Author: admin

I like to keep things simple. Maybe because I’m a simple soul at heart. Life seems hard enough already, with bills to pay and children to organise and food to be cooked and all the other things we have to pay attention too.

Business can seem complex and daunting, more so if we’re setting out on a new venture and have a long list of items to tick off. We can get a bit lost in the details and can lose sight of what business really is and what makes us successful in our work.

In my experience the most successful businesses have a clear sense of purpose. The owner knows what they are selling and who their customers are. They know what makes them different and special, compared to the competiton, and they keep that firmly in sight at all times.

The more simple we keep things the easier it is for our customers to buy into us, because they have busy lives too and are not interested in complicated sales pitches. They have a pain point that they would like to fix, so they can get on with their business.

Keeping things simple means that we need 3 key documents in our business, that work to keep us on track:

1. A cashflow forecast. Cash is king and without it we will go bust. It’s that simple, so we need to know the ebb and flow of cash into our business.

2. A marketing plan. We need to identify our unique selling points, what our message is to the world and how we are going to get our message out. If we don’t know what makes us special and different then how can we expect others to know that too? Differences count because we can leverage them when people are making purchase decisions.

3. A sales activity log. We need to keep track of all the enquiries and purchase patterns we have in our business, so that we can be proactive and chase up new orders. If we can see what’s happening we can do something about it.

Now, I have to hold up my hand and admit that several years ago I had the first two documents and lacked a sales activity log. What I had was a bunch of Post-it notes and scraps of paper on my desk. A sort of sales activity pile, if you like.

I was noting possible enquiries and projects, but in pile form I could do nothing with them. They were just a pile and too easy to ignore, with me saying often ‘hmmm I need to sort that, I will do that tomorrow.’

I’m great at procrastination and would probably have got an A* in my Procrastination GCSE, had there been one all those years ago.

Then one day a friend said he had some spare time and was looking for a business project and I knew how we could both get a win-win out of it. I threw all my bits of paper into a large envelope, posted it to him and asked him to create a sales activity log for me.

That was one of my smartest moves in 15 years of business. He created a simple spreadsheet and suddenly I could see what was happening in my business. Customers were chased up, quotes were written and my simple sales process started to deliver results.

I’ve had a sales activity log ever since and now get my PA to organise it and nudge me when it’s time to make a call and follow someone up.

I’m a great business coach and love my work and also give myself permission to learn too. We don’t have to know all the answers all the time and yet we can make sure we have our 3 key documents in our business.

So, this week take a fresh look at your sales activity log. Even if all you have is a sheet of paper pinned to a notice board that’s good enough. Anything is better than nothing and you’d be surprised how many businesses have nothing!

Next week: Putting In The Miles

I like autobiographies. It’s reassuring to know that people have grafted and paid their dues on the way up to success. They’ve learned their craft and made mistakes along the way …same as we all have. No one has an easy ride in life and it’s the same with business.

We see a successful business and it’s tempting to think we can emulate them and yet we don’t see their struggles. Raising finance, launching products and finding customers all happened before they were successful.

We don’t see the long hours, the setbacks and the doubts that they endured along the way.

Sir Michael Caine is a great actor and a good teacher. We can learn from him and I’ve been listening to his most recent autobiography, called ‘Blowing the bloody doors off’ …which of course is a reference to his famous line in The Italian Job.

His determination to succeed is remarkable and what impressed me is his clear sighted view to be professional.

This might sound obvious, but so many people fail to deliver when it counts and he has made a career out of turning up on time, knowing his lines and being nice to people.

Knowing he wasn’t the best actor, when he started out, he focussed on being the most reliable actor. So much so, that several directors would call on him to replace more fickle actors.

He had a clear sense of what people wanted and he delivered. No fuss, no drama, just honest and reliable delivery.

He also has a great phrase ‘use the difficulty’ to keep himself grounded and motivated.

Maybe the film shoot wasn’t going well, in which case he would enjoy the location, or get to know his co-stars and crew.

When he realised that he was told old to play the leading man and get the girl, he used the difficulty and reinvented himself as a character actor.

This is the man, a double Oscar winner and knighted, who had one line to say in his first film and who was so nervous that he forgot it.

He had to start at the bottom and work his way up, and keep going even when a famous director gave him a piece of advice – ‘quit, you’ll never make it.’

His belief in himself and his clear sighted unique selling point, to be reliable, enabled him to keep going long after other actors had stopped being offered parts.

A producer friend of mine told me once that all actors are the same …you can guarantee that they’re unreliable. So being reliable marks you out as someone who is easy to do business with.

This week we can ask ourselves…

1. How reliable are we in our business? Do we really deliver what the customer wants, on time and to the right standard?

2. If we have a difficulty, how can we use it to our advantage? Maybe we need to visit a difficult customer, so how can we find a positive in this and turn it to our advantage?

Ten years ago we had a recession and coaching work was thin on the ground for me. Well, it was locally, so I added Skype Coaching to my activities and then had the whole world to market myself to and picked up new clients in five different countries. I used the difficulty and turned it to my advantage.

By the way, Skype Coaching is just as good as face to face and it cuts down on travel time and costs. If you’d like to experience it then please say hello.

And if you want to learn about how to become a successful actor (or business person) then seek out Michael Caine’s book.

As we say in radio, other books are available …but there’s only one Michael Caine!

Next week: The Sales Activity Log