Business Basics – Page 8 – Pauline Bright Business Coach

Why is a budget so important to your business, but so hard to do?

I have yet to meet anyone who likes the word “budget”!

It seems to have acquired a negative spin – Business Coach Mandurah like “belt-tightening” or “big brother” standing over you… it may start feeling like there’s no fun in life if you have to budget!

Maybe the politicians have given it a bad rap! Treasurers rarely deliver a popular budget.

So let’s change the name shall we, to CASH FLOW; 2 really nice words that fit together.

Let’s put together a Cash Flow Forecast.

Serious FUN

When you are realistic about what it takes to run your business – how much money you need to spend and how much money you need to make you can start to get out of stress and into some Serious Fun!

And in that Cash Flow Forecast let’s include some FUN MONEY – money you can play with on a regular basis so it makes you feel good.

And let’s measure what happens with the Cash Flow Forecast, – your actual spending, because when you’ve taken the time to set it up and include all of the things you need and want to spend money on, then you know you’ll be able to sustain it. And you’ll enjoy life more.

So what is a Cash Flow Forecast?

Well, when you get the hang of this, you can have:

Cash flows for personal stuff (in fact I like to start with the personal stuff – because being a business owner should give you a better life – right?)
Cash flows for running your business – projected income and projected expenses in the months they actually occur
Cash flows for expanding and growing your business in the future so there are no nasty surprises when you get there.

TRUE CONFESSION:

I’ve had 11 businesses – not all of them reached their true potential because I told myself “I don’t do numbers”.

And every time I had an attack of “Ok Pauline, let’s do this – you know you have to”, I tried to learn it but it was being taught in such a mind-crushingly dry dusty boring way that I felt like giving up.

But I persevered and I learnt the language of numbers because I had to! It was sink or swim. I chose to swim!

And now I REALLY like numbers – seriously I think I’ve turned a bit nerdy. And I teach it in a Seriously Fun and easy to understand way.

I’d never realised the richness of what’s in a business until I learned about Money and Numbers. (I even coach accountants now! I could never have foreseen that.)

Being Good at What You Do is Overrated

Being good at what you do – the work of your business is not enough. You need to be able to accurately predict what will happen and when it will happen. And you seriously need to know the numbers to do that.

If you are running your business based on what’s in your bank account, you’re heading into shark-infested waters. Please DON’T DO THAT!!!

And if you need help – then come to a Low cost/ High value workshop.

The first one is “Women and Money”
Simple Practical Abundant Money Strategies for Women in Business

The next one is “Men and Money”

And there may even be a “Couples and Money”

Watch this space…

What’s the best option to get finance for a start-up business? Re-mortgage, bank loan or other finance options?

The FIRST RULE OF THUMB

The rule of thumb before borrowing money from anywhere is: “If this were someone else’s business (NOT mine) would I invest in it and what ROI (Return on Investment) would I expect, over what period of time?”

Banks and Financial Institutions have a built-in ROI to protect themselves, but if you are self-financing you need to have an expectation and a time frame for yourself to know that borrowing money was a good idea and a sound investment.

SOURCES OF FUNDING:
1) Getting finance from a bank or other financial institution:
If they are going to invest in you and your business they want to feel confident that you know what you’re doing, that your business idea is sound and that you will be able to pay the money back

They like to see a business plan including a financial plan with realistic financial projections. Banks are usually conservative and risk-averse so you need to have a good track record and have plenty of supporting evidence to back up your idea.

2) Financing it yourself from a line of credit or re-structuring your mortgage.

This can often seem like the easiest way of doing things BUT there is a much lower level of accountability. And that’s where a lot of people fall down – they don’t prepare the detailed business plan, they don’t do a financial plan and they don’t project how they will get a return on their investment on lending money to themselves. Do the same prep work as if you were applying to a bank!

A line of credit that you have instant and easy access to is probably the most dangerous way to borrow of all, unless you are SUPREMELY DISCIPLINED! You need to set firm rules around what the money can be used for and set up a repayment system that you will be accountable to.

And I don’t recommend borrowing from family and friends! It almost never works out or gets paid back..

3) Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists will lend money to start-ups. The risk is higher for them than for banks because they are investing their own money, so the deal is usually constructed on an individual basis.

Venture Capitalists are professional investors, individuals or groups, who may want a bigger slice of the ROI, or they may want a slice of your business or a shortened deadline for money to be paid back. Angel Investors can be individuals or groups of people who look for investments that go beyond monetary return. This is the preferred option to bowing from friends and family.

Raising venture capital is a very deep and fascinating topic, so I’d recommend further research.
I highly recommend Keith Cunnigham’s book “Keys to the Vault” (Keith is the “rich dad” that Robert Kyosaki refers to in “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” – also well worth reading.)

Please be aware that I am not a qualified financial adviser; I am a Business Coach with 10 years’ experience coaching hundreds of businesses. These are my opinions based on personal and client experience and my own research and education. Please seek professional advice from your Accountant or Financial Adviser.

How To Incorporate Great Teaching Skills In Your Training Sessions To Get Outstanding Results

A client asked me how she could become a better trainer for her team. She has raw talent and a passion for teaching but was not sure if she was doing a “god enough” job…

I thought I’d share the training with you too.

Click here to download the PDF document “How To Incorporate Great Teaching Skills In Your Training Sessions To Get Outstanding Results”

What Makes an Extraordinary Teacher?

You may have a natural gift for teaching and you’d like to get even better at it or you might just find yourself in a position where training is required and it’s down to YOU but you feel like you’ve been thrown in the deep end.

Either way this Business Tutorial is designed to help you refine your skills and get much better performance from your students.

Great teachers create a challenging, nurturing environment for their students. When you create an environment of enthusiasm and anticipation for the training then the participation rate shoots up and your job is half done!

Your own knowledge, skills and expertise are only part of the requirements to be a great teacher. Being able to share those things in a way that students enjoy and understand is the most vital component. Being great at your job won’t necessarily make you a good teacher – it takes time and effort to learn to teach.

With that in mind here are the skills that I use and teach; they are the ones that work best for me…

9 of the BEST Skills for Teachers and Trainers
To Get Outstanding Student Results

#1 CREATE THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT:
Teaching is a two-way exchange: you can learn as much as you teach if you include your student in the process.

Set up an environment of mutual respect where each person’s ideas and opinions are valued. Students need to feel safe to express their feelings and listen to and learn from others.

The teacher’s responsibility is to set the “Rules of the Game” by explaining how teaching sessions work and the expectations for how people participate. Once you’ve explained it, get everyone to agree to the rules.
Make sessions fun and interactive. People learn much faster and better when the lesson is enjoyable.

#2 YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE THE “GURU” OF EVERYTHING
You may be very good at what you do, but there is a chance that you won’t know everything. Don’t set yourself up to have all the answers to everything – include your students in the learning process and if you don’t have an immediate answer to a question there are several ways you can deal with it:

Flip the question back to the class to see if others have any ideas. For example you could say “That’s an interesting question – who else has come across that problem?” “Let’s toss some ideas around to see what solutions we can find”
If it’s something technical that can’t be solved in class you can either assign the person who asked the question to do some research (or the whole class) or offer to provide the solution (if they can’t) and do a training on it at the next session.

#3 KEEP YOUR PROMISES
This is a blanket rule for everyone – teacher AND students. Only promise what you intend to do. If you set assignments to be completed get agreement that the work will be completed and returned by a certain day at a certain time – e.g send to me by 5.00pm Thursday. If you promise something as the teacher, make sure you follow through to set the example.

Make a note of what agreements and action items are made and hold people accountable to their promise.
If they get “stuck” be prepared to help, but don’t do it for them.

We all have some of each but usually lean towards one particular style. (Sometimes the style may change depending on what you are learning.) Don’t assume that someone is not paying attention if they are leaning back with their eyes closed – they may be highly auditory and need to filter out distractions to listening) Unless they fall off their chair or start snoring of course – that’s a dead giveaway that they’re just not engaged!!!

None of us are 100% of only one style, but as you’ll see above more people learn by seeing and doing that just hearing.

#4 UNDERSTAND DIFFERENT LEARNING STYLES WITH VAK
People learn is different ways. The three main styles are:

Visual they learn by seeing 40%
Auditory they learn by hearing 20%
Kinaesthetic they learn by doing 40%

None of us are 100% of only one style, but as you’ll see above more people learn by seeing and doing that just hearing.

Keep your lessons interactive, interesting and include all 3 modes of learning in your teaching and you will capture everyone in the class.

The best way to find out how your students like to learn? … Ask them!

#5 SET HIGH EXPECTATIONS
People are surprising resourceful and creative when given the chance. It has been proven that students rise to the level of the expectations of the teacher.

Tell a class they are a room full of geniuses (and treat them accordingly) and they will perform at that level. Tell a class they are not very bright and need hand holding all the way – and that’s exactly what you’ll get.
Give people things to do that are within their capabilities and then set some “stretch” assignments and ask them to grow into them.
People are happiest when they are learning growing and achieving.

#6 PRAISE, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND REWARD
Set the right environment for learning. How you praise, acknowledge and reward achievement will depend on the culture of the team, business or classroom and the individuals within it.

Work out with your students how they would like to be acknowledged or rewarded. Find out what drives them. Don’t assume that everyone operates the same way because they don’t!
1. Some like to have a measure against themselves to achieve their Personal Best
2. Some like individual praise like employee of the week
3. Some like to have team goals to achieve
Each method requires some way of keeping score. Set some measurable targets for the class and get them to report the scores weekly, monthly or whatever is appropriate. We’re looking for a way of seeing measurable improvement.

#7 BE A PERPETUAL STUDENT
The very best teachers and trainers have a love of learning and self-improvement. When you set that example for your students they will have a great role model to learn form. What you SAY is nowhere near as powerful as what you DO.

As well as teaching tried and true basics bring cutting edge information to your lessons. Keep it fresh relevant and interesting
What are you learning to get better at being YOU as well as getting better at your work?
Go for constant and never-ending improvement. Get feedback after each session to find out how the session went. Was there anything you or the class could have done differently to make that session better?

# 8 LEARN HOW TO COMMUNICATE WELL USING DISC PROFILING
Just as people have different learning styles as in the VAK System (above) they also have different personality profiles.

Some people are more outgoing, louder and more “visible’
Some people more reserved, preferring to stay in the background.
Some people are more task oriented – preferring to work quietly alone
Some people are more people focussed and prefer to work within a team or with others
Some people are quick thinking and quick acting – happy to learn from their mistakes
Some people are much slower to make decisions, need more details and worry about making mistakes

DISC Profiling is a way of understanding how different people operate. There are no right or wrong styles. And when you learn to communicate with someone in their own natural style (and they do the same for you) you get fewer mistakes, more cooperation and better collaboration.

Ask about DISC Profiling and training for you and your team

#9 SEEK EXCELLENCE RATHER THAN PERFECTION
Perfection is very hard to achieve. It often makes people procrastinate or never attempt anything out of fear of failure.

Striving for excellence will allow you to be human, make mistakes and learn from them and constantly improve

- - - As a teacher encourage people to experiment and try new things. Even if something fails you’ve just learned how NOT to do it next time.
    - Encourage students to find their own answers and not to be afraid of giving the “wrong” answer.
    - Be inclusive: some personalities will be louder and more outgoing than others. Encourage the quieter ones to participate too.
    - Learn to ask great open ended questions:

A closed question will give you a one-word answer e.g. to the “did you, have you, are you, how many” types of questions you’ll get a typical answer like “no, yes, 3”. Which is OK when you want a short answer but can easily close off conversation and will put the focus straight back on you to ask another question. Ask too many closed questions and you will sound like an interrogator
Ask an open ended question like “Tell me about…” or “How did you discover…” or “what kinds of things could you…” or “what would be the best way to…” and the conversation will open up and become more interesting. People can solve a lot of challenges and learn a lot just by talking them through

Your problem is never as bad as you think it is… 13 strategies to deal with it

CASE STUDY:

Client walks into a session today overwhelmed, tired, frustrated and crying over money and staff issues

One hour later – session ends, client walks out smiling, energised, enthusiastic – she has a page full of notes, ideas and strategies to work on to get her out of burnout and into bliss over the next 90 days.

It’s not uncommon, a meltdown – it may even have happened to you… once or twice … or about a million times!

So what is the MAGIC we worked together?

Now first I have to say, that what I REALLY like about this client (and why I chose to take her on) is that she said “I take responsibility – it’s my fault. What do we do to fix it?”

Actually she needed to think differently. She wasn’t truly stuck, just feeling a lack of resourcefulness – and her Mojo had wandered off for a coffee somewhere.

We looked at the positives: She has no current debts; she has a business earning income so she has cashflow (but not enough of it) and she has stock and services to sell, people to do the work and a database of clients.

So for the rest of the session we brainstormed ideas…

And came up with over 15 ideas that she can implement in the next 90 days to get her business out of chaos and back into bliss – to get the money flowing and the team on side.

Here’s some of what we came up with in just over ONE HOUR:

1. She has a database full of current and past customers – which she has NEVER tapped into.

We’ll now be working on making contact through email marketing and an online newsletter to reignite the “lapsed” clients and to nurture the current ones
She has a Facebook page and website that need work, so she’ll be adding content and enriching the experience for visitors
We’re creating some “irresistible offers” excusive to her best clients
She’ll be producing a hard copy newsletter – just one A4 sheet printed both sides to start
As well as having the hard copy newsletter in her business premises it will also go to her strategic alliances to promote referrals
She’ll be hosting some intimate “bring a friend” in-house events to get more referrals
She’ll invite her strategic alliances to speak and partner with her at events – at her premises and theirs

2. There are some money leaks and blockages

The team will have weekly sales training to learn how to sell elegantly, delivered by the best salespeople on the team
The team will learn how to upsell “would you like ‘fries’ with that”? We’ve identified a number of ‘fries’ in the business
She is reviewing her prices – she hasn’t put them up in a long time
We identified that money is leaking out of the business because the staff is undercharging or not charging properly. They will be trained to use the POS software correctly.
We’ll implement some “house rules” for staff and expect more considerate behaviour
She has worked out her “break-even” point -what the business needs just to survive and pay its bills and set targets for what she really wants.

Now, she can’t do all this tomorrow – so her homework is to put these strategies into a timeline for the next 90 Days.

None of this is rocket science – you may have heard it before. But to make it work you need to know which buttons to press and when. And if you’re like me you’ll do way better when someone is either holding your hand or giving you a size 9 boot where it’s most needed. (YES I have a coach – actually two of them… double accountability!)

Look if you know you need this kind of support to get you moving with energy and enthusiasm – and if it’s time to call your Mojo back from coffee break … then you probably should look at the “From Business Burnout to Business Bliss in Under 90 Days” Program.

It’s already started – people are already kicking goals!

CLICK HERE for the details

It’s by application only, you can’t just sign up, so we’ll need to talk after you’ve filled in the application. I need to know that you will work and that you’ll be successful.

Let’s get you moving eh?

Have you used it yet?

You know that thought that keeps popping up after a lovely holiday – no, not the one that wishes you were still on holiday but the nagging little one that tries to get you off your butt – “I really should MOVE IT!”

Well it’s time to listen to it! Use that voice in your head to do something!

Left to our own devices we humans can procrastinate – A LOT! (not that there’s anything wrong with that IF it’s the right kind of procrastination!!! But that’s a trade secret for another time)

And before too long we’re all standing around shuffling our feet and remarking “Gosh is that the date? Where HAS the year gone”…

…all that wasted precious time!

But I don’t want that to be you. Because I really, REALLY want you to do well this year – exceed your expectations in fact!

And I have a trade secret to share…

True confession – I have a coach – actually I have two! TO MAKE ME DO WHAT I PROMISED MYSELF I WOULD DO! And I have a VA who makes sure I do it too! (And helps – quite a lot)

So, just what did you put into practice last year to get you MOVING towards:

getting out of chaos and under control,
making more money with less stress
and working with more of the customers and clients you REALLY want?

Now, I’ve got some good news and some bad news …

I am personally going to work with a handful of “I NEED THIS NOW – IT CANT WAIT” committed business owners to blast your business through the roof in the next 90 days!

I guarantee that before the 90 days is up you will think differently, do things differently and get the specific measurable outcomes you want – with accountability!

The good news is The Business Bliss Program is blasting off – THIS MONTH!!!

The bad news is if you snooze you lose…

You can’t just pay and join my programs… I’m very picky about who I work with. We have to be a good fit together. I have to know that you will keep your promises! As I will keep mine.

APPLY HERE – yes you can read through the details first.

To see if we can work together we’ll have a 10 minute chat and I’ll tell you honestly if I can help you or not.

Sound fair?

But you know, this is not for everybody – if it’s just not what you’re looking for or you might be up to your ears in stuff that is more important and urgent than your business right now…

I get that.

So to keep you ticking along, here are some freebies

1. Download my “The 7 Business Building Tools You’ll Need to Make THIS Your BEST YEAR YET” for FREE here.

2. Watch the Business Bliss video – you can download or watch it here.

Here’s to a BRILLIANT Year!

Cheers,

Pauline

PS – Let’s get this party started! Join here.

PPS My clients are already MOVING – Tracey Loubser said on FB last week: “Nothing like a Coaching call with Pauline Bright to get to back into the “swing of running your own business” after a great holiday – with a polite kick in the BUM to get you more “on the MOVE”!!”

Evolutionary Business Design

Category: Business Basics