It’s hard to believe that next week is Thanksgiving – for me at least, 2011 has gone by in a blur (…time flies when you’re having fun?)!  Thanksgiving is always a great reminder to take a little time for yourself and think about what you’re grateful for.  Even better – use the time for reflection and start a new habit of appreciation that you can carry throughout the year.

I first thought about doing a straight list of things I’m thankful for, but Jason over at Blue Gurus beat me to the punch with his 10 Things We’re Thankful for this Year post, so I decided to take a slightly different approach.

Why be Thankful?

For starters it turns out that being authentically grateful for what you have confers a whole host of mental and physical health benefits!  Check out this great article from the Wall Street Journal – Thank You. No, Thank You.  There’s a lot of really strong information in there, including research that shows the following:

Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They’re also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy or alcoholics. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly and have greater resistance to viral infections.

All in all, that’s a pretty strong list of benefits – and it doesn’t even touch on the idea that people are naturally drawn to those with the confidence and humility to give credit to others.

Try This

Obviously there’s no deep secret on how to feel grateful – odds are you’ve had that experience.  The more challenging part is to give yourself the time and the mechanism for doing it on a regular basis (and not just over turkey). 

One approach that might work for you is to use a Gratitude Journal…every day or maybe every week sit down somewhere quiet and write down 3 to 5 things you’re grateful for.  Try to be specific and remember it doesn’t have to earth shattering, often it’s the little things in life that add a lot of meaning.

If you’re a little more high tech…and thankful for your iPhone or iPad, you might want to check out the Gratitude Journal App from HappyTapper (I love that name).

It sounds overly simplistic that just reflecting and journaling on the positives in your life can make a difference, but the reality is that you are what you think.  (On a related note – here’s a great article from Entrepreneur on You Are What You Think).

Me?  I’m thankful for a lot of things:  I’m thankful that my family is healthy and despite often crazy schedules we still have time to get together and have fun now and then.  I’m thankful for all the things my wife does to support me (and make the family thing actually work…).

I’m thankful for my great clients – not only are they all great people that I enjoy hanging out with, but they are attempting and doing a lot of interesting and important things and every day I  appreciate the opportunity to help them get to where they want to go.

Finally – I’m thankful for the times we live in.  Yes the economy is awful and politicians across the board continue to be selfish, short-sighted and often stupid.  But despite all of that, we are truly living in amazing times with technology and societal wonders happening all around us.  We don’t have flying cars or Hover Boards just yet, but we are seeing a lot of cool things every day.

What are you thankful for?  Take some time to write it down…or share your thoughts in the comments below – we’d love to hear from you.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Photo by Kevin Dooley

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Undoubtedly you’re familiar with Archimedes famous quote:

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

If you’ve studied any physics, then you know Archimedes is talking about the concept of leverage, which essentially means that through the proper use of tools you can do a lot more than you could through straight brute force methods.

It’s an important concept in physics and baseline for a lot of engineering principles, but for a small business owner, it can likely mean the difference between long term success or exhaustion and failure!

What is leverage for a small business owner?  You first have to recognize that most small businesses operate with the business owner involved in every significant role and decision.  There may be 5 employees, 10 employees or even 50 employees, but everything flows back through the owner…which is great for making things consistent, but there are only so many hours in the day and ultimately the owners time and focus become the major constraint on the business.

Leverage, for a small business owner, is implementing people, processes and automation that effectively remove the owner from the day to day operations!  With leverage, the business is open for growth, without leverage it’s destined to choke…!

Here’s an illustration that might make this a little clearer:

Strategically using leverage (streamlining processes, automating, delegating, etc.) takes more effort up front (think of it as training, learning curve, implementation time) but really kicks in as volume continues.

An example of leverage would be automating the delivery of a key part of your product or service…once it’s automated (which likely costs money and takes time to set up) you will stop spending time and effort…without that automation, you continue to do more and more as your volume grows.

Are you using Leverage in your business?  What could you delegate, automate or systematize?  You don’t have to do everything at once (in fact you shouldn’t try), but even small leverage over time can make a big difference.  Share your thoughts in the comments below – I’d love to hear them.

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Would you like to make more money?  How about having clients who absolutely rave about you and are willing to pay you a premium for what you do for them?

Then you should definitely consider Getting Naked for your business!

Of course I’m not talking literally…I’m saying you should start adopting the ideas from Patrick Lencioni’s latest book ‘Getting Naked’.  The premise of the book is using a different kind of approach with clients – being vulnerable and opening yourself up without any pretense or cover.  I think of it as being really authentic…all the time, with everyone, warts and all!

You may have heard of Lencioni previously – he’s the author of several extremely popular and insightful business books, including ‘The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team’ and ‘The 5 Temptations of a CEO’.  His books are written as business fables, which makes them fun to read, but the ideas are still very powerful.

So what does Getting Naked really mean?  Let’s take a look:

I had ‘Getting Naked’ on my bookshelf for a few months…it was in the queue but I hadn’t had a chance to read it and then I had it strongly recommended to me by 3 people over the holidays so I jumped it to the top of the list (and I’m glad I did).

It’s written from a consulting viewpoint, which definitely lined up with my Accenture background, but it applies to anyone who’s interacting with clients.  I’ve seen variations on this theme at lots of different kinds of companies.

The heart of the book is all about the idea that customer loyalty and trust is built around relationships and results and the only way to have authentic relationships is to be transparent and to be real with your clients at all time.  However many organizations focus on portraying perfection at all times and that gets them into trouble.  First off it’s not true (even the experts aren’t perfect all the time), it’s not real or authentic and it doesn’t build relationships…and therefore doesn’t build customer trust or loyalty.

Getting Naked is about overcoming 3 Fears

Lencioni outlines three fears that are at the root of why most companies focus so much on the false front of being superior at all things.  Let’s take a look at all 3 fears:

Fear of Losing the Business

I believe this fear is more prevalent than ever with a challenging economy and businesses struggling more.  It’s completely natural and in fact when you really need the business, either because you’re just starting out or going through a rough patch it’s almost impossible not to have this fear.

However, contrast that situation with a business owner who doesn’t actually need the business – at that point, you’re confident, you’re relaxed and you’re not pressing – additionally (and even more important) you can afford to really recommend what’s in the best interest of the client…and not necessarily the biggest payout for you.  All of those things are attractive traits for your clients or prospective clients and a great basis for a trusting relationship.

Fear of Being Embarrassed

This is all about pride and not willing to be seen as wrong in public at any point.  No one likes to be embarrassed, so again this is a very natural fear and for most people the default action is protecting your image and doing what ever you can to look ‘right’.

There are a couple of drawbacks to playing it safe and being the expert.  You will only stay on the safe and proven path, so you lose the ability to learn new things, to try new things or to recommend new things…because everyone runs a serious risk of looking foolish when trying something new.  However it’s the innovation and learning from failures that gets you to new heights.  Playing it safe also means you’re not completely engaging – you’re holding back and that’s not good for building relationships either.

Fear of Feeling Inferior

Similar to the fear of being embarrassed, the fear of feeling inferior (or looking inferior) is all about the need to be perceived as an equal (or maybe a superior) to your client.  This fear leads to situations where you’re not willing to get down into the dirt and make something happen.  To protect yourself, you make it clear you’re not the ‘hired help’ you are an expert.  (CEOs and Executives make this mistake a lot within companies as well).

The reality is that business is hard and you need all hands on deck if you’re going to succeed.  If you truly have your client’s best interests at heart, if you’re really a partner to them, you’ll chip in and do whatever needs to be done to help them improve.

Summary

There are a lot of other great points covered in the book – things like:

• Consult instead of sell
• Tell the kind truth (using empathy to tell your client where they’re making mistakes)
• Make it all about the client
• Make dumb suggestions
• Ask dumb questions

What really resonated for me was the idea of always putting the client first.  By doing the right thing for them, good things will happen (kind of a karma thing, but not as big of a leap).  By authentically building relationships, you will have a great connection with your clients and you can help them with really difficult situations.  When it’s done right, you become part of their business (maybe even their family) and they can’t imagine moving forward without you.  If you ask me, that’s an awfully powerful competitive advantage…and it’s one that anyone willing to ‘Get Naked’ can achieve!

What do you think?  Do you know of someone who works like this?  Have you read the book?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on it – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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Business growth can feel really challenging – you figure a few things out, you achieve some success and now you’ve got even bigger obstacles in front of you!

In fact one of the biggest mistakes made is when people talk about a growth curve.

Smooth Growth Curve

What does your growth curve look like?  If it’s not flat, then it’s probably like you’re on the uphill slope of a rollercoaster – sure it might be kind of steep but it’s smooth and if you just keep doing what you’re doing you’re going to move right on up the hill.

But here’s the secret – growth in the real world doesn’t look like that!  And if you’re working under the assumption that you just have to rev your engine a bit to get up the hill, then you’re going to be in trouble!

The reality of small business growth looks a lot more like a set of walls…or a staircase!

The Real Growth Curve

It’s not a smooth curve, it’s a series of straight up walls that have be navigated if you want to get up to the next plateau of success!  If you just barrel ahead, you’ve going to hit them head on.

Growth is good…isn’t it?

People always say that growth is a nice problem to have, but if your business is running into one of these walls – it’s going to hurt and it could push you backwards.

Picture this – you’ve got a great product or service and you’ve really tapped into a set of customers that need what you can deliver.  You start small, but pretty soon the phone starts ringing and business really picks up.

You start working extra hours, but the revenue is flowing so it doesn’t feel too bad.  In fact you realize that you need to get help so you hire a couple of people, friends of friends that you like.  You parcel out the excess work and keep churning out product (or service).

Unfortunately one of your new employees doesn’t quite do things the way that you do them.  They’re bright, but they don’t have much tolerance for clients who want things a certain way…and they make a few people angry.  Eventually it gets bad enough that you have to fire them (or they leave) and you’ve got 5 or 6 former clients who aren’t happy with your company.

You’ve hit a wall – if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you are going to keep getting the same results that you’ve been getting (and work really long hours, making less money than you should)!

How do you avoid the walls?

You can’t really avoid the walls of growth, but what you can do is be strategic about how you’re going to grow.  Here are a  few things to consider as you’re looking at growing smart:

1.  What’s your biggest constraining factor?

Do a candid end to end review of your business and identify the top 2 or 3 things that are constraining your growth (if you need help with this – call me and I’ve got some tools and a process that could help you).

Are you constrained by new leads?  Do you have plenty of leads but you’re not closing as many of them as you could?  Are you constrained by actually delivering the product or service?  Are you delivering plenty, but not doing the little support things (like invoicing clients or paying bills) and that’s impacting you?

Or are you personally the biggest constraint?  There are only so many hours in the day and you’ve maxed out the time that you’ve got, but everything has to run through you (because you’re the only one who really ‘gets it’).

What’s holding back the growth…be honest and thorough.

2.  What are 3 things you could do to ease the constraint?

Once you’ve got a pretty good idea of where your biggest bottlenecks are, you need to come up with some ways to alleviate the situation.

Maybe you need to start marketing, or outsource the marketing that you’re currently doing.  Maybe you need to hire the right sales person so you can close more deals.  Maybe you need to automate some of your key processes that are taking up a lot of your time (or your key employees time).

Look at your business like a set of systems – once you identify the subsystem that’s not working well, then you can figure out different ways to improve that system.

You need to come up with a few ideas that you know would make a difference if they were implemented.

3.  Pick a solution and commit to implementing it!

With the last step, you came up with a few potential ideas that could help you improve – any one of them might not get you all the way there, but as long as it’s a sustainable, repeatable improvement, then you’ll be heading in the right direction.

Now you’ve got to make it real – the real key to getting to actually getting something like this done is to develop a strong focus – I’ve used the analogy of a high pressure nozzle before, but at the end of the day you have to commit to building a better system.  What ever needs to be done, isolate the work, carve out dedicated time to deliver it and then make sure it stays on the top of your list.

The great news is that once  you make that improvement…things are going to be easier!  You’ve moved up the wall – there will always be more things to do, but if you’re truly implementing and improving your systems and not just throwing money or people at the problem, then you’ll have a lot more through put when you start to focus on the next issue.

What do you think of growth?  Is it a curve for you?  Or have you hit a wall at some point?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – please share them below in the comments!

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

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I’ve known Walt for quite a while.  He’s a great guy – warm, genuine, the kind of person that you enjoy catching up with.  He was a consultant and I was the client when we first met – then we briefly worked at the same consulting company and have stayed in touch off and on for several years.

Like a lot of people, Walt reached a point in his career when he looked around and asked: “Is this it?”.  He was making good money, but his work was empty of meaning and it felt like a dead end. 

Unlike a lot of people, Walt decided to do something about his situation.  He had previous volunteer experience as a family counselor, working with at-risk kids and he really got a lot out of tangibly helping people in need.  So he made a big leap, signed up for additional training and ultimately created a business out of counseling and therapy for low income at-risk kids and their families.

When I caught up with Walt over the summer, he was considering my help with a very common growth problem that a lot of business owners face.

First thing – know what you want!

Walt was having great success – actually he had a full schedule and realized that he was hitting the ceiling on how much he could make without changing his approach.  One of the things I work with business owners on is how they can take their business to the next level – so this was a good opportunity to explore.

Through a combination of word of mouth and referrals in his industry, Walt was able to spend a large percentage of his time doing the work rather than marketing or selling the work.  A lot of business owners have the opposite problem – they spend a lot of their time getting business, which really cuts down on revenue potential.  However Walt is doing great work in an area where few people want (or are capable) of doing the work he’s doing.

Walt’s concern was that not only was he capped on revenue opportunities with his current approach, he also wasn’t building any sort of long term equity – nothing he could really sell if he wasn’t actively involved in the business.

At our meeting, we explored several ideas for different business models that would allow him to leverage his expertise and all of the momentum that he’s created.  There are trade-offs with any decision like this, building a team, managing others, ramping up marketing and sales, taking on new roles – at the end of the day, the first thing you have to figure out is what you really want to build.

We left our summer meeting with a lot for Walt to consider and agreement to check in around the end of the year.

I followed up with Walt right before Christmas – he’s still having a great year and after a lot of thinking he’s reached the conclusion that what he really enjoys, where he makes the biggest difference is doing the work.  He got into this because he wanted to directly help and counsel families and the best way to do that is to continue the current business model and accept the cap on revenue and long term growth.

Arguably Walt has created a job, not a business…however the whole purpose of going out on your own is to create a situation that enables you to do whatever is most important to you.  Walt should still continue to optimize, outsource or automate his processes to make sure he’s as efficient as possible.  And…if his priorities change, he can still adopt a different business model sometime in the future.

Are you getting what you want out of your business?  Most people want to grow – but even with that as a goal, there are a lot of ways to optimize your role.  What do you really enjoy doing in your business?  What are you really good at?  Where can you add the most value? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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