Not a chance, all flights are cancelled. We settle for an early morning conference call. Skype may be better, but you will never replace the face to face meeting.
I take time to think during the day, I need to spend more time with my team and improve internal communication.
11.45am With my personal and business plans now completed, and a two hour meeting out of the way, it’s time to crack on and see some action. With most of the day working at home I can look forward to achieving a lot today.
8:35pm I have lost count of how many distractions there has been. Actions completed – probably zero.
Distractions are frustrating for all of us who are driven individuals. Regardless of how much I wish to focus on the big picture, sales have to be made, customers called, queries answered. Sometimes you do just have to lock yourself away with no e-mail access or mobile, but that day was not today.
“Dad, I have just won £20 of free Tap-Tap games on iTunes.” I do not like the sound of this and I explain to George there will be a catch. My wife listens in with interest.
Last Christmas, we bought our then nine year old an iTouch. With Wi-Fi internet access in the house, and my credit card details stored at iTunes, we know we have a disaster ready to happen.
Disaster struck at 10:15pm last night as my wife picked up her e-mails after not logging on for a number of days. Six separate games have been bought at a cost in excess of £100, two of which have a minimum age limit of 17.
To be fair, I honestly do not think it is completely his fault. The boundaries of “free and paid for” are blurred to a 10 year old, especially when using the internet. Like a lot of other parents it does make me annoyed. Unfortunately for my son and iTunes, he is not allowed to download any games or music without parental consent.
It is very easy to do someone over in your personal and business life. Eventually it will backfire though.
I cannot over emphasise how important and useful this task has been. In the past, I would have had a team of people in the board room and we would have had our FD look into the finance, Operations Director deal with the operational issues etc. Together with sales, marketing and personnel, the team would have reconvened a week later with little input from me. (We might have done this on a yearly basis, but not every quarter or 100 days)
Now, it has been down to me and I have been surprised at the time it has taken to document absolutely everything we need to complete. Most of the tasks are small; most are simply delegating jobs to external companies.
Next week I will run through he plan internally with other members of staff, ensure that I have not forgotten any detail and remove any items of insignificance. The plan will be communicated with the team, tasks delegated and the plan implemented. With any luck, I will not deviate from this plan or add items onto it!
As a favour to the person who was selling his customer base, the exact date for signed the “sale and purchase” agreement has had to be kept confidential, there being a delay between the date of the agreement and when I can tell the world. What I can report is that the first acquisition of this year has been completed and I have just over 300 new customers to introduce ourselves to.
My first call was to the IT supplier who maintained the database, website and e-mail. Urgently, we need the contact details changed on the website and e-mails redirected. The company and database had been “mothballed” so I am not expecting much to come through and we will be immediately loosing the brand so the website will just be there to provide some historic customers with our contact details.
I have extended the contract for the temp we have on board. She will now undertake a credit check on every company acquired to ascertain if they are in business and for us to categorize the customer base by company size. This is probably a two day task.
The temp will have two further jobs to complete:
Once this is done, we will then transfer the data from an Excel spreadsheet into our system and send out an introductory letter explaining who we are. From there, it is back to basics and getting on the phone and selling to them.
1. Survived and in some areas exceeded financial targets
2. Cleared down a number of historic creditors
3. Formulated a sensible workable plan
4. Started development on a number of ideas
5. Obtained clarity of thinking, increased confidence
We have always invested in a good CRM system. First it was ACT! then Tracker and finally Maximiser. What I find amazing is that on my travels, so many companies pay so little attention to their database. It is the life blood of the business, a platform to grow and develop, and imperative for any realistic exit strategy.
A couple of years ago, I dismantled Maximiser and engaged a local IT firm to build a custom database for us. The main benefit being that our customers can interrogate their contract details across the internet. This system was only ever 75% finished, well, 75% of version one. As we know, when V1 is finished, you start work on V2.
Today I took the spec for the final 25% of V1 to our IT company with the view of porting across some customers from the old CRM system and making the database easier to use. We should have the work done in a few weeks. This is just one of the many unfinished jobs that now form part of my 100 day plan, and probably one of the most important tasks that we need completed.
If you think it is a quick process writing a 100 day plan, think again. As Peter Jones (Dragons’ Den) said in his book, Tycoon, a 100 day plan can be made up of one item or 3,000 actions.
There was not enough time last night to dedicate to this important process. My personal plan alone took two hours to complete. It is now clearly documented with 10 primary goals split into four sections.
Section one – The first goal is surrounding personal health. Luckily, I have always enjoyed good health. The goal is to lose some weight, (I won’t bore you with the detail). The most important parts are goal two, how I will achieve this and goal three, the reason why. (I will take out some more personal insurance cover in July – I will get a lower premium compared to what I would get if I undertook the process today)
Section two is made up of a few urgent jobs to be sorted that just jet carried forward – in 100 days these will be for once out of the way.
Thirdly, I have some personal financial goals and lastly, there is the outstanding “to do list” which when fully loaded lists a total of 64 actions. I intend to get 50 of these done. They range from making a call to organize the installation of Sky+ to doing my tax return. On paper the list looks big, but in reality it is not more than a week’s work.
I have never been scared of writing a “to do list” – where most of us are poor is ticking the items off. Of the 64 items on the list, 64 are non urgent. Gutters do not have to be cleaned, painting a shed can wait till next year.
What has this all got to do with running a successful business? Taking time out to document objectives and actions means that you have to mentally deal with lots of items that may otherwise clog up your mind. This valuable commodity of “clean space” allows you to concentrate now on selling and running the business. Even if you have not dealt with the actions, again, mentally you feel more positive, more in control, all important traits of a successful entrepreneur.
Be it I do not want to use up valuable prime selling time on writing a big to do list for our business for the next 100 days, this is an urgent task that will have to be done today.
An early start catching up on what has been going on last week. Clearly more business people are going away for Easter compared to Christmas. It may be that the majority of us spend Christmas at home with family whilst Easter is a time for a holiday break. What is clear is that many people have been on holiday and some are still away. This is tough for any sales focused business.
Every Monday our sales team is having an 8:30am conference call to discuss deals and plans for the week. We have only just started conference calls and already the benefits are obvious. Having people in Edinburgh, Manchester, the South West and the South, it is not always easy to get together.
Post, e-mails, call backs, banking, invoicing, takes up most of the day. The desk is clear, and everything is in the correct box. It’s time to get back to focusing on the future.
My first acquisition is going through. I received the e-mail last week saying that the owner wants to move ahead. What started out as a company acquisition has been watered down to buying a customer base of 15 companies and a future income stream. It’s hardly buying Cadbury’s but at least it is a start. I have done the legal’s myself, a simple one page document. There is no need for War and Peace when buying a few customers. In fact the deal is so small, we have agreed for none of the normal publicity.
Just as I am about to leave, I get another call from the other company I am looking to buy. Great news, they are looking to get the information over to me in the next few days. Again, it’s small but will give us 300 new customers to go after.
Tonight I must nail down my two 100 day plans. It was the first thing on my agenda today and the most important. However, not the most urgent!
Have just returned from a week away skiing with family and friends. With “blog” technology, it is very easy to write the blog and publish it in the future – a very useful tool for those holiday periods.
Now I would like to report that my time was spent dreaming up ideas, calling the office every five minutes, speaking to customers whilst drinking a vin chaud. That would be grossly untrue. Likewise, all these new acquaintances would have been tapped up for some business. Again, that just did not happen. In fact, of all the people we met, nobody went into any detail about their working life.
Whilst sipping my vin chaud, I did get a few minutes to reflect on the previous 100 days and on Saturday, I did celebrate even though the event was a low key affair. Most importantly, I have come back to the UK with the desire to write two 100 day plans – a separate personal and business plan. There are many things I wish to accomplish outside of business, but little time has been dedicated to this in 2010. My 100 day personal plan will change this.
