Every day this week there has been some reason or another why I have to leave early. Today I have to pick the kids up at 4:00pm to go away for the weekend. I explain to our temp that this is unusual and that I would normally be the first to arrive and last to leave.
All business owners who want to drive their company forward will put the hours in. Sometimes, circumstances will be that the foot has to come of the gas.
You could not ask for a better setting to invite people to a lunch. After driving up a one mile private driveway, there is a person there to open your car door and park the car for you.
We wander through a large reception area of a stately home to our own private room. Waiters serve canapés and wine whilst we look out onto acres of manicured lawns.
We have a diverse group of six customers in terms of business interest and ethnic origin. We all mingle well, chat about business, politics and our excellent location.
When the recession hit, these networking lunches were the first thing to get cancelled. They are expensive, time consuming and I think worst of all, send out the wrong message when times are tough.
I feel the time is right to invest in networking with our customers on a one to one level. This event may be expensive, but ultimately I believe worthwhile.
Deborah Meaden in her book “Common Sense Rules” talks of business clichés she could live without. (A fantastic read, a book I will review later.) The essence here is a lot of business clichés are rubbish (a lunch is for wimps v spending time out with employees or important customers over lunch is a good use of time.)
A healthy body means a healthy mind is one such cliché that is branded about in the business world. Many of us make feeble attempts, normally on the 1st January, to get fit and lead a healthier lifestyle. On speaking to a personal trainer at David Lloyd when I was a member, the average person lasts to the 16th January before they give up.
Today, I start my daily routine by standing on the scales and the needle is now between 1 and 3 of 13 stone. In 40 days since I started my 100 day personal plan, I have bunt my way through 49,000 calories and lost 14lbs.
I look different and feel more alert. A 6.5 mile run is now becoming common place and I am taking note of what I eat. The only problem is I am becoming anal about calories. For example, an Activia yogurt is 123 calories which takes just under ten minutes of running at 6mph to burn off.
The next 60 days will be significantly harder to lose a further 7lbs. The target and timescale is set, the journey continues.
Who out there has a database just on their competition?
I have never done this before. Presently I have this information but in a variety of places. Outlook, Excel spreadsheets and manual files. On the basis that I am spending some of my time speaking to these people, it is now time to consolidate this information into one place, to correctly track and record notes.
A little job for one of my colleagues.
I review my diary for the next two weeks.
So what else is there to do?
We have struggled getting people together for a lunch – even when we are paying and the location is Cliveden!
If we are to build a great business, we need to do more. We need to be able to look back on Bank Holiday Monday, 31st May and highlight something we have done (this month)that will really make a difference. I want to look back in 2 ½ years and say “remember May 2010, that was the month when we did…”
Our www.rewardsuccess.co.uk business has gone live, www.meetingbooks.co.uk will go live next week and we are a long way down the path to getting our mentoring business up and running, be it we have delayed the launch date to 1st July.
I am disappointed to report we have not made any sales at reward success. The site has only been live a few weeks and we have just used LinkedIn and some e-mails out to our Who’s Who customer base to market the business. I, we, were hoping to have cracked open the champagne to celebrate that first customer before today.
I feel we have to invest in sales people to get the word out, to build the customer base. It is a dilemma for all companies in the early months of any new business.
Recruiting new staff is not in my 100 day plan, I know we must build up some sales, test our systems and procedures. I can visualize the team, the sales coming in, the business being a success. I have to stick to the original plan and be patient.
You just drift back into the day to day running of a business. We all know the cliché, working in the business, not working on it.
I review recent activity and be it we are achieving our strategic objectives; I can’t help but feel my time is being utilized in the business. Days seem to come and go and I ask myself “how much closer are we to our three year goal?”
Most business owners in the UK work in the business. Few have the vision to step back and work on it. We, probably like most other companies have resources to hand – office space, desks, telephones, spare computers, customer databases, the list goes on.
I want to build our team, to bring a sales spirit back into the business. I want to start filling up our sales boards and wall planners with customer meeting and new sales, to make the business vibrant. Internet sales may be the way forward, but this can ultimately only be one part of our sales strategy.
It’s time to sit down, relax, close my eyes and visualize what the office will look like, what it will sound like, to hear the shouts and laughter of success.
Visualize it, document it then do it!
I spent some time last night and today forward projecting our cash flow. I have reviewed the sales ledger and all outstanding prospects. Most of the prospects I could count as sales now. The deals have been completed, we are just waiting to raise invoices and receive the cash.
The outlook for May/June is good. Forward projecting to July onwards and it gets better. The challenge is today, next week and later this month.
The reason why I note this is because cash collection and cash management is a time consuming process for any leadership team. It doesn’t just sap your time; it depletes you of energy and enthusiasm. Your focus is on today, fighting fires, running the business and in some cases survival.
Juggling cash flow, robbing Peter to pay Paul, driving to the bank to pay in cheques, calling debtors to check they have received our invoices, does not allow you to focus on strategy and sales. Cash management is a task that in a well run and well funded company can be easily delegated. In today’s economy, I fear this task is being undertaken by more senior members of the team.
A friend of mine who worked for a company with 5,000 employees told me how they were having 7:30am conference calls every week with the sole agenda on cash collection. These really are unusual times…
In 2011 my auditor and I will sit down and celebrate a 20 year business partnership. He has completed our tax returns, provided advice and signed off our various audits.
I seem to collect companies and the process of annual returns, tax returns and preparing final accounts can be arduous.
I have three companies that are dormant, one of which has trading losses in and a cross company debt to another one of my companies. We have already been able to take the tax losses so there is no point trading in this company until we have a nil balance sheet. Sometime, either now or in the future, I will have to take a £27,000 hit (i.e. writing off an intercompany loan) to my main trading company. I decide to do it now:
The other company to strike off is a £2.00 share capital dormant company. I have always said that all business people should have a few spare dormant companies in reserve to be used for any new projects. Whilst this is a good idea (you in effect can start trading quickly in a company with an old company registration number), I would not suggest keeping many.
Started today with a 6.5 mile run. I know the length as I drove the course around Beaconsfield the other day. At 5.5 miles, just about as I was ready to collapse, I thought to myself when was the last time I actually ran this far? It must have been over 20 years ago that I covered this distance.
There is a strong correlation between good health and good business. 32 days into my 100 day personal plan, I have lost ¾ stone and have gone from a ten minute jog to a one hour run. I respect that results will not be as impressive over the next 30 days and patience is needed to achieve my 100 day personal objective.
Regardless, as at today, the physically and mental results are clear to see. I see the benefit in the mirror and in the business.
