To be honest my internal dialogue has been in over drive on this subject peppered with frustration laced pronouncements such as:

• Yet another piece of overbearing bureaucracy from non-elected mandarins in Brussels who do not have a clue about real world business!
• I’ve got enough on my plate in helping to grow the business to spend time on this!
• I thought the Government campaigned on reducing red tape for businesses not increase it?
• Oh so much jargon: Data Protection Officer, Data Controller, Data Processor, ICO, NDAs, Systems Audits, The 6 Tests, Legitimate Interest, Clean Desk Policy, IT Security, Privacy Policies, Cookies, the Balance Test, 4% of Global Turnover, Consent…but I doubt that this new found knowledge would impress Jeremy Clarkson in his recreation of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”.
• Why do we even need these rules in the first place, doesn’t everyone respect the personal data they have? It’s basic business ethics isn’t it? Surely everyone does the right thing when it comes to their customers’ and prospects’ data?

…Or do they?

And then there is the other voice, you know the one, the one of calm, professional reason “the only reasons the legislation is in place is to protect people like you and me from the questionable actions of some who don’t respect the privacy of data and help protect us against those intent on stealing data for criminal gain.”

Looking at GDPR from this alternate paradigm has helped me to entertain the alternative view that doing what is necessary to achieve compliance has helped us become more effective and secure in doing the right thing in terms of the data we hold.  After all, we would want the same of those who hold personal data on us such as Google, Facebook, ISPs, mobile phone carriers, and big retailers etc.

If you would like to receive my blogs directly to your inbox, click here.

The post GDPR: Unnecessary European Bureaucracy Or Doing The Right Thing? appeared first on GavinPreston.

After a couple of days, I observed the manager at the ‘morning’ bar directing his staff to move us inside to the back corner and away from tables with the best view.  Then throughout that morning the service I received was less friendly to the point that I started to feel less than welcome.

In contrast, the guy serving us down at the other restaurant was very happy and friendly, grabbed the high chair whenever he saw my wife arrive and delivered friendly service throughout the afternoon.  On the same day that I had received a less than warm welcome at the ‘morning bar’ the waiter at the other place turned to look me straight in the eye when I paid the bill, and said smiling “we will see you tomorrow won’t we?” A small and yet genuine gesture in stark contrast to his peers a few hundred yards away and one which secured our business morning and afternoon for the rest of the week.  We had spent approximately the same amount of money with him as we had in the top bar in the morning but he secured all of our business for the rest of the week and the other bar encouraged us to leave.

Of course, I understand that some tables are ‘prime real estate’ in restaurants/bars, particularly those with the best view, and any bar/restaurant manager would want to maximise occupancy with a high turnover of big spending groups. But during the morning the bar was all but empty and I had left before the lunch time rush so his presumed reasoning of freeing up premium tables to higher paying groups was not found to be true.

For me, the business phrase that came to mind was ‘life time customer value’.  The guy in the ‘afternoon’ restaurant made us feel very welcome, made a point of letting us know how welcome we were and over the week secured more business from us than the short-term view of the other bar manager moving us from seats surrounded by many other prime seats that were empty.

It is often the little things that make such an impact and get the customer coming back. A few years ago I did some work with a sizeable Ford dealership group, owned by Ford GB.  I remember a story of a dealership that used to give a type of cuddly bear with every car purchased.  One year the dealership had run out of bears and a disappointed customer wanted to know when she would get her bear as she had been back 7 times over the years to buy a new car from them and had got quite fond of her bear collection.  Pay attention to the little things that make the customer experience remarkable.

More and more in business I am hearing the language of ‘partnership’ whether that be our customers looking for suppliers they can partner with over time or suppliers looking to achieve the same quality of relationship with us.  There is a genuine desire to build strong mutually beneficial relationships that deliver value and last.

Always look to build the relationship. Encourage your team to do the same.  Bring your best to those business relationships and you will maximise the value to both sides over time…and of course will be getting people saying positive things about you.

Needless to say when we go back to the same resort next year we will be frequenting the lower restaurant/bar….life time customer value.

The post The tale of two bars at 1850m. A reminder about maximising long term value. appeared first on GavinPreston.

Being required to sit down and right this 2/3rds of a page statement with a colleague made me realise the progress we are making.  In an environment where we are pushing hard for growth and there is a heck of a lot going on it is often difficult to get a sense of whether we are making progress or not.
Writing this statement was a brilliant acknowledgement of the progress we are making.

I encourage you to sit down and write a one pager reviewing the progress you have made in your business in 2017 and what you have put in place to pave the way for success and growth in 2018.

To hear more about this insight, click here to watch this short video.

The post How an Accounting Standard can make you feel good about what you have achieved in 2017 appeared first on GavinPreston.

Santa needs all of his reindeer to be pulling in the same direction in order to meet his short delivery window.  Are the members of your senior team working together and all pulling towards the business’ goals?

Take a peek into most businesses and you will see people busy getting on with their own jobs.  Appropriately, they are focused on achieving their own targets.  So far so good.  But what happens when individual or departmental focus is blinkered to what else is going on in the business, blindsided to the interdependencies or potential synergies across the whole business?

Departmental focus and communication is drawn inwards at the expense of cross company communication and working.  When people are working hard to achieve their own targets/agendas, tensions can arise across the business such as the common tension between sales and production.

Whenever new people join a business/team it changes the team dynamic.

You may have heard of the stages of the development of a team: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing (Tuckman). When a team comes together initially, or new people are added to the team, everyone is typically polite as they meet and start to get to know each other. They tentatively start working out what part/role each person will play in the team. This is called the ‘Forming’ phase.

Over time tensions can emerge. Individuals will become increasingly vocal with their opinions, preferences, suggestions on how things should be done.  There is posturing for position.  Debates can get a little uncomfortable, if not heated at time.  This is known as the ‘Storming’ phase.  When you push the team hard, for example due to the pace of growth of the business, that team will go into the Storming phase sooner.  Whilst it can feel uncomfortable it is an important stage to go through.

If the candid conversations that need to happen at this stage are avoided then that will lead to separate factions pulling in their own direction and people apparently agreeing on the course of action at a team meeting but then go off and do their own things outside of the meeting.

The goal is to create the safe space for open, honest and candid conversation on key issues so that they can be sorted out and a way forward agreed.  Often during the storming phase there can be the misconception of personality clashes when in fact tensions are usually down to one team member misunderstanding where another is coming from.   Open and honest discussions can surface these issues and lead to team members realising that they are in fact trying to achieve the same objective but going about it in different ways.

When you see some tensions between key members of your team that is an indication that some storming might be taking place.  The best thing you can do is to book some time off site for the team and discuss the key issues the business/team is grappling with, including team members sharing their frustrations about what is holding them back and with each other.

An experienced and competent facilitator is key for the success of this process to ensure frustrations are channelled into insightful conversation, new understandings and agreement on the way forward.  I have had the privilege of navigating many such conversations with clients and whilst not every moment of the process is comfortable, the results can be powerful and very positive for the business.   This paves the way for the next two stages of the development of a team: Norming and then Performing.

If you see some tensions emerging between members of your team, see it as positive progression in the development of your team.  Create the time and opportunity for frank conversations to deepen understanding of others’ perspective and agree a way forward.

For more on Tuckman’s stages of Team Development click here.

The post Are all of your reindeer pulling in the same direction? appeared first on GavinPreston.

One of the problems with doing the same things every day, following the same routine is that we stop noticing things. We get habituated to our surroundings.  Indeed, as human beings we are evolutionary conditioned to notice movement or change but not that which is barely moving or still…..still the same.  We can often miss when things in our business get dated and are not as innovative and fresh as they need to be.

You are no doubt several years into your business journey. Your logo and business branding was probably done a number of years ago, indeed your website is probably several years old.

Get a picture in your mind of where you wish to take your business?  Where do you want your business to be in terms of turnover and profitability in three years time?  In five years time?

Now look at your current business branding: logo, company brochure, website, social media pages, even your business cards and letterheads. Is your current brand image going to be credible when you are operating at the size of business you are targeting five years hence?  In many cases, I would suggest the answer is No.

I have worked with three different clients recently on businesses ranging from a few hundred thousand turnover to more than £10 million turnover.  Once understanding the aspirations of the companies, I have looked at their branding and there was a mismatch between their current branding and where they wanted to take their business.

Of course, we know we get judged on how we look. The same applies to our business.  How your business looks: logo, brochures. website, social media sites, staff clothing, your office, the cleanliness of your vehicles it all paints a picture (often subconsciously) in the mind of your customer / potential customer.

Take a look at Eddie Stobart trucks.  The trucks are always clean and the drivers smartly dressed.  What do you automatically surmise about that business? “If they take as much care with the goods they are transporting as they do the appearance of the trucks and drivers then they are a company I can trust to deliver my products”.

Often businesses start off with a logo designed by themselves or by a graphic designer they could afford.  Now 5 or 10 years further on your budget is bigger and design trends have changed.  Now may be the time for you to invest in a new look for your business.  This is all the more pertinent if you are a high growth company looking to punch above your weight.  To get a ticket to the game you need to be credible at first glance. Do you look the part? If you don’t, no matter the calibre of your product and service you will not get the chance to demonstrate your prowess.

Take a good look at your brand and the visual impact your business has on the market place.  Let’s say you want to go from £10m to £50m in 5 years, do you have a £50m brand? If not, sort it out.  Work with a good designer of the calibre fitting of where you want to get to.  If you are a business with more than a £1m turnover and have high growth aspirations then work with a graphic design firm that can justify a fee of £5,000 – £7,000.  Work with them on your new logo / brand identity and apply that across your website, company presentations and brochure, vehicles, uniforms / work wear, business cards, videos, social media sites.

You will get a return on your investment.

Here’s to you, good looking!

The post Do you look the part? appeared first on GavinPreston.

We say we want something. We dream. We set goals.  But how often do we do what is necessary to achieve those goals?

I was reminded of this, this week.  We have been emailing some of the people on my list, as part of our preparation for the GDPR legislation that kick in next May, who haven’t engaged with my blog over the last four months to see if they wish to carry on receiving my blogs or not.

I have had a couple of people who have said: ‘I haven’t got time to read your emails, I seem to remember that you laid out a strategy for that in a previous email a while back but I guess we didn’t change’.

Following a strategic planning session some clients are voracious action takers. They increase their activity levels and action levels. More and more things improve in their business, everybody’s pace picks up, all adding up to game changing progress and results.

Others, open the Strategy Action Plan, read it in between the same old busyness, start to implement but quickly get distracted and do not follow through.  Suddenly they realise a year later that they are in the same place as they were 12 months ago.

Don’t fear failure….fear being in the exact same place next year as you are today.

In order to break out of doing the same things and getting the same results, you have to break out of your old habits.

You probably know the process:

1. Get enough reasons why.  What will it cost you if you don’t do anything different? What will you get/could you get if you change your habits and start taking action and implementing voraciously? Do not tolerate standing still. Be acutely aware of the days, weeks and months ticking away and get moving.
2. Set very clear goals and visualise them regularly.
3. Build a team of A grade players and spur each other on to higher levels of focused effort.
4. Take action each day/week towards your goals.
5. Celebrate the wins.

Knowing is one thing, doing is another. Catching yourself in the moment of (unconscious) decision as you are about to hurtle off down the circular path of your old behaviour is harder still.

I was having a chat with a friend this week about this challenge, in the context of cleaner eating after getting into a naughty-but-nice holiday pattern of good food and good wine.  This prompted her to tell me that at the point of going for the high carb or sweet tooth option she trained herself to ask herself: “Does it taste as good as skinny feels?”.

I love that! Catch yourself in the moment:

“Does it taste as good as skinny/healthy feels?”

“Will this distraction feel as good as the fulfilment of a life-long goal?”

“Will being right feel as good as nurturing a strong happy relationship?”

What is your equivalent question that will stop you in your tracks for engaging in your old habits and prompt you to make better choices so that in one year’s time you are in a very different place than you are now?

Create your own phrases and post them in the comments below and be sure to use them regularly.

The post How Badly Do You Want It? appeared first on GavinPreston.

Whilst I love the promise of spring and the daylight and the, all too rare, good weather of the UK summer; there is something to look forward to between now and early December: increased activity and results in your business.

There are two times a year when the business world seems to go on pause: late July until the end of August and mid December until early January. During those periods people are on holiday, those that aren’t on holiday psychologically slow down.  Decisions are deferred until the appropriate stakeholders are back from holiday. UK plc productive output plummets.

Indeed a 2016 survey by small business procurement specialist Approved Index suggests that during the summer, companies could miss out on £8bn courtesy of a holiday season slowdown.  28% complained about the difficulty of doing business during the summer due to the lack of availability of suppliers and customers.

In my experience in my own business and that of my clients, people return from the summer and whilst the ad companies attempt to drag attention to Christmas, people in business are focused on what they can get done before the end of the year.

For many, the next 13 weeks will be the most productive in their business year; the defining months of the business year.

I have written before about the benefits of 12 week sales campaigns and the use of week 13th as a reward for smashing those targets.  Attention, activity and action is focused with an impressive impact on results.  I have also written about setting MTO goals (Minimum, Target and Outrageous goals) where the Minimum goal is what you would easily expect to achieve at your current run rate, the Target being your stretched goal and the Outrageous being a truly amazing and outrageous goal to achieve.

Using this very strategy of a 12 week sales campaign, with an impressive bonus for the sales team in week 13, I got a text this morning from one of my ‘Double Your Business’ clients announcing that they had smashed their Outrageous target with two weeks to spare!

What do most people do when they hit their target? They take their foot off the gas.  These guys won’t make that mistake.  They are making the last two weeks of their 12 week campaign really count so as to deliver an Olympic gold medal standard result.

What can you and your teams achieve in the next 12 -13 weeks?

Up your sales activity and deliver sales that will transform your 2017?

Develop a new key strategic relationship?

Launch in a new territory?

Deliver an innovative new marketing campaign?

Put the rising stars in your business on a development programme that will raise their game and lift the performance across the whole team?

Invest in Research & Development of a new/enhanced product (remember those attractive R&D tax credits)?

Make the next 13 weeks the defining weeks of the year.

Turn an average year into a good one or a good year into an extraordinary one.  Set you and your team MTO goals and put in place an impressive incentive if the Outrageous goal is exceeded.

Impressive results can be achieved in a short period of time when you rally the troops and point them all towards an engaging and compelling target.

Track progress on a graph for your MTO goals and put that on the wall to keep the progress front of mind to all.  I have seen this little strategy work wonders many times.  I wish the same for you for the next 13 weeks.

To help your teams to win the inner game and develop a killer strategy for the next 13 weeks I have some powerful resources for you.

I have two killer DVD training products ͞The Business Accelerator and The Strategy Compass which combined provide about 8 hours of first class content to equip the rising stars of your organisation to grow your business.

They normally sell for £97 and £197 + VAT respectively.

I ran a summer offer in August:  both for just £97 + VAT.  I know a lot of people were away whilst this offer was on judging by the number of out of office emails!

I would like to extend this offer until 30 September.

Click this link to find out more about how these two programmes can help the people in your business deliver the best 13 weeks of your year and give you a very strong RoI on these video trainings.

If you would like to receive my business growth strategies and tips direct to your inbox, please click here.

The post Fresh autumnal winds: time to get productive appeared first on GavinPreston.

One of my client’s offices is over three floors and the person that gets up and down the stairs fastest is the MD – and by a long shot.  All day he runs up and down the stairs. The pace of his legs going up and down the stairs is like a metronome of how quickly things get done in his business.

These two anecdotes are an indicator of the pace of thought and action of both of those business leaders and in turn the culture they create in their businesses.

A culture of pace.

As a result, those businesses get more done in less time and grow faster than their competitors.

At the other end of the spectrum, I watched a group of workmen earlier this year compete for the Guinness World Record for the slowest creation of a pelican crossing outside my son’s school. There were supervisors to supervise workmen who in turn were all standing around staring at the job and achieving very little.  It took them over two months to complete the job.  Progress from one week to the next was pedestrian (no pun intended).

Speaker and author T Harve Ecker frequently uses the maxim ‘how you do anything is how you do everything’.

As I work with businesses to help accelerate growth I am on the lookout for the clues in a business that are indicative of the pace of that business.

Think about your own business.  How quickly do you and your managers go from decision to action?  How quick and efficient are your meetings? How quickly do you expect or tolerate things to be implemented?

To increase the pace of your business, shorten your meetings, raise your expectations of your team’s ability to get things done quickly and reward the behaviour you are looking for.  I am making the assumption here that results can be achieved more quickly without compromising quality.

Of course, there are limits to this, but, everyone could work at least 10% faster without a loss in quality.

In order for your managers and future leaders to think and act quickly, first they need to know what they are doing. I have two stalwart DVD training products “The Business Accelerator” and “The Strategy Compass” which combined provide about 8 hours of first class content to equip the rising stars of your organisation to grow your business.  They normally sell for £97 and £197 +VAT respectively but I am running a summer offer until 1st September:

Both for just £97 +VAT. 

Click this link to find out more about how these two programmes can help the people in your business deliver an even better return for you in less time.

The post How fast do you pee? appeared first on GavinPreston.

It never rains it….

Pigs don’t ….

An apple a day keeps…

I don’t even need to finish the sentence because you know the next words without even thinking.  They trot off our tongue so automatically that we never question them.

The same is true for sayings in business:

Cash is King.

Turnover is Vanity, Profit is Sanity.

When we trot phrases off automatically, we tend to treat them as a statement of fact without a further thought. Thinking stops there.

Where am I going with this?

Many small business owners monitor the financial health by the amount of cash in the bank.  Thinking stops there.  When ‘cash in bank’ runs low it triggers a spurt of action to make more sales or bring in monies owed. Other aspects of the financial health are not examined due to the busyness of day to day operations.

Some businesses progress to forecasting and managing cash flow.  After all cash is king!

Others progress one step further and manage their P&L. They actively monitor product pricing, margins and cost base following the maxim ‘look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’.  Sometimes the driver of this profit focus is to maximise the amount of money the owner can take out of the business. Thinking stops there.  Arguably, there is nothing wrong with this.  In fact, there is a lot to be said for a lifestyle business.

Some want more than consistency of short to medium term income streams.  They want to build a business they can sell or one that will afford a management team which can run it for them to provide a certain strong income stream. Maybe they want to scale a business so that it can leave a legacy.  Such business owners, whilst they acknowledge cash is king and profit is indeed sanity, are focused on balance sheet thinking rather than P&L thinking.

The phrase running around in their heads is ‘Build the Balance Sheet’ or ‘Income follows Assets’. The thinking here is to watch the pounds so that the pounds can be invested back in the business for future growth, specifically invested into assets that can yield returns year after year.  The Business Dictionary defines an asset as ‘something valuable that an entity owns, benefits from, or has use of, in generating income”. Income follows assets.

Retaining profits builds cash balances or enables investment in income generating assets or R&D (don’t forget the attractive R&D tax credits) or paying down debt.  A stronger balance sheet will reduce your credit rating and in so doing open doors to new opportunities, enable you to be seriously considered for contracts/work that you wouldn’t otherwise have been considered for and provide security to finance the next phase of growth.

Investing in your people and culture to create an environment of performance will yield a strong return over time.

For some, maybe it is time to move from Cash is King to thinking about Income follows Assets.

The golden goose could trump the King (of cash).  A flock of golden geese will ensure that the king has a long and lucrative reign.

To stimulate the thinking of the future leaders of your business.  I have two stalwart DVD training products “The Business Accelerator” and “The Strategy Compass” which combined provide about 8 hours of first class content to equip the rising stars of your organisation to grow your business.  They normally sell for £97 and £197 + VAT respectively but I am running a summer offer until 1st September.  Both for just £97 + VAT.

Click this link to find out more about how these two programmes can help the people in your business deliver an even better return for you.

The post The King and The Golden Goose appeared first on GavinPreston.

Last week I was chatting to the CEO and MD of a high growth business trading internationally.  They started off sharing the story of how the founder and former MD of the business decided that he needed to hire himself an MD to run day to day operations of the business so he could focus on the bigger picture. The founder, now the CEO, shared how when he was in the nitty gritty day-to-day running of the business that he got gradually more and more stressed, put weight on and over time lost the passion for his business.  He seriously thought about selling the business because he was so fed up with it.

He made the decision to find someone better than him to be the MD which gave him the time and space to look after his health, to think and to build some key strategic relationships and make some key strategic moves.  He shared with me that he is now in significant better shape (he bore little resemblance to the old passport photograph on his security pass), his health and energy levels were on a different level, he was less stressed and was enjoying the business once more.  The growth of his business had accelerated since he appointed a very capable and talented MD and he had time to think and, as he admitted, not work as hard.

The new MD then shared their philosophy about recruiting talent to their business: “Hire the best people you can afford and then when you can afford more, hire the best people you can afford”.

I have seen on numerous occasions, in businesses large and small, the turnaround effect of replacing ‘D Grade’ players with ‘A Grade’ players.  Where underperforming members of the team are replaced by high calibre, first class individuals, who raise the bar for all people in the team and create a goal focused buzz that turns around performance.

I have also seen employers, with a keen eye on their cost base, spending the least they could get away with in salary, tools/equipment to do the job and the below par working conditions only to complain about the ‘monkeys’ that work for them.

Hire the best people you can afford and when you can afford more hire the best people you can afford.

The people that work in your business, along with the systems you set up, are more than just ‘assets’ as the corporate glossy brochure often says.  They leverage the product or service of your business.  Yes, they could make you look good, but the really good ones, provide you with an impressive ROI as they help scale your business, giving you time to play the bigger strategic game.

Not only do you need to hire the best people you can afford, you also need to provide them with the right development to equip them to play at the right level.

I have two stalwart DVD training products: “The Business Accelerator” and “The Strategy Compass” which combined provide about 8 hours of first class content to equip the rising stars of your organisation to grow your business.  They normally sell for £97 and £197 + VAT respectively but I am running a summer offer until 1 September.  Both for just £97 + VAT.

Click this link to find out more about how these two programmes can help the people in your business deliver an even better return for you.

The post Hire the best people you can afford appeared first on GavinPreston.