Three Parts To Profit, One Part To Losses.

I am a sucker for simple solutions.  Most of the time, simple works better.  The problem with that approach is that complex problems do not always find long term correction with simple band aids.  Even so, I try to grab the first easy band aid in reach.

This truth remains with business leaders as well.  They have extremely full plates to mange.  Most of their plates are balanced on top of some spinning sticks.  Those sticks need someone nearby to keep them wiggling every once in awhile to keep the plates spinning fast enough so they do not tumble off the stick and hit the floor.  When one stick slows down, the leader must turn around and wiggle that stick just a little bit more.  The success comes from keeping all of the plates spinning fast enough so they do not fall off the sticks.  When a business leader gets too many plates spinning at one time, the chance increases that one will fall.  There just is not enough space and time to manage all the plates on those sticks.

The first part of profit is to recognize when it is time to delegate some sticks of management to someone else.  When too many sticks become part of your limited day, some plates are destined to fall.  Make sure you work your leadership in a fashion that helps you define who you can trust.  There will be times when you need to turn over some spinning plate processes.  Having a good list of trusted associates helps to make the delegation process work well.

The first part to profit is to recognize who, what, when and where you will delegate important tasks to someone else.  Once you perform that step, get the heck out of their way and allow them to manage that task on their own.  If you have a problem with that responsibility, maybe trust is not really there.  Trust is a serious subject and carries with it a whole seminar of words and discussions.  Learn the art of trust and manage it well.  If offered properly, you will discover how quickly and easily your business will grow.  It can lead to some very handsome profits.  This is especially true in a recession.  Someday I will explain that theory as well.  It has to do with buffering pressure away from you so you can work on your business instead of in it.  Recessions have a tendency to kill the spirit of the leader.  Creativity goes out the window when the spirit is crippled.  And so on.

The second part to profit is to make sure you know when you have stepped on the feet of those working to help you win.  Never skip this step.  The only business leaders that skip this step are the ones who always find themselves chasing the eight ball and never winning big.  Those are the ones who step on those who are trying to help them win.  They are the ones that refuse to recognize how they have stepped on the feet of their assigned associates working to solve challenges in their own fort.  It is an abusive process that often times goes unnoticed.  The only notice usually given for this kind of internal terrorism is the fact that this business practice keeps profits away.  It runs as part two on the list that can improve and produce improved profits.  Recognize when when you have stepped on your associates feet.  Admit it, correct it and acknowledge it in a professional way.

Part three.

Page two.

What Do Lawyers Have In Common With Failing Business Leaders?

I bumped into an old classmate from high school the other day.  It was a chance crossing that ended up very good.  We did not immediately recognize each other.  She was the first one who suddenly recognized me while at that same time, with her surprised response, I then recognized her.  It was a nice crossing.  It turned into a couple of hours of career discussions.

One of the things that happened during this chance crossing was the discusssion about how we took time to catch up on our professional lives.  It was an interesting set of historical sharing.  I was surprised at all of the chapters she has lived in her life during these past forty years.  It was a very large 'wow' process.  She is a legal consultant for lawyer firms.  Her personal life was littered with a long list of challenges and tragedies.  We had a lot to talk about.

She asked me what I had been doing in my work for the past forty years.  I shared how nearly half of those years were spent repairing 'near-failing' business models as a retail consultant.  She was very interested in that work.  She described how the both of us walked our careers down similar paths.  She advised lawyers on how to improve their law practices.  I advised business owners on how to improve their retail practices.  We discovered how the two careers were doing the same thing, just in different industries.  We got involved in the discussion about our similarities.

Once we connected with these similarities we began to compare notes of discovery.  It was of no surprise how each of our career practices actually parallel the other with the same kind of consulting approaches and working patterns.  We essentially performed the same kind of tasks in our careers.  We faced the same amazing challenges.

Guess what?  The challenges I was faced to over come in my work with business leaders was strikingly similar to the same kind of challenges she had faced in her career with practicing lawyers.  Our work was met with the same obstacles.  We had fun discovering those similarities.  Each discovery of similar patterns became our opening for some healthy laughs.  We both poked fun at the kinds of tandem things we discovered that were part of our career challenges.  We had fun reveiwing the fun in them.

As we parted from each other and returned to our original paths I began to think about how much value this chance meeting could offer to my next blog post.  The common things I face that hinder my work were the very same things she ran into that always hindered her work.  I found those similarities quit interesting.  They were worth sharing.

What hurdles have I faced in my business repair business that are strikingly similar to the same ones she faced in her lawyer repair business?  Let's discover those similar attributes on page two.

Page two.

Why Is My Business Still Struggling?

It Goes Beyond A Rock And A Hard Spot

Holy cow.  I think by now my revenues should be 'out-running' my cost of business and my income should be getting larger each month.  Why is that not happening?  Is this economy really causing me all of this grief in lost profits?  What the heck is the matter?  I should be doing better by now.  Right?  How many business owners are facing these kinds of questions?  I work with a lot of them that are asking these exact questions right now.

If the truth were to be examined, how many business owners feel this way right now?  How many business owners are quietly asking themselves if they need to make some serious changes in the way they are operating?  How many business owners right now are questioning their business model?  How many business owners are working their hearts out only to get a little bit deeper in debt, right now?  I know and work with a lot of them that are quietly asking these kinds of questions of themselves.  These feelings are dominating their working environments.  They are growing tired of chasing down all of the 'out-of-control' business stuff that should be in better shape and making them more money.  I sit in business offices and listen to the distraught conversations about how tough it has become to function well and how difficult it has become to profit comfortably.  It is not a rare pattern.  It is not a quiet subject.

For the most part, small business owners are growing more disillusioned with every passing day about how much work they put in for the return they hope to see.  Some are fighting within, trying hard to eliminate the wrong and unproductive work patterns they seem to be performing.  They are trying to eliminate how they are traveling down some paths that need large improvements.  For the most part, I meet business leader after business leader who has no problem expressing how discouraged they have become with the idea that their incomes are shrinking while their risk, leadership demands and work loads are increasing.  Most are not happy about this ever-increasing challenge.  They are not liking this pattern.  I see and hear about this frustration every single day in my business travels.  It breaks my heart.

First of all, one; it is true.  Secondly, it is repairable.  Get serious about identifying it so we can begin the repairs.  Profitability is not only possible right now, it is very doable.  Your incomes can and should be improving.  If they are not, something needs changing.

Yesterday I was sitting at the front desk of one of my clients.  The office was empty and I was speeding along to repair some posting errors in their bookkeeping system.  I had discovered a pattern of posting that was going to eventually create a major headache for their business results.  I was scrolling around the computer screen looking for all of the connectivity they had developed that would add too much challenge to their future profitability.  The posting of some of their expenses and sales revenues was atrocious.  There were patterned errors in posting that would mislead them to believe they were doing much better than they truly were performing.  I was busy making notes and discovering ways to incorporate the best repair for this office staff.  While I was busy developing a mental plan to define how they must properly approach the best corrections for these wrongs, a customer walked in.

I was alone for that moment in the business office.  It was just myself and that new customer.  I have been inside this business model just three days after I had agreed to help them work out some posting errors.  The customer had no other reason to suspect I was not employed to take care of her inquiry as she walked in.  I offered to help her out.  It was a simple gesture and a very common thing to do.  The office staff was gone from the office at that time.  They were gone working on other things in another section of the business.  They actually left me up front in the customer service area, alone to deal with any customers that might walk in.  Guess what?  One walked in.

The protocols for performing proper business procedures was clearly and completely amiss.  It was lackadaisical and aloof.  This kind of casual respect for consumer approach is all too frequent in most business models.  We become too busy chasing our mechanical tails to address our guests as properly as we should.  

When that customer walked into that office, I was busy thinking about how to develop a business plan to correct some of the procedural bookkeeping ills I was witnessing.  I wonder how many business models are operating with this kind of challenge lurking inside their wares without the view of the damage existing that will soon surface to create a company loss?  How many business owners live their daily lives not seeing the errors their models perform?  I am not talking about mis-spelled words.  Those kinds of errors are trivial.  In fact, I am not talking about the troublesome bookkeeping errors, either.  I am talking about the more serious stuff business models do that hurt their growth in so many quiet ways.  I am talking about the errors committed in failing to improve consumer attraction policies.

This example is a perfect case to examine.  I find these errors typical.  The accounting was weak.  They were making serious errors in their bookkeeping methods.  The procedures were designed incorrectly.  As a result, double posting was occurring.  They were actually recording retail sales in duplication by using a double entry bookkeeping system that increased the human factor for unwanted, yet undetected posting errors.  The point of sale software was not compatible with their accounting software, as a result, they transferred the data from the sales software to the bookkeeping software manually.  The system for performing that transfer work was poorly designed and mishandled by undisciplined office staff.  Need I say more.  It was a huge business problem for the owner.

Last year this business model had a record year in sales.  It is also dealing with a multitude of late payments, poor expense controls, some serious money mismanagement issues and many 'over-run' payroll costs.  In short, the business model is failing.  The owner is frustrated and has pushed his frustration to the point of speeding up employment turnover within his office staff.  He has hired five office managers in two years with similar results, a mess in the accounting methods.  Consistency and accuracy have been seriously compromised.  It has now grown to dominate unwanted movements in his business model.  

When posting errors occur, especially in the revenue areas, incomes can become inflated.  False growth becomes real growth illusions that ultimately govern how we spend what we think we have.  Debt grows out of control.  It is a simple pattern that can become hard to repair.  Eventually, the business gets too far behind to properly capitalize the good business it is performing.  The tail begins to wag the dog.  This is where this business owner has arrived in his business model.  Now, here I am, three days into my evaluations and facing a new customer who comes through the door with nobody around to help her out.

The real problem for this business model has finally arrived.  We now have become relegated to poor service.  Poor service has taken charge of the business movements.  This unwanted pattern is so typical of those business models who get too far behind the funds they need to operate well.  Poor consumer respect inches its way to the front of the business bus.  Sooner or later, that poor service slips forward enough and climbs into the seat of that steering wheel and drives that business bus.  Time is the only thing remaining between operations and failure.  This business model represents all of those who are on the path of failure.  It has nothing to do with the economy.

Page two.

Is Your Business Still Flat During This Economic Recovery?

Bad Habits Can Leave You Out In The Cold

Habits are a nasty thing to get hooked on.  Most of my habits are bad ones.  Once I get hooked on them I produce a lot of unwanted results.  I keep on producing those little unwanted results because my habits remain in force.  My habits drive me to remain on track to keep doing what I have always been doing.  Hence, whatever the results are that come from my business models becomes the environment of how my business produces its life.  It lives with the results of my habits.  My habits run the show.

Let's face it.  Our bad habits dominate our results.  They dictate what we will or will not receive from our business efforts.  It is typically no simpler than that.  Our habits rule our results.  They dominate the pattern of results we receive.

How do we modify our habits?  What kinds of things must we do to make the right kinds of adjustments in our business leadership style to produce better results?  Where can we tweak the things we are doing wrong?

This is where most business owners find themselves operating.  They get trapped by their own minds doing their own things in their own ways.  They have developed these routine patterns that have become their trusted habits for how they prefer to lead the businesses they own.  They become settled in with their habits as they are.  They therefore, in turn, remain bound by those unfriendly results.  The bad results their bad habits produce.  We protect them with all of our heart.

When I got up this morning, I did exactly the same routine I did yesterday morning.  Did you know that?  I moved my patterns in essentially the very same ways I moved them the day before.  I did my habits.  I did them just the same as you did yours.  Oh yes, once in a while I change it up.  That gives me some false sense of control.  I might make my coffee after I start my blog work.  Usually I make my coffee before I start writing on my blog.  I switch it up once in awhile so I can give myself the illusion that I am still in control.  The truth remains, I am not.

Our habits drive our controls.  They dominate how we move, how we think and how we respond.  Habits clearly control what, when, where and how we move in our business worlds.  Our habits become our boss.  They may not actually clock in and physically show up to work each day but they sure know how to climb into the mind and place their quiet little hands onto the control grips of the steering wheel.  Trust me, your habits drive your ship.  All we do is work overtime on making sure we believe that is not true.

How do we combat this quiet little flaw?  How do we make sure our habits remain on the up and up?  How do we make sure we are not quietly controlled by the little things that hinder our success patterns?  How do we remain honest with this little subject?

Page two.

Innovative Business Versus Current Trends

Stay Current But Innovate Always

It is not easy owning your own gig.  Some of the greatest winners in business have travelled the roughest roads to victory.  In the world of small business ownership bumpy travel is par for the course.  Most self-taught business owners come to their business life with limited resources.  Add to the fact that we have limited resources for managing how to professionally recognize market trends well, we also come up with some very unusual thoughts and ideas.  We employ many of those strange ideas every single day in our business walk.  Some of those ideas work, but many do not.  We also have some unique leadership styles.  Some leadership styles suck, while other methods work very well.  Every business owner gets to experience all of the pains their efforts produce as they move closer to the victories they desire.  I have not met one business owner who has been able to escape this simple reality.

In most cases, a private business owner is usually self-taught.  Most of them come from the ranks of being very unemployable.  I have met hundreds of self-employed business owners.  The lion's share of them are not especially bright when it comes to operating all of the necessary facets of a well run small business.  Neither was I.  I missed on a lot of important cylinders.  We all came to our own ownership patterns because we were not especially good at allowing someone else to tell us what to do.  As a result, we became truly unemployable people.  We make very poor followers.  Our next best option was to run our own gig.  Hence, business ownership.  Welcome to the expensive school of hard knocks.  I be one of those students!

Trial and error offers some very expensive lessons.  Even though those lessons are expensive, they are effective.  We learn quickly what works and what does not.  We get our education straight from the world of reality.  No spin, no tricks, no magic and no fooling.  Our checkbooks become our leaders.  That checkbook balance allows or kills many of our great ideas.  We do exactly that which we can no longer afford!

If a business owner survives this messy start and these messy lessons, they move on to the next level of operations.  They graduate to the world of survival.  Instead of truly failing, they learn how to hang on and make each penny stretch beyond where it was supposed to live.  These are the true entrepreneurs who work on making their future business happen, above the closure line and below the make it big line.  This place they learn to master is a place that most owners feel controls their destiny.  This becomes the next level a business owners reaches.  They find just enough success to keep their model alive and produce just enough reach of success to offer them a few monetary victories here and there.  They remain bound.  This is the place where most survivors of a small business learn to manage.  It becomes their little prison where they can live out their lives without being employed somewhere else.  Welcome to the truth.

In this pile of business owners pops up a head or two once in awhile.  Those heads pop up as they look for better ways to grow larger.  Once in awhile, one of those small business owners works their way out of that crab pot.  Those few business owners get enough gumption and create some interesting ways to grow up and out of that crab pot existence.  They are also able to fight off the gripping claws of the other crabs trying to pull them back inside the pot where the rest of them remain.  A few work their business in a growing way.  They become the hated few who create our interesting world of jealous activities.  They become the few business owners who win well at what they produce.  They are sometimes the ones we envy the most.

Let's take a look at how these few winners produced the victories they experienced.  How did they climb out of that crab pot of living?  How did they survive that small business trap?  How did they win when nobody else could?

Page two.