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

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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

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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!

But what is effective leadership?  For the entrepreneur this timeless quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson gives us a great perspective:

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”

It sounds simplistic, if you lead a company you need to be willing to step up and lead – blaze a path, make things happen. Your employees will respect and respond to effective leadership. Some may complain about it, but that doesn’t mean they don’t prefer it. In fact there’s a feeling of security when companies have strong leaders.

In order to respond to change or steer in a new direction you need to lead.  Or consider the alternative – with weak leadership your business will never reach its full potential, because your employees will not be performing at theirs. With weak leadership you’ll be average (at best). Your business will get lost, you will get lost.  But if you’re willing to step up and take charge, you may be amazed at what you and your team can accomplish.

Leadership doesn’t come naturally – at least to most people. To develop your leadership skills you need to work on them and make it an intentional focus. If leadership is important to you, it needs to be a continuous improvement area of your life. Accomplished leaders will tell you they are always searching for ways to improve their ability to lead.

Today, I want you to think about your business, your territory, your staff, whatever it is that you are responsible for “leading”. What can you do to make your leadership set you apart from others? Make it more effective? What isn’t working for you now? If it isn’t working, try something different today. Don’t overthink it. It can be simple, but take action. Be fair, consistent, and firm in your action. Be that person, step off the path…Lead!

Schedule a reminder on your calendar and share an update in the comments below in a few days; we would love to hear your “leadership” results.

Chris Steinlage    Kansas City Business Coach

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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!

What do I mean by ‘Incredibly Useful™’?  I could do a full post just on the technology tools I’ve picked up – stuff like Dropbox, Xobni and Pandora that I use all the time.  But what I wanted to cover here were some of the ideas that I either didn’t know or didn’t appreciate when I started.  I’m trying to read a new business book every few weeks…and some of these ideas came out of those books, but they also came out of real world application…practical (and Incredibly Useful™) ways to grow your business now…

1. It’s all about Marketing Consistency

One of the secrets of marketing that most people don’t pay much attention to is consistency.  Way too many business owners will spend money to make a big splash, but it’s a one and done approach…and they get frustrated when that doesn’t work very well.  What does work is getting in front of your target market on a very regular basis…in fact I’ve found that consistency is even more important than having a perfect message.  It’s your consistent presence over the long run that opens the doors…without consistency, you’re just floundering.

Incredibly Useful™ Tip:  Try this – Find at least 1 (preferably 2 or 3) marketing tactics that you can apply consistently every single month.  Newsletters, blog posts, post card campaigns, ads, events, meetings…if you’re not doing anything on a regular, repeatable basis now for marketing…you have to start…this month!

2. Use a Calendar not a list

One of the biggest challenges facing business owners (or anyone else for that matter) is the ability to consistently get things done.  Where most of us fall short is having too much to do and not enough time to do it.  We start with a list of really important things to do…start working the list and life happens and more stuff gets added to the list.  We reprioritize, work on some other stuff and more life happens!  Bottom line – not much gets done, which is why putting the important stuff on the calendar will help you actually get it done.  There was a study done a couple of years ago that showed that critical things that needed to get done where 75% more likely to actually get done if they were scheduled on a calendar!

Incredibly Useful™ Tip:  Try this – take a look at your to-do list and transfer the most important items to your calendar.  This will require you to estimate how long it will take and to find an open block of time to actually do it…which is why it works so much better.  There’s only so many hours in the day and this calendar approach will force you to honor that law of nature so you don’t kid yourself into thinking you can do more than you actually can.

3. It’s all about (well placed) Confidence

Picture this – you’re having a bad day and you are totally unprepared as you go into a sales meeting with a prospective client who would be a great fit for what you do.  You approach the meeting  with a real lack of confidence…saying things like “I don’t know” or “I wish I knew the answer to that…”.  How well do you think that meeting is going to go?  It’s going to poorly – people are looking for answers they can trust and if you don’t display real confidence, you’ll get eaten alive.  That lack of confidence comes shining through and you become extremely unattractive!

Incredibly Useful™ Tip:  Try this – Focus on building confidence going into sales meetings.  Confidence is the secret to success, but it has to be confidence that’s earned.  Here are some things to keep in mind to build up your confidence:  Let yourself take pride in what you do, make sure you’re overly prepared for the meetings and spend time visualizing a successful outcome.  Finally – when you head into that meeting, pretend like you are independently wealthy and don’t need the business.

4. You’ve got to have Focus

At any given time, you and your employees should all be very clear on what’s the MOST important thing you need to get done right now.  Outside of the day to day business operations, you should all be on the same page of what needs to get accomplished next.  Without that shared focus, the odds are very high that different people are working on different things or that things will change from day to day.  Either way, you’re not getting things done that way!

Incredibly Useful™ Tip:  Try this – take an hour or two of time and write down the 5 most important things you need to do this quarter – be specific and measurable.  Now out of those 5, pick which one is the most important thing.  Write the top 5 (and top 1) down, put it on your wall and give a copy to each employee and have them post it as well.  Rinse and repeat at the end of 90 days!

5. Be Really Visible

People will buy when they’re ready to buy (sadly not when you’re ready for them to buy).  So that means if you want to sell to people you either have to get really lucky and call them on the day that they’re thinking about buying…or you have to be top of mind when they’re ready to start looking.  The way to stay top of mind is to consistently keep your visibility up, make sure people know who you are and what you do and do it in a memorable way…consistently.

Incredibly Useful™ Tip:  This is where a tool like Social Media comes in.  My preference is LinkedIn, but Facebook can be effective for the right kind of business as well.  Make sure you are continually building up your connections with people you Know, Like and Trust…and that you are updating your status with useful and interesting information – if you blog (and you should consider doing that, link back to a blog update).  You could also answer questions online or reach out to people you know…bottom line, spend 30 to 60 minutes a week, be active and stay visible.

6. It’s not about you…it’s about your clients

This can be a hard lesson for some business owners.  It’s easy to get wrapped up in all of the cool things you can do and to want to share that endlessly with whoever will listen (we’ve all been trapped in that conversation at some point).  Don’t take it personally…but your prospective clients don’t care about what you do.  They ONLY care if you can solve their problems…how can you really help them?  Focus your efforts on what’s in it for them.

Incredibly Useful™ Tip:  Try this – Next time you meet a potential client, do everything in your power not to talk about yourself.  You don’t have to be weird about it, just ask a lot of questions on what they are struggling with, what the implications are and really (really) listen to what they have to say.  If you do this the right way and you can help them, then it’s no longer selling, it’s just educating them on how you can make their lives / situation better, but it starts with their problems, not your stuff!

7. Project your Profits

If your like most business owners, you probably have a good idea of how much money you’d like to make this year.  Unfortunately if you’re like most business owners, that’s about all you know…you don’t really know when that money will come in (i.e. what month), where it will come from and how all of that works with your expenses, cash flow and profitability.  In essence you are flying blind…and eventually that will get you in a LOT of trouble.

Incredibly Useful™ Tip:  Try this – create a Profit Plan for your business.  Keep it simple, but lay out a month by month projection of your planned revenues and costs for the year.  That alone is a worthwhile exercise, but where it really gets fun is when you start figuring out how you’re going to generate the planned revenue…what marketing needs to happen, when, is it reasonable?  There’s a lot you can learn from this kind of projection – if you want a template to start with Contact Me and let me know what you want.

Any of these resonate with you?  What did I miss?  What incredibly useful things have you learned in the last few years?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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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”?

We’ll start by reversing the idea:

“How can I make my marketing less effective?”

Here are just a few ideas…unfortunately most of these are things I’ve seen with actual businesses – I imagine you could come up with a lot more!

• Be difficult to find online.
• Run marketing activities on a really inconsistent schedule…do it steadily for a few weeks and then stop for a month or two.
• Make sure your marketing talks all about how great you are…
• Don’t give the potential client any reason to follow up.
• Make it a challenging puzzle for the prospective client to figure out what the product or service is and who you are.

This is obviously an incomplete list – there are a lot of ways to be less effective when it comes to marketing, but it’s a pretty good starting point.

The next step is to look at the ideas that resonate, even a little and reverse them back into potential solutions.  This works especially well if you have a couple of people to bounce ideas with.

Example 1 – Be difficult to find online

Be difficult to find online is an easy reversal into ‘make it easy to be found online’.  Studies have shown that 98% of buyers go online to search for solutions for problems – if you can’t be found on those searches…then you don’t exist…and you’re not going to land any new clients! 

That doesn’t mean you need to build a $20,000 website and go all in for expensive Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, but you do need to understand who might be looking for you and what it would take to at least be a consideration when they’re searching.  Look into things like local search (here’s another good guide to local search) and the important basics of Search Engine Optimization.  There are a lot of effective things you can do that don’t cost that much money but can generate a great return.

Example 2 – Don’t give the potential client any reason to follow up

Sadly the examples of marketing materials out there that don’t give potential clients any reason to follow up are everywhere.  Open up a local paper or a magazine and I can guarantee you’ll find a ‘So What’ ad in the first couple that you look at. 

A lot of business owners are sold on the idea of ‘Getting their name out there’ as being useful in some way – but the reality is that unless you’ve got the advertising budget of Pepsi…or Budweiser…name recognition isn’t worth much and certainly doesn’t drive sales.

Let’s reverse it – “Give the potential client a clear reason to follow up”.  If you’re spending money on advertising, what outcome do you want?  Obviously you want more customers, but realistically, what’s the next step that you want that potential client to take?  Maybe you want them to give you a call.  Maybe you want them to go onto your website and download a report (giving you their email address and approval to market to them further).  Maybe you want them to try out a discounted or sample size of your product.

What ever the case is, once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want them to do as a result of the ad – then construct the message around convincing them to do that very thing.  Give them a strong call to action:  “Tired of feeling overwhelmed with your business and not making the kind of money you know you can make?  Contact Shawn today for a free consultation!” 

Not only do you need to be clear on what you want them to do, give them a reason to do it and make it exceedingly easy for them to follow through!

What could you turn upside down in your business?

Reverse Brainstorming works best with a small group, but you could do it on your own as well.  What issue that you’re facing would work really well with this process?  Share your thoughts below – I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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