photo by Milos Milosevic

One of the best things that I can do with my clients is to ask great questions.  As a business owner the key ingredient for success is confidence.  Being decisive, having a plan and pushing forward are just part of the job description.  But that doesn’t mean you should just put your head down and go – taking the time to question things, make the right course adjustments at the right time…that’s what will ultimately get you where you want to go.

How do you know what questions to ask?  Every business is a little different, just like every business owner has their own way of doing things.  However there are fundamental core aspects of a successful business that have to be in place if you want to succeed in the long run – regardless of what business you are in.  If you start with that foundation and make it strong, everything else will come into shape.

Below are 10 questions that I recommend every business owner should take time and consider for their business.  If you don’t feel like you have a lot of time, read through the list and pick out the 2 or 3 questions that make you the most uncomfortable and start there.

The questions below are intended to challenge you and if you take them seriously most of them will be difficult to answer…or at least difficult to get comfortable with.

1. Do you have the right people in the right seats?

The heart of any small business revolves around the people – you could have a great business idea, an amazing business model, but if you don’t have the right people to pull it off it’s going to fail.  Conversely the right people can take an average idea and make it something special.  The right people are the ones who buy into you, your core values and what your big picture is.

Getting the right people into the right seats is a different challenge.  You have to be clear on what has to be done to succeed and how owns the responsibility on delivering all aspects of your business (hint…if you as the owner have all of the responsibility – you’re not going to grow).  Are you evaluating your employees and your organization on a regular basis…and taking action?

2. Are you actively using your core values to find and manage employees and attract customers?

Your business is only going to thrive when it’s operating from a position of strength and authenticity.  That strength comes from everyone operating off of a common playbook and leveraging shared core values.

Core values represent what you (and your company) are all about – as an example, the Container Store does a great job with their Foundation Principles.  If you don’t already have them documented, it may take some time to boil your values down.  You will keep tweaking them over time, but once you have a clear set of core values, you will be able to manage your business based on those principles.  And once you start visibly living those core values, you’ll also find that you are attracting customers and employees who share those same beliefs.

What are your top 5 core values?

3. Where are you going?  In the next year?  In the next 3 to 5 years?

Clarity is extremely important when it comes to growing your business.  In order to keep everyone on the same page and rowing in the direction…you first have to know where it is that you want to go.  Although this sounds easy, most business owners don’t have written long term goals…or if it is written it’s not clear, concise and easily communicated.

Do you have a clear-cut summary of what you want to achieve written down?

4. What’s the most important thing you should be doing right now?

Entrepreneurs and business owners like shiny things – it’s easy to get distracted, either by the possibilities or by the problems that are out there.  But if you really want to make progress, you need to keep a laser like focus on the most important thing.

What are you and your team working on right now?  Is that the most important thing you could be doing?  If not, what can you do about it?

5. Are you communicating clearly to everyone…all the time?

In his bestselling book ‘Winning’ Jack Welch says the following:

“Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.”

Making your vision come alive with everyone around you requires you to explain things in clear concise statements – no jargon, keeping it simple.  The second step is sheer repetition.  Just like your customers have to hear your marketing message and benefits multiple times before they ‘get it’, you will have to repeat your vision and direction many, many times.

And it’s not just about the big picture – you and your entire team need to be constantly communicating about day to day stuff as well.  A benefit to being a small company is that you can get everyone in the same room (and hopefully on the same page) at almost any time.  Use that to your advantage.

Are you meeting regularly with everyone in your business?  Do you have regular communications set up?  Are they effective?

6. Are you building on the systems in your business?

A successful business is built on many successful systems that predictably fulfill what needs to be done.  Taking an order from an existing customer?  There’s a system, a process, a procedure for doing that the right way.

Generating new leads?  There’s another set of systems to do that.  Each of these systems should be understood and documented, because that’s how you continually improve the foundation of your business…reviewing the systems and processes of your business and improving them 1 by 1.

Do you have an inventory of the major processes in your business?  Do you have the most important processes / systems documented?  Do you regularly review those systems?  If not, what would it take to start doing that?

7. Do you know how well your business is really doing?

Are you having a good year?  Are you having a great quarter?  How do you know?  Are you measuring anything?  Sadly there are a lot of business owners who just ‘feel’ like things are going well (or not going well) but don’t have any real information to back that up.

Do you have a top 5 list of Key Performance Indicators that are available on a regular basis that will tell you how things are going?  Do you meet weekly to go over your business scorecard?  Do you have at least a couple of metrics you can use to project how things are looking for next quarter?  Next month?  Are you managing to numbers or to gut feelings?

8. Are you marketing consistently?

Most people find marketing to be a bit of a mystery – as the old saying goes “I know half of my marketing is working…I just don’t know which half”.  There are a lot of reasons why your marketing may not be effective, but the issue that I see most often with small business owners is a lack of consistency.

Are you sporadically communicating with customers and prospects, only to get busy and not send anything to them for several months?  Do you try different tactics and then move on to something else after a month or two?  What are the 3 to 5 marketing tactics that you’re most comfortable with?  What would it take to make those part of your daily, weekly or monthly routine?

9. Do you have an effective marketing message?

The second biggest marketing issue that I see is the lack of an effective marketing message.  Are you clear in all of your communications about the benefits and outcomes that you deliver to your customers?  Do you tend to focus on price or features?  Worse yet, are you talking about yourself instead of about your customers and their problems?

A great marketing message…one that has a clear target market (and everyone is not a clear target market…).  A great marketing message has an overt benefit, a real reason to believe and a dramatic difference and will outperform an average marketing message by a factor of 10X or more.  When’s the last time you took a hard look at what you were telling people?  What is your key marketing message?  Is it effective?  How do you know?

10. Are you working ON your business rather than IN your business?

A successful business doesn’t happen by chance.  Unfortunately you can’t just start with a great idea, head down the path and expect to hit your long term target.  Building a great business requires constant evaluation and improvement, it requires you to step outside of the day to day urgency and look at the big picture and make changes along the way.

Working ON your business can be as simple as carving out a couple of hours per week and reviewing questions like these.  You could consider working with a Coach or joining a Peer Group Advisory Board to regularly challenge your assumptions, get a different perspective and plan where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.

Are you regularly carving out time to look at the big picture and drive the outcome you want?

The right questions can make a huge difference – how did you do answering these?  What questions did I miss?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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As a business owner, there are all sorts of places where you can pick up great information.  This week if you were lucky enough to be at the Principal Connections monthly networking event – you would have picked up some great business tips from Jonathan Freiden and Seth Freiden – brothers and co-owners of the 3rd Generation company US Toy.

If you don’t know who these guys are or why you should care…US Toy has been around for 58 years as a local Kansas City based family owned business that’s grown substantially – especially in the last few years.  Considering that the average family owned business only stays in business for 24 years and only 30% make to a 2nd generation (only 10% to a 3rd generation) – these guys have clearly figured out quite a few things that we could all benefit from.

They spoke for quite a while and graciously answered a lot of questions, so I won’t try to cover everything that was said – but here are few of the highlights that I took away from the discussion:

Impact of being 3rd Generation…

There are a lot of reasons why family businesses don’t make the generational transition…especially more than one.  Jonathan jokingly mentioned that one of the reasons for their success was a lack of cousins in the family since it’s family disputes that often disrupt a transfer…and destroy a company!

The best way to mitigate those kinds of disruptions is to recognize the importance of sound succession planning and to be really clear on what’s going to happen.  (Coincidentally the sponsors of this month’s event were the attorneys from BridgeBuilders, who specialize in Estate Planning and Business Succession Planning – great guys to talk to if you are looking for a place to get started on Succession Planning).

The other thing that came out of the family aspect is the importance of valuing what the previous generation built, but recognizing the importance of upgrading and refreshing the business as needed…whether that’s technology enhancements, a change in direction or uncovering new product lines or sales channels.  You can’t get locked into the past, but you will benefit from building on a solid foundation.

Building Something for all Employees

Another idea that really stood out to me was their focus on really building an environment and company that stood for something and that people could enjoy working for.  Not only do they focus a lot on Core Values in terms of hiring and driving the business, they also put a lot of stock into hiring great people and letting them do their thing (autonomy and purpose…a killer combination).

And in case you’re wondering, this wasn’t just the Owners of the company telling people a great story – US Toy was just selected by Ingram’s magazine as one of the Best Places to work in Kansas City!

Make sure you get help

I’ll admit I’m biased on this last point, but they attributed a lot of their success over the last 3 years (since they took over the company) to extensive use of outside advisors (you know…like a business coach).  Their point is that business owners not only need to be open to 3rd party ideas, but it’s critical to bring on independent perspectives to challenge thinking and to leverage broad skills and experiences to keep executive management on top of things.  Find good people to work with and make the investment to grow your company with help from others!

There were a lot of other great points – but the bottom line is that Jonathan and Seth have taken a great local business and evolved it into a serious national player with lots of additional room for growth.  If you’re looking for some inspiration – the folks at US Toy aren’t playing around!

Are you familiar with US Toy or another great Kansas City business example?  Share your thoughts below – I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business CoachSimilar Posts:

• Finding your Mission and Core Values
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Sometimes you need to mix in a little philosophy with your business…

I’m re-reading the classic business book – The EMyth Revisited by Michael Gerber (prepping for a workshop I’m doing next week) and I was inspired by some philosophy in a chapter that I hadn’t thought about in a while.

For those that haven’t read the book (it’s one of the Top 100 Business Books of all time), it’s a story about a struggling entrepreneur who owns a pie shop and how the author helps her realize why her business is struggling (along with most small business owners at some point and time) and the shift in perception that’s needed to avoid the all too common downward spiral of business failure.

The book was originally written in the 80’s and the revised edition came out in 1995, but the key points are still valid and powerful.  The story and the writing occasionally feel a little over the top and contrived, but but you will walk away with some major insights and inspirations on a better way to build your business.

Back to the philosophy, Chapter 12 is entitled “Your Primary Aim” and it outlines the first step of the Business Development Process and how you would start evolving your business.  As you might suspect from the chapter title – the first step is to define the Primary Aim of your life…not the primary aim of your business, but your life.

A lot of people skip over this step, but it’s critical to your long term success!

Especially if you believe that the sole purpose of your business is to help you get what you want out of life!

If you really know what you want to get out of life and you recognize your business is a tool to help you get there, then your perspective on the strategic direction of your business takes on a new meaning.  Let’s say a major goal of your life is to enjoy spending time with your family, then building a business that requires supreme sacrifices and 60 – 80 hours a week at the office probably isn’t a good fit.

Designing a business (and a lifestyle) that fits your goal of quality time with family will drive a lot of decisions.

How do I discover my Primary Aim?

Of course the challenge that I’ve always struggled with is answering the question…What should I do with my life?  (By the way, that’s the title of a great book by Po Bronson…and it’s also in the Top 100 Business Books).

Gerber recommends an exercise of imagining reviewing your life’s accomplishments from your funeral as a way to uncover what’s really important.

I also like this idea of Designing the Ideal Lifestyle Audit from Richard at Lifestyle Design unleashed.  His suggestion is to carve out some quiet time and write down what your perfect average day would be like…what would you do?  Where would you be?  How much does that differ from an average day right now?

Do you know your Primary Aim?  How well does your business support that aim?  Have you done this kind of exercise before?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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A lot of thought over the years has gone into what makes a business great. In the business classic “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, 5 years of painstaking research led to a lot of interesting conclusions about what separated great companies from good companies (and all the rest).

Some of the key drivers included things like great leadership, and disciplined focus but one of the fundamental keys to a great business is that they have great people. In other words, using Collins terminology you have to get the right people on the bus if you want to succeed.

But what are the Right People?  How do you evaluate them?  Let’s hear from Jim Collins first:

Right People

When it comes to getting started, good-to-great leaders understand three simple truths. First, if you begin with “who,” you can more easily adapt to a fast-changing world. If people get on your bus because of where they think it’s going, you’ll be in trouble when you get 10 miles down the road and discover that you need to change direction because the world has changed. But if people board the bus principally because of all the other great people on the bus, you’ll be much faster and smarter in responding to changing conditions.

Second, if you have the right people on your bus, you don’t need to worry about motivating them. The right people are self-motivated: Nothing beats being part of a team that is expected to produce great results.

And third, if you have the wrong people on the bus, nothing else matters. You may be headed in the right direction, but you still won’t achieve greatness. Great vision with mediocre people still produces mediocre results.

- Jim Collins

The Right People are different for every company.  You’ve got to have people who want to be with you (on your bus) – they need to share your core values, they buy into why you’re in business and they like the other people that you’re bringing on around them.

I wrote previously about the importance of uncovering your company’s Core Values. Using those core values to identify the ‘right people’ is one of the most important things you can do in terms of building a foundation for growth.

Even for the entry level ‘paint by numbers’ jobs, having an employee that genuinely ‘fits’ with your company will have a lot of long term benefits. They will stay around longer, they will do better work because they appreciate the company and fit in and they will help to positively influence everyone around them.

You also have to have people who are motivated, not only do they want to be in the company, they also want to accomplish things…great things. It’s possible to externally motivate people, for a while, but nothing compares to the output of a self-motivated person who can and will run on their own.

Finally you also have to have the Right People in the Right Seat. They have to have the skills and abilities needed for the job (which implies that you have a clear understanding of what jobs and roles are needed…food for another post).

How to evaluate the Right People?

The most straight forward way to evaluate if you have the Right People is to simply compare them to your top 5 Core Values.  Do they consistently display those core values?  Do they occasionally display them or do the never display them. 

Set a benchmark on what you think is acceptable and see how many employees make the grade.  If they don’t hit your minimum benchmark then you probably need to work with them or start the process of letting them go.  It will be painful if you have to cut employees, but if they really don’t fit with who you are as a company then you need to let them go or risk losing your identity.

What do you think about the importance of having the Right People?  Are you familiar with companies who have made this a priority?  How about those that haven’t?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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Do you ever get that feeling that you’re just beaten down…that it’s too hot and nothing really matters?   There are times (especially after you make the mistake of watching the news) when it seems there’s nothing out there but bad things, people struggling and an endless parade of gray.

Well it’s time to perk up because I’ve got 3 things to inspire you:

• Bookbinding
• Shoes
• Unicorns!

It may not sound like an inspirational list, but keep reading and I think you’ll find something to get you moving!

Bookbinding as a hot new business!

There are plenty of stories out these days about businesses failing and industries going bankrupt, which makes it especially refreshing to hear about a skyrocketing success that leverages techniques that have been around for centuries and technology that’s been around for decades.

The company is called DodoCase and currently their sole product is a hand made case for an iPad.  Priced starting at $60, more than 60,000 cases were sold in the first few months after the release of the iPad, with much bigger numbers planned (the iPad is projected to sell 17 Million units in the first year of production). 

DodoCase uses a local San Francisco bookbinding company to create the custom cases – saving a dying and declining business (and in fact tripling their headcount with more to come).  Check out this great story about Dodocase – the winner of the Shopify business contest. 

What simple product do people want and need that you could deliver?

Shoes and a totally different business model

Toms Shoes started back in 2006 – you might have heard of them.  The founder Blake Mycoskie was inspired on a trip to Argentina where he encountered lots of children who didn’t have shoes.  That trip inspired the company’s very straightforward premise:

With every pair of TOMS shoes you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need.  One for One.

The idea of helping people out is pretty inspirational – but even more amazing is the business model Mycoskie is using to help  those people out; a for profit, socially conscious business.  The company isn’t looking for a handout, they won’t be signing up for grant money, but they have a bigger purpose beyond just making money…and that’s making a huge difference!

As Mycoskie puts it, there are some great benefits to having such a clear and unselfish value statement:  “First, consumers are now conscious about where they put their dollars. A product like TOMS that gives to others is appealing to people more than ever.”  Another major benefit is the attraction of well above average employees who are willing to work for less than average pay.  Read more in this article from Success magazine.

What core values does your company stand on and how does it impact your business?

It’s so fluffy!  Inspiration from a unicorn.

The technology behind movies continues to be amazing, but what’s even better is when the technology takes a back seat to a creative story and great writing (and acting). 

Sometimes you need to find your inspiration in the little things that are around you – comedian Louis CK had a great interview with Conan O’Brien a while back where he talks about how Everything is amazing and nobody is happy.  We definitely take things for granted these days – if we took the time to really look around at our day to day things (like 3D animated movies) we would find a lot to be inspired by.

The reality is that we’re lucky to live at a time when amazing and creative things are created almost every day.  One of the more recent examples of inspirational creativity is the movie Despicable Me released to theaters just a few weeks ago. 

If you haven’t seen it yet, make the time to catch it in the theaters (3D is good, but you’ll enjoy it just as much in plain old 2D).  The animation is great, but what really stands out are the characters and the overall premise. 

It’s a story about Gru who’s gunning to be the most famous super-villain of all time.  He’s had some success so far, he has his own army of minions and he has a rival arch-nemesis, but he just hasn’t hit the big-time yet.

In a desperate contest to steal the moon and become famous – Gru ends up taking in 3 orphans that ultimately end up melting his heart.  It’s got a lot of style, it’s very funny and everyone in the family will enjoy it – for your final bit of inspiration, go see Despicable Me.

What’s inspired you lately?  Share your thoughts in the comments below – I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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