on the external drive (or on the second internal drive in the case of a workstation).
5. Shut down and install the New Hard Disk for the last time.
6. Boot into Windows 7
7. Go back to the VMware site and download VMware Player, then install it.
8. If necessary, copy the newly created VM from the external USB drive to a suitable folder on the Windows 7 environment. I have mine stored in C:\Virtual Machines

Another Gotcha!

I hit a gotcha at step 4. Running Converter is a simple case of follow the wizard’s prompts, but I did get a confusing error message about not having the appropriate SysPrep files on the computer. After some digging I found that I needed to download the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Deployment Tools from http://snurl.com/tscop, Open the CAB file with WinRAR and copy the files to the folder designated in the error message.

Now, you you should be able to run VMware Player and use it to run the XP Virtual Machine.

NB To avoid getting errors, you need to run Player in Administrator mode. You do this by Right-clicking on the desktop shortcut and selecting “Run as Administrator”. To avoid having to do this everytime, you can set this option in the applications preferences; which are accessible from the Right-click menu.

Also, because the SSID of the vrtual machine has changed, you will need to re-enter your XP license code and re-activate.

Et voila, you have a working Windows 7 environment complete with a virtual XP environment containing your original machine.

Make sre you install anti-virus software on Windows 7 straight away. Once the XP VM is running, enable “Unity” mode on the VM menu in the Player window so that a new XP menu bar appears on the Windows 7 desktop.

Now, at your leisure, you can install applications on the Windows 7 machine to replace those on the XP machine. Over time you will gradually use the XP machine less and less until you either stop using it altogether, or it is reduced to running a rump of applications which cannot be migrated to Windows 7 or are not worth being so.

One Last Thing, keeping the data in sync across the two machines.

Bearing in mind that you now have two computers, how do you keep the filesystems synchronised?

I use Windows Live Sync for this, but I adopted a divide and conquer strategy: partly because of the 10,000 file limit imposed by Live Sync for any single synchronisation point.
Before doing anything, I considered the contents on my XP machine. Some files I would definitely need in Windows 7, some I would not. Some were in the “My Documents” hierarchy, others were not.

Windows Live Sync works by defining synchronisation points on multiple computers. Live Sync then keeps the folders and files beneath each set of synchronisation points in sync with each other.

In my case, under “My Documents” I have a folder hierarchy called “Shared” containing folders and files I definitely want synchronising. I have another called “Development” and then several others; including a couple outside of “My Documents”. Each of these is defined as being a Synchronisation Point in Live Sync. It is then a simple case of following the Live Sync wizards to create equivalent sync points on other machines.

Provided you are connected to the Internet, the files will be kept in sync. Changes are queued if you are not connected to the Internet.

Summary

I hope that you have seen how you too can move from your existing XP based computer to a clean Windows 7 environment whilst maintaining access to you old XP applications, and how (relatively) easy the process is. By following this process you will reduce the time you are without a functioning PC to in the order of 2-3 hours, rather than the 2-3 days that might otherwise occur.

I hope this process proves useful to you. If you have any questions or clarifications based on your specific experience, please share them as comments to this post so that all can see them.

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.

On Friday I attended a planning workshop run by Andrew Kureishy an award winning business coach. 

Andrew is a valued client of mine and his invitation to join his GrowthCLUB for the day was welcomed but to warrant time away from the office I had some expectations for ROI (typical accountant mentality I’m afraid, but I do understand the value of my time)

My primary objective was to see Andrew in action.  As an avid networker and an accountant that believes in adding value beyond the financial numbers, matching a coach’s style with my client’s personality and needs is just as important as understanding the services he offers and the knowledge he can share.

Obviously, I hoped to gain some personal benefit also.  When getting involved in structured learning, I do not expect to be able to absorb all of the information on offer or claim to be an expert by the end of the day, but to take away just a few new ideas or key pieces of knowledge makes spending the time attending worthwhile.

During this day, I achieved my primary objective and will certainly be recommending Andrew’s work to others. I was able to network with a dozen of his clients who were all very complimentary and felt that the money they had invested had been recovered several times over.

I also learned three or four things that I can apply to my business in the next few weeks. I’d like to share two of these with you.

Prioritising

The first is simple.  The things that make the most impact and therefore demand priority are not necessarily the things you want to do. 

The Action planning workshop used techniques to drill down to just three primary goals for the next 90 days as it would be dificult to focus on more than that in such a short time frame.  These three goals were ‘SMART‘ tested by Andrew and it quickly became apparent which of the three I had to make my priority even though it was the goal I favoured the least as the task at hand is boring in comparison, amongst other reasons.  This process was easy but far from comfortable and I’m less that pleased with the result but I know clearly now that if I reach my target it will have a big positive impact on my work, my position in the firm and ultimately the bottom line of my office P&L and once I have got this task under my belt I will be able to move on to more self-fulfilling goals.

I’ll let you know on 31st March 2010 whether I attained my target !

Time Management

Andrew was quick to point out that whilst diaries, priority task lists etcetera were helpful they are simply tools to make our work more effective.  To really master time management replace the word ‘time’ with ’self’ and remind yourself of your goals.

The group decided that poor time self  management was a result of:

• a lack of discipline, focus and/or delegation
• firefighting rather than prioritising rationally
• poor organisation skills
• avoidance of important tasks / procrastination
• being influenced by other people’s priorities
• unrealistic customer demands
• a needy / untrained team

Andrew challenged this and questioned our motivation.

How defined are your goals?    Does your dream have clarity? 

His advice was to create an avoidance list and ask yourself questions that will help your brain move from negative emotions that promote procrastination to logical thoughts that put the issues/tasks in to perspective.

If you would like to know his seven top questions to promote logical thinking to support your positive attitude, contact him at andrewkureishy@actioncoach.com

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.

This is a guest post from Heather Townsend, an amazing twitterbuddy (It is unlikely I would have met her otherwise) of mine, who has helped me both on and offline with her friendly but focused approach.   She has several business hats, including The Efficiency Coach and Executive Village and is a mum to two gorgeous ‘little guys’ as they are affectionately known.  Follow her tweets for useful business tips and benefit from her sociable nature.

9 top tips for business efficiency

keep an eye on your goals..

Whilst small is seen to be beautiful (and believe me, at 5 ft 2” high, I fully subscribe to this view!), SMEs are also assumed to be more flexible and nimble than the large corporations. An accusation often levelled at SMEs is that they don’t have the resource to implement large scale changes quickly, and will therefore, struggle to significantly improve their productivity levels, and therefore, efficiency. I wonder whether you find this to be the case?

Regardless of where you stand on this debate, here are my nine top tips for any size of company to improve its efficiency:

1. Think simple

Simple ideas and methods generally save time and help a business become more efficient.

2. Outsource non-critical processes

If someone can run a process better than you, for the same or cheaper cost for the appropriate level of quality, outsource it. For example, on the 1^st October I will be handing over all my books to my accountant’s book keeper. This is a non-critical process which someone else can do better than me, and for less cost.

3. Help your customers and clients become more efficient

Let’s illustrate this point with a real live example, my IT man, David of Contact Consultants, supports my IT machine for free – unless I really manage to tie it up in knots. Every time I speak to David, he educates me in some way so that I am more self-sufficient and less reliant on him for support. How can you educate your clients or customers so that your ability to service their needs is more efficient or effective?

4. Set yourself goals

If you set goals around improving your company’s efficiency then you are more likely to work towards creating a more efficient business.

5. Invest in automation

Whether you are a people hungry business like retail or a niche consultancy your largest monthly outgoing will be your wage bill. The greater the level of automation which reduces the amount of input by people, the more efficient your business. Compare and contrast the car factory of Henry Ford’s day to the modern production line in a mainstream car manufacturer.

6. Have a safety-conscious workforce

Accidents create down-time and extra costs. If you have ever had a claim brought against you for an accident at work, you will testify to this!

7. Look after, appreciate, and train your workforce

Happy, engaged, appreciated employees generally work harder and are more productive than unmotivated un-engaged employees. Think how much harder you work when you want to work somewhere rather than feeling as if you have to work somewhere. A skilled, motivated workforce is a must for good business efficiency.

8. Look at your product/service mix

If you can sell a higher-value product to your target market, you will normally improve your business efficiency. For example, if you currently sell homemade iced cupcakes, how much more could you sell a range of dairy or gluten free iced cupcakes?

9. Attract the right kind of employee

As efficient as your business may be, you are still reliant on having good quality employees to run your business processes. By attracting the right employee into the right role, you will build good business efficiency, one new hire at a time.

In your view, which of these nine tips for business efficiency should every company, regardless of it’s size, invest time and resource in implementing?

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.

This is a guest post from Gary Johannes, an amazing networking colleague of mine, 4Networking Regional Leader for the Eastern Region, Bartercard representative, and the man leading the inspiring BRAVE challenge for children with spinal injuries.  Follow his training, fundraising and charismatic view of life www.twitter.com/garyjohannes

Because of the work I do, and the number of people I meet, one of the questions put to me on an almost weekly basis is this: “Networking doesn’t work, does it?”

And the simple answer? “Yes, actually, it does.” In fact, it also works for the majority of the hundreds of people I meet every month.

But, of course, some of the people I come across would give a resolutely negative answer to the same question.

When I find myself chatting someone who is disillusioned by networking, and firmly believes it simply doesn’t work for them and never will, I generally come to the same conclusion: they don’t ‘get’ networking. They’ve got a skewed view of how it works and what it’s for, and that’s letting them down.

Rule no. 1 – Be likeable. People relate to humans, not walking sales brochures

For me, making networking work for you starts with some basics that are applicable to any area of your life. So, I treat people with respect and I talk to them as people, not prospects. No one likes to find themselves cornered at a social event, being sold to as if they were in a car showroom. It’s a turn off. Instead, I’m friendly and I take an interest in the other person – sometimes what I do barely comes up.

Why? Because having a person like you is far more valuable than winning a business lead there and then.

Rule no. 2 – People are valuable. Nurture and protect your assets

If you’re an astute business person, you’ll realise that having lots of contacts in lots of industries doesn’t just give you more chance of winning referrals, it also makes you more valuable to your clients.

How? Well from time to time, your clients will ask you if you know a good wed developer / plumber / financial adviser. The more tuned in you are to the range of providers out here and the quality of their offerings, the more valuable you are to your client as a resource.

Rule no. 3 – Trust is everything. Stay honest

In networking circles, people applaud great work, they offer testimonials and they recommend great providers – it’s all part of the process. But keep letting customers down, and recommendations will quickly dry up.

Don’t promise what you can’t deliver on, don’t go into a meeting trying to be something you’re not, and never, ever lie to win a recommendation, because it will come back to haunt you, and you’ll miss out on more than you ever gained. Networking, after all, is all about trust.

Rule no. 4 – Commit to networking regularly to see the real benefits

You are very unlikely to start winning work at your first, second or even third meeting. People need to meet, know, like and trust you (to steal a 4Networking phrase). Turn up once a year, and how can you possibly expect to build relationships? Turn up once a fortnight, and people will recognise you and, more importantly, remember your name when it counts.

And finally…Quick tips for networking

So to close, a round up of some of the key things to remember as you walk into a your first networking event.

• Never go looking for sales.
• Get to know people, not just what they sell.
• Don’t discount people if they cant buy from you (they may be best mates with someone who can).
• Sell yourself, not your business. Be likeable, warm and approachable.
• The more you give the more you receive, so offer advice and support wherever you can.
• Support others. If a fellow networker does a great job for you, let others know.
• Enjoy yourself. Approach it like a chore and you won’t stick it out for long enough to reap the benefits.

With sincere thanks to Emily Cagle Communications for allowing me to reproduce Gary’s post.

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post

This post has been written by a great networking colleague of mine, Sue Isaacson who runs HR Dept a successful HR consultancy and/or complete outsourced HR solution.  I hope you find it useful.

Crashing into Winter

Autumn

Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness is the poetic description for Autumn however, with the clocks going back, the dark nights are here this is the ideal time for employers to review their driving policies. It is estimated that between 25% and 35% of all road traffic crashes involve someone who was at work at the time.

A driver’s reactions depend almost entirely on vision, and vision is severely limited at night. Twilight is one of the most difficult times to drive as our eyes are working to adapt to the growing darkness. After a long day at work tiredness is often greater, and this can make driving even more hazardous. For employers there are numerous laws that cover driving and many of these are ignored by employees once they are travelling around the country.

According to statistics 31% of the UK’s van drivers are not wearing seatbelts, even though they have prevented an estimated 60,000 deaths and 670,000 serious injuries over the last 25 years and are considered to be one of the simplest ways of improving road safety.

Smoking in Company vehicles was prohibited in 2007, but how many times do you see drivers and passengers puffing away? There is a lot of confusion around this with employees believing it is acceptable so long as the passenger does not mind. But this will not save them from a fixed penalty fine.

Using mobile phones or programming a Sat Nav both substantially increase the risk of a driver crashing. Recent research from The Transport Research Laboratory found that text messaging while driving is more dangerous than drinking and driving. Drivers using mobile phones, whether hand-held or hands-free, are four times more likely to have an accident. In addition to this, if the Company is ringing the employee on their mobile phone at the time of an accident there is a risk that they could face prosecution for corporate manslaughter.

As adults working together in a busy commercial environment, it is easy to shun responsibilty for our staff and colleagues.  After all, these ‘problems’ happen to other people don’t they?

Sue points out it is the human tragedy behind accidents that make it imperative for sensible and practical driving policies to be in place.   These policies needn’t be complex or burdensome, but they do need to exist to protect both the business and the people involved in them.

Sue Isaacson is a human resources professional providing advice on HR and employment issues for The HR Dept. She is a friendly, approachable professional and I would highly recommend her easy-to-read monthly emailed newsletter. 

 www.hrdept.co.uk/cambridge.htm     Tel: 0845 078 8454 or email: sue.isaacson@hrdept.co.uk

There are statistics everywhere confirming that building business with current clients is far cheaper than acquiring new clients. I know this first hand being one who invests an inordinate amount of time networking both online and in ‘the real world’.  Here at George Hay we are regularly agonising over how to best spend our marketing budget, but at the end of the day the cheapest and the best business is that done via a qualified referral.  Also, although winning new business is exhilarating, doing business with clients who like you and appreciate what you do for them is very satisfying.

So what do I do to try and maintain client loyalty and hopefully enthuse them to tell their business associates about my good work?

Stay in touch
First and formost, I have found that clients like to be communicated with and want to “belong” to our organisation.  When clients feel that they are ‘out on a limb’ they are more likely to listen to gossip, be more receptive to your competitors or simply undervalue what you are doing.

Keeping in touch could be as simple as sending a regular newsletter or  involving them in your social media circles.  Of course, your top twenty clients (you do know who they are don’t you?) need more personal and regular attention, but that does not necessarily mean expensive wining and dining.  A simple ‘phone call to find out how things are going is all that it required.

Tell your client as soon as you can if an issue does arise and make sure it is clear how you will be dealing with it.

If my top clients prepare management information (which of course I encourage) or minutes of board meetings I ask to receive a copy by email so that next time we speak I have a subject matter to discuss that makes them feel good – their business!  This keeps the service personal and hopefully tailored to their needs.  Newsletters, blogs and emails are great ways to communicate messages but they are unlikely to be 100% relevant to your entire client base.  Also in a service environment, clients are buying personalities and a perception of knowledge, not something generated by your marketing team.

Remember if clients don’t know what you are doing, they wont want to pay for it.

So keep your clients informed.

You could also use this regular communication to survey clients opinions, if they are valued clients they will be honest with you and help you to appraise your operation, just as you help them with their business, but be warned if you have not made regular contact they may question your motives.

Take responsibility
If an issue does raise it’s ugly head or a mistake happens, correct it at the highest level.  Clients appreciate it when a manager/partner who can and will take action calls, rather than a junior person or an administrator.  Don’t forget an apology is what they are looking for, so make sure you eat humble pie whilst trying to convince them that the problem wont happen again! 

Never try and assign or delegate blame.  As a business person you are responsible for making sure your team are working to look after your clients.  Don’t let one department or staff member criticise another; it is unprofessional and clients will not be reassured.   Remember you have to work with these people, there are enough challenges in business dealing with external factors with out allowing conflict with in the organisation.  If there is a problem, everyone in the business needs to work together to resolve it and implement procedures to prevent it from recurring.

One of the biggest bug-bears of most people in business, I believe, is service professionals that over promise and under deliver, particularly in the early stages of a business relationship when they are trying hard to please or trying to win your business.  This is a major faux pas that most of us, if we are honest, have fallen foul of, so keep clients expectations manageable – and the easiest way to do this? – COMMUNICATE!

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.

We all have personality traits that influence our ability to make choices in life.

Successful people generally think from a rational, positive viewpoint.  However, if they do not properly consider the emotional, creative or negative viewpoint, they may not be optimising their potential or more worryingly may resist change or underestimate the need for contingency planning.

Six thinking hats is a management tool created by Edward de Bono that helps individuals with in teams to look at decisions from different perspectives.  Each hat represents a personality trait or viewpoint.

I’ll explain how it works with an example.  Imagine I am the MD of a manufacturing company and am considering stopping production of one of the products because it is failing to generate sufficient profits.

Wearing the white hat is my personal favourite; it brings out the accountant in me!  I review the data, analyse trends and look for gaps in the information that may lead to an incorrect decision.

Then I put on the red hat and think from my heart.  My intuition kicks in, playing against the facts, telling me to continue with the product and ride the storm.

The black hat makes me consider the options available very cautiously and highlights the weaknesses in the data.  What about the cost of redundancies?  What about our market position?  How will the rest of the business cope with the changes?

The blue hat steps in before things get too gloomy.  He controls the process and steers the group of thoughts towards a decision everyone is comfortable with.  He asks the yellow hat for an opinion.

Full of optimism the yellow hat focuses on the future.  Rather than look at historical data he has drawn up projected figures and suggests that should the line close the staff could be re-allocated, increasing production of a more profitable product.

Finally the green hat shakes things up with a few creative solutions to the problem.  He asks is the product a loss leader?  Would the product benefit from re-branding and a marketing campaign?  Have we reviewed our control systems to look for ways to make the product profitable?

Blue Hat asks black and yellow for their opinions on the new suggestions and so the process continues.

By wearing the six hats in turn, I have considered more than the numeric facts and hopefully will reach an informed decision that the team will embrace.

Conclusion

The key to this fairly simple technique does not lie in your ability to remember what colour hat represents which trait, but to learn to consider all of the different viewpoints.

We are all prone to thinking in a particular way, but is that the right way?

I challenge you to use it to your advantage, I believe you will become a more successful and considerate leader if you practice this technique.  What hat are you wearing today?

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.