Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

DO MORE OF WHAT YOU DO BEST AND SURROUND YOURSELF WITH COMPLEMENTARY STRENGTHS TO ACHIEVE TOP PERFORMANCE

It was great fun appearing on Kent’s Business Bunker radio last week where I was given the opportunity to talk about my passion – discovering and working to your strengths (my segment starts about half way through the show!).

Do you know your leading strengths and do you use them?

The show stimulated a lot interest and curiosity. So I wanted to take the opportunity in this post to feed the interest by recommending the Strengthsfinder 2.0 book by Tom Rath. Rath explains the Gallup research that underpins the profiling, after which you are given a pin number to take the profile online. It will generate a report that details your top 5 leading strengths and recommends actions you can take to best utilise your unique strengths. The book also tells you about the other strengths measured in the profile that you may also recognise in yourself and others.

It was my experience working within the Gallup Organization that inspired me to become a coach and to focus my energies or moving people away from fixating and worrying about what they can’t do and towards focusing on what they do best and managing their limitations.

Discover the power of combining your strengths with that of others

I always include strengths and personality profiling in my coaching programmes  as a solid building block from which you and your business can grow, and to help you identify what you are looking for in others to complement your strengths and move you towards your business vision and goals . In particular my group coaching programme kicks off with a 1-2-1 to discover your strengths and how you can best focus your energies to your business vision and planning.

If you want to find out more, please get in touch or even better, come and meet me at the Launch and Briefing evening for the Step Up! Forums in Tunbridge Wells on Wednesday 28 September 6-8pm. Please RSVP on my linkedIn Event.

In my last blog we looked at where you want to take your business – your 3 year vision. Today we look at 5 steps to record key milestones in a mini business action plan to make your vision a reality.

Before you do, and to make sure you are setting yourself up for success, reflect on your strengths and values to make sure they are in line with your goals.

Step 1:  

Record any measurables that came out of your 3 year projection ie income, profit (however you measure your success) and note your 3 year date or the timeframe that works for you. Be as specific as you can be to help your success and track your progress.

Step 2:

Record where you are now in relation to where you want to be.

Step 3:

To bridge the gap between steps 1 and 2, record where do you need to be against your measurables in: 

• 2 years
• 1 years
• 6 months
• 3 months
• This month

Step 4:

So what are you going to start on this week?

Step 5:

Record key milestones that will chart your progress and help keep you on track.

Next, review what you have written and take a look back at any work you did as a result of following my recent blogs that could help clarify your actions further.

If you have any feeling of overwhelm and are wondering where you are going to find the time, read next week’s blog in which I offer 5 simple steps to help make more time to work on your business!

What’s stopping you Step Up your business? Click here for my free 30 minute downloadable teleseminar!

In my last blog, I offered 5 simple steps to help you assess the fitness of your business before you start considering growth and even just to make sure it’s healthy.

A traditional SWOT health check will help you take a closer look. I offer a few questions under the four quadrants to get you thinking but you will think about a lot more as you work through this mini SWOT.

 Strengths of your business:
• What is your Unique Selling Point? What do you offer that your competitors don’t?
• What is your business good at? Where do you excel?
• What resources do you have in place that strengthens your business? Eg finance, people.
• What personal strengths do you bring to the business?
• How well do you know your (current and potential) customers?

Weaknesses of your business
• What areas of your business, service or product can be improved upon? Eg processes, people management.
• What are specific areas of challenge for you and the business and what impact do they have on your business?
• How much does your business rely on you or any other person? What if something happened to you?

Potential threats to your business
• Who are your competitors?
• How much don’t you know about your customers?
• What external threats are facing you? (eg interest rates, new competitors)
• What is the impact of these on your business?

 Finally, what opportunities are there for you out there?
• What are your competitors doing that you could be doing?
• What are the trends in the market place?
• What can you outsource to give you more time to plan and do what you do best?
• What technological advances could you be utilising better?
• How do you plan to keep ahead of the field?
 
Now to action!

What is the one thing you’re going to commit to do in the next 7 days that will take you one step closer to eliminating one of those weaknesses? I would love to hear about it!

Do you want support to STEP UP your business?

Join a monthly forum of success orientated Kent business owners ready to brainstorm and take action on issues preventing you Stepping Up your business! Click here for more information and to register your interest.

Funding is available to help equip you

with the skills you need to grow your success

GREAT NEWS! Funding for 2011/2012 is now on offer for small business owners who are ready to grow their business.

If you have ambitious plans to grow, whether you’re starting up or have been in business for a while, however many people you have working for you – you need to ensure that they are fully engaged with your plans. You need to ensure that you have the leadership and management skills to achieve this.

Through the Leadership and Management Advisory Service, owner managers and senior leaders of businesses with plans and potential to achieve high growth, have a great opportunity to develop their leadership and management skills.

Funding is available to private sector businesses or social enterprises that:-

• Have fewer than 250 full time equivalent employees, and

• Have at least one employee in addition to the senior leader, and

• Have the potential for growth

Up to £1,000 in grant funding to help pay for the solution – this grant will pay for 50% of the fees excluding VAT up to the maximum amount of £1,000.

For example:

• If the coaching programme costs £1,000 + VAT, you can claim back £500.

• If the coaching programme costs £2,500 + VAT, you can claim back £1000.

Free impartial advice at no obligation

A qualified and experienced Leadership and Management Adviser from Skills South East will meet with you to help identify your personal development needs to promote the growth of your business.

FUNDING IS LIMITED so please contact Denise straight away to find out more, to discuss your specific requirements and put you in touch with a skills adviser:

01732 440407 or email.

As a small business owner, it is almost inevitable that the values you hold personally will be those reflected in your business. Our values are often our drivers of which we are not consciously aware, but by spending some time to evaluate them, they provide us with a benchmark to decide whether a particular course of action is the right one, or wrong one.

Any decision and course of action you consider will either honour your values or neglect them. Having a list of these can be a great tool in making those difficult decisions and making sure they are the right decisions for you and your business.

As values define who you are, they will be your internal compass on how you do business, with whom you do business, and why people do business with you. By considering your values it will help you identify your personal and business brand and how this is reflected throughout your business and the way you market your products and services.

This exercise will get you to start ‘consciously’ thinking about the values by which you live your life and will help you gain clarity on those on which you will not compromise.

• Describe as many values as you can think of, that impact on the way you live your life and run your business. Start with a cluster of words if that makes it easier, placing the most significant term at the beginning eg Honesty/integrity/trust. Remember, values are abstract words and are standards, expectations, things that are important to you.

• It may help to think of really good moments in time to elicit some values that made you feel great. Conversely bad times will throw up values that weren’t present so think through what made you unhappy so you can work out what values were missing in the action you took, or in the situation that occurred.

• Once you have the list, have a go at ranking them against each other so you can give them some priority.

• Think which values are core to the way you do business and on which you will not compromise

Keep the list visible and refer to them when making those difficult decisions – they will help to bring clarity to the course of action that is right for you and your business.