Every now and then you get handed a slow week – usually the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, but sometimes you’ll get a quiet week other times during the year.  Maybe you’ve officially taken the whole week off – which is great!  However if you’re like most business owners, you’re ‘working’ this week, you’ve just planned it to be slow.

Slow doesn’t have to mean unproductive though – here are a few ideas of what to focus on to make sure it’s a great slow week and not just…well, slow!

Finish your planning

Planning is a four letter word for most entrepreneurs – it runs counter to your instincts…and for most of us it’s just not any fun.  But if you want to succeed, you need to at least go through a planning process.  It doesn’t have to be complicated – try this:

Identify your top 5 priorities for the next year…if you could get these 5 things done / achieved / etc. you’d make it a great year!

Identify at least 2 or 3 key targets you want to hit – usually one of them is revenue, but it could also be profits, number of new clients, some sort of quality metric.  The key is to make sure it’s something easy to measure and it’s a valid, important measure of your business success.

Finally – with the above in mind, identify the top 5 (or so) things you need to get done in the next 90 days.  What will move the ball forward?  What’s achievable?  Be specific and layout at least a framework of how you’ll do what you’d do.

Make a list of people to contact

Your long term success is also going to be driven by the company you keep…and if you don’t make time to stay in touch, you’ll lose out on a lot of opportunities. 

Make a top 20 list of business (and some personal) contacts who are likely to either refer you business or be a great contact for you in some other way.  Once you’ve got a good list, make a commitment to meet with someone on the list at least weekly.  Relationships only get built when you spend quality time with people.

Take a nap!

It’s a slow week, take some time and give yourself permission to relax a little bit.  Seriously…when was the last time you took a nap (and being sick doesn’t count).  You’ll be amazed at how good you’ll feel after a quality nap.

Clean off your desk

There have been tons of studies that prove that clutter on your desk, in your office causes stress…and with that stress you’re going to be a lot less productive.  Don’t believe me?  Try doing a great cleanup job on your desk…and let me know if you don’t feel way better about what you’re doing afterwards. 

My experience is that it’s like a weight coming off your shoulders…one that you didn’t know you were carrying!

Hang out with family and friends

This one’s obvious – the reason you planned a ‘slow’ week in the first place was to build in some time to relax, but if you’re like most business owners, life often gets in the way of your plans.  An important email comes in, you get some phone calls you have to handle, you just remembered a commitment that had to be done…before you know it the week’s up and you didn’t spend any time with those most important to you.

Don’t let that happen.  On your slow week…make sure you build in hard stops and walls for your business activities…and give yourself some quality time away.

What are the most important things you do on a slow week?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, especially if you’re just relaxing around this week!

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

Photo by Arvee5.0

It’s a simple idea…the best ideas always are.  2 people can accomplish more than 1 person on their own, but the real trick is that 2 people working together can accomplish a LOT more than 1 person…or even 2 people working independently.  Bottom line, if you want to achieve more, you’ve got to have teamwork…and teamwork starts with leadership.

Joe Calhoon would describe it as the critical importance of having everyone On The Same Page, which is also the title of one of his books.

I was fortunate to hear Joe speak at an event last week and he covered a lot of important ideas – I don’t have the room to cover the entire talk, but here are a few of the key points that really stood out to me.

You’ve got to have a plan!

Only about 12% of businesses take the time to put together a written business growth plan…and it’s no coincidence that those businesses perform much better than their peers who are reacting and drifting.

The thing is – the plan doesn’t have to be overly complicated.  You don’t need a 40 page executive summary in front of a 200 page business plan.  Joe advocates a 1 page plan and I’ve worked with clients on 2 page plans.  What’s really important is that you’ve gone through a planning process and you can easily communicate what’s important and how you’re getting there.

Employee Engagement will make or break you!

According to studies, about 28% of employees are actively engaged in their work.  An engaged employee is one who fully buys into what you’re doing and proactively does what’s needed to help the business be successful…the kind of employees you want and need to have if you are going to make it, much less thrive.

Conversely 50% to 60% are disengaged…which matches up with a study I found earlier this year that over 50% of employees are very unhappy with their job.  Disengaged employees show up to work most of the time, do the bare minimum to keep their job and generally avoid any kind of proactive or creative endeavors.  It’s an awful existence for the employee (imagine coming in every day to a job you hate) and it’s even worse for the business owner.

The difference between a business with a high level of engagement and a typical business is night and day.  It’s the difference between dragging a heavy weight behind you and having a supercharged engine help you push up the hill!

Keep it simple!

The other thing that really resonated with me was the need for leaders and business owners to keep it simple.  We live in a complex world…and it’s getting more complex every day, but complexity confuses…complexity keeps people from taking action…complexity doesn’t get talked about (at least not in a positive way).

Simplicity doesn’t mean dumbing things down, simplicity is about finding the core idea, the MOST important things and keeping the focus on that.  I love the idea of being able to tell people what you’re all about in 1 or 2 sentences…even better 10 words or less.  Try it – it’s not easy, but it is amazingly powerful if you can get there.

Thanks Joe

Joe covered lots of other important ideas and I would strongly encourage you to catch him at a future speaking engagement if you get the chance…and until then, check out one of his books and start thinking about how you could get your team on the same page!

Have you heard Joe speak?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Photo by The Happy Rower

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, there are plenty of days you don’t feel much like a leader, but as a business owner, that’s a major part of your job description, a huge driver for success…or failure. Are you focused on being a great leader?

Leadership is needed in all kinds of places, it’s not just about business owners, it’s a universal requirement – it’s something everyone will step up to at some point in their life. Some feel they are called to lead in areas of high visibility while others may lead in areas where their leadership almost goes almost unnoticed but is important just the same. Teachers (or even our role as parents) are examples of unnoticed leaders, but effective leadership in those roles is profoundly important to the development of a child. 

As a business owner what your business really needs is effective leadership from you!

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  photo by chuckyeager

I started Aspire 4 years ago, give or take a couple of days, and it’s been a fun, exhausting and enlightening ride so far.  Not only have I had a chance to learn a ton of great things through my own business efforts, but I’ve picked up a lot of amazing things from my clients as well.

When I started Aspire, I didn’t realize I was ramping up my business a few months before the ‘Great Recession’ started, which has led to some really strong lessons as well (things like living within your means, slow and steady, bootstrap wherever possible, etc.).  It hasn’t been easy and certainly there have been plenty of stumbles and frustrations over the years but there’s also been steady growth and I’ve gained a lot of clarity with each lesson.

As they say…”If I only knew then what I know now…!”.  Which brings me to the point of this post – I wanted to take a shot at sharing the most useful things I’ve learned over the last few years – hopefully they’ll be helpful to others…and if you’ve got some useful things that I haven’t learned yet, then share them in the comments!

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  photo by peggyhr

Sometimes it can really help to look at things upside down…or backwards if you want to find some answers!  The change in perspective generates a lot of ideas and be a valuable tool.

I’m talking about Reverse Brainstorming – a simple and powerful way to spark ideas that might get overlooked if you were coming up with a list of things you could do. 

The process is simple – isolate a problem that you’d like to solve…in the article above they used the example of ‘How can we improve patient satisfaction’.  Then you simply reverse the idea and brainstorm possible answers on ‘How can we make patient satisfaction worse?.

The reversal opens up all sorts of possibilities and often puts you closer to the situation.  Let’s try a different example hits most small business owners:  “How do I get more effective marketing”?

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