Why your business needs Key Performance Indicators
A Key Performance Indicator, or KPI, as it is commonly referred to, is a measurement that helps gauge the success of a business, department, or team. By tracking the outcomes that are being achieved, a company gets insight into what is and what is not working.
A Key Performance Indicator, or KPI, as it is commonly referred to, is a measurement that helps gauge the success of a business, department, or team. By tracking the outcomes that are being achieved, a company gets insight into what is and what is not working.
KPIs are Metrics, Not Goals
KPIs are not goals in themselves. Instead, KPIs are the metrics being captured and analyzed. They serve as indicators of the health of the business. That said, most businesses will set targets or goals for each KPI to help assess if success is being achieved.
KPIs are Targeted
A KPI is not comprehensive of every aspect of a team or department’s work; by design it is targeted, looking at a specific aspect of the work. The focused nature of a KPI makes it a good proxy for how the business or department is doing overall.
A KPI is similar to taking a patient’s temperature at a doctor’s visit. This routine practice takes only a few seconds but gives the medical staff significant insight into the overall health of the patient. The temperature doesn’t tell the whole story, but it is a good initial indicator of basic health.
KPIs are Practical
In the same way that taking a person’s temperature is routine and simple to do, KPI measurements should also be practical and not overly burdensome. The purpose of tracking KPIs is to use the information; in order for the data to be useful it must be straightforward. Otherwise, the work involved with gathering the data overshadows the benefits, and routine review of the numbers won’t happen. Regular review is critical to shedding light on what is or is not working—providing insights that inform decision making.
The Importance of KPIs
KPIs influence behavior and performance throughout the organization, as people tend to perform based on how they are measured. For this reason, it’s important to be thoughtful about what information is tracked.
For example, if you are measuring the number of widgets made on a production line, it may be better to create a KPI at the team or shift level instead of at the individual level. This places the focus on the team’s performance and encourages everyone to work together to achieve the best results. If each individual’s performance is the focus, employees will be motivated to earn high personal numbers, regardless of how the team performed in total. Such a KPI may also fail to promote the quality of the widget, as the focus is on the quantity with no consideration for quality.
Another example of a KPI having unintended consequences is tracking work attendance. If you create a KPI that tracks who or which team misses the fewest days, you will be subtly incentivizing employees to come to work even when they are sick.
A final example is an auto dealer that motivates its sales staff through a KPI that tracks profit-per-vehicle sold, which may unknowingly encourage behavior that puts short-term profit over long-term customer satisfaction.
People will focus on what you measure, in both good and bad ways. It’s important to remember this when selecting KPIs for your organization.
The concepts from this article were taken from Key Performance Indicators: Measuring and evaluating work outcomes. Available through The ReWild Group and Amazon, the book explores in-depth this and other concepts while providing illustrations to help business leaders incorporate the ideas into their organizations. Get your copy today to start benefiting from Key Performance Indicators in your company.
What is business development?
Although a commonly used term, business development can be defined and understood in different ways. In fact, the terms business development, marketing, and sales are often used interchangeably, making the delineation between these functions blurry.
Although a commonly used term, business development can be defined and understood in different ways. In fact, the terms business development, marketing, and sales are often used interchangeably, making the delineation between these functions blurry.
Language is a powerful change agent; that’s why it’s important to begin by clarifying the terms used to communicate about this critical business function. Common language builds cohesion, increases clarity, and provides greater focus within a business development team. Imprecise language contributes to confusion and lack of success.
Defining Business Development
Business development encompasses all the activities that generate, sustain, and grow revenue. Within business development, there are marketing, sales, and customer service. Revenue is the thread that ties these pieces together.
Think of business development as an umbrella under which the marketing, sales, and customer service functions reside. Each area has a different purpose regarding revenue.
Marketing generates leads. Marketing communicates with the prospective market and works to turn them into qualified leads.
Sales turns leads into revenue. Sales starts where marketing ends. It takes the leads generated by marketing through a consistent process and converts them into revenue.
Customer service keeps the revenue coming. It works to keep customers happy after the initial purchase and nurtures existing customers to generate future revenue.
Marketing generates leads. Sales turns leads into revenue. Customer service keeps the revenue coming. These definitions are simple but powerful when adopted by the entire organization. Once implemented, they lay the foundation for the ongoing success of a business.
Customers typically move through the three functions of business development in a linear fashion. For example, marketing interacts with the marketplace and generates a qualified lead. Sales then takes over and converts that lead into revenue. Finally, customer service ensures that the customer remains loyal, which keeps revenue coming.
When everyone in business development understands this flow and their role in the process, the resulting clarity provides cohesion for the entire department. Team members know when their part of the process begins, when it ends, and the purpose behind each step.
The concepts from this article were taken from Business Development Structure: Generating and growing consistent revenue through structure. Available through The ReWild Group and Amazon, the book explores in-depth this and other concepts while providing illustrations to help business leaders incorporate the ideas into their organizations. Get your copy today to start benefiting from Business Development Structure in your company.
Four reasons your business needs Core Values
In our last article, we defined Brand Values and explained the benefits that they bring to a business. Today we’re going to look at Core Values.
Core Values are three to six words or short phrases that paint a picture of how the team is to interact with each other. As a promise to the team, Core Values are the basis upon which members of a company plan, make decisions, and interact with each other.
But why does your business need them?
In our last article, we defined Brand Values and explained the benefits that they bring to a business. Today we’re going to look at Core Values.
Core Values are three to six words or short phrases that paint a picture of how the team is to interact with each other. As a promise to the team, Core Values are the basis upon which members of a company plan, make decisions, and interact with each other.
But why does your business need them?
When an organization adopts strong Core Values, it benefits from four tangible improvements.
First, Core Values provide a cultural foundation by setting clear expectations. They provide a basis upon which employees model their behavior and interactions with one another.
Second, Core Values improve morale and can be a rich source of individual and organizational pride. The values provide healthy boundaries that encourage the best from the team.
Third, Core Values guide decision-making by determining priorities in advance. When the organization clarifies what is important through Core Values, employees can autonomously make decisions that are in line with the organization’s priorities.
Finally, Core Values help companies attract and retain the right type of employees. When an organization lives by its Core Values, individuals that hold similar values are attracted to the organization. They may choose to stay with that company, even if they have other opportunities, because their personal values align.
In summary, Core Values have the power to unite a diverse group of people—people from all walks of life, backgrounds, and skill sets—in the pursuit of a thriving workplace. The impact is an organization that experiences less turnover, greater team cohesion, and more consistent decision making.
The concepts from this article were taken from Brand & Core Values: Keeping promises to the market and the team. Available through The ReWild Group and Amazon, the book explores in-depth this and other concepts while providing illustrations to help business leaders incorporate the ideas into their organizations. Get your copy today, and don’t forget to download the free workbook that serves as a companion guide to the book.
Three reasons your business needs Brand Values
Brand Values are three to six words or short phrases that paint a picture of what a business sees as the ideal customer experience. They serve as a promise to the market—not only what the company strives to be in theory but considers on a practical level when making day-to-day decisions about priorities and initiatives.
But why does your business need them?
Brand Values are three to six words or short phrases that paint a picture of what a business sees as the ideal customer experience. They serve as a promise to the market—not only what the company strives to be in theory but considers on a practical level when making day-to-day decisions about priorities and initiatives.
But why does your business need them?
Clear Brand Values bring more to an organization than simply inspirational words to hang on the wall; they bring three tangible benefits.
First, they differentiate the brand from the competition, making it stand out in the marketplace. Companies without clear Brand Values tend to blend in with the competition. Without a strong brand identity that fosters loyalty, companies are left to compete primarily on price.
Second, they enable a consistent experience for customers. Brand Values provide every employee a picture of how to interact with and serve the company’s customers. Instead of employees having their own view of what the customer experience should look like, the values provide a guide so that there is less variance in what customers experience when interacting with the company.
Third, they serve as a magnet that attracts the right type of customers, vendors, and employee candidates. When the marketplace knows what your business stands for, people who respect those values will be drawn to the company.
In summary, Brand Values serve to distinguish a company in the marketplace, provide a consistent customer experience, and attract people with similar values. The impact is an organization that has a strong, consistent external identity.
The concepts from this article were taken from Brand & Core Values: Keeping promises to the market and the team. Available through The ReWild Group and Amazon, the book explores in-depth this and other concepts while providing illustrations to help business leaders incorporate the ideas into their organizations. Get your copy today, and don’t forget to download the free workbook that serves as a companion guide to the book.
How standardization can help your business
Is it better for your business to be Standard? Custom? Or someplace in-between?
The answer depends in part on your business—the industry and services you provide both play a part in determining what’s best. However, there is a tendency across all industries for businesses owners to have a bias towards the Custom side of the continuum. Their mindset is that their business is unique or special, so it must be Custom.
This article, based on concepts from the book Business Model, explains the concept of the Standard-Custom Continuum. Keep reading to learn what it is and how using it can make your business more scalable.
Is it better for your business to be Standard? Custom? Or someplace in-between?
The answer depends in part on your business—the industry and services you provide both play a part in determining what’s best. However, there is a tendency across all industries for businesses owners to have a bias towards the Custom side of the continuum. Their mindset is that their business is unique or special, so it must be Custom.
This article, based on concepts from the book Business Model, explains the concept of the Standard-Custom Continuum. Keep reading to learn what it is and how using it can make your business more scalable.
The Standard-Custom Continuum
The level of customization that a company offers its customers informs its design and operational structures. A business that is more Custom requires a greater degree of operational flexibility than a business that is more Standard. There are many different degrees of customization, which is why a continuum is used to represent this concept.
The three categories of the Standard-Custom Continuum are Standard, Semi-Custom, and Custom. A business can land anywhere along the range between Standard and Custom.
Standard – A business that provides products and services that are generally the same for every customer.
Semi-Custom – A business that provides some degree of configuration or personalization of products and services to its customers.
Custom – A business that provides products or services that are unique or almost infinitely configurable for a customer.
The more standard the business, the more easily it can scale, because the work it performs is more routine and can be leveraged across a greater number of employees. A company that is further right on the continuum by providing custom products or services will face a barrier to growth in being dependent on specialists who possess particular skills.
The Effect of the Standard-Custom Continuum on a Business
The Standard-Custom Continuum concept is traditionally applied to a business as a whole, with implications for the overall strategy for that business:
A Standard business will focus its strategy on creating efficiencies and cost advantages through processes, systems, and scalability.
A Semi-Custom business will be drawn to strategies that provide for configurability of its products and services in an efficient manner to provide customers tailored products while generating higher margins.
A Custom business will be attracted to strategies that generate superior margins by providing unique solutions to the client while using flexible quality control methods to ensure some degree of consistency.
A fast-food restaurant is a good example of a Standard business. It keeps its prices competitive through efficiency and earns customer loyalty by providing a consistent experience, regardless of the location. Businesses on this end of the spectrum are highly scalable and rely heavily on uniform processes and systems.
An example of a Semi-Custom business is a luxury automobile brand. It provides a fixed number of makes and models, which would put it on the Standard side of the continuum, but it also offers a wide range of options for its customers to select from, moving it towards the middle of the continuum. Mid-market automobile brands are also Semi-Custom, but since customers have fewer options to customize these vehicles, they would be further to the left on the continuum than luxury manufacturers.
Very few businesses are purely Custom because it is rare to successfully create a completely unique product or service for every client. An artist is an example of a true Custom business, in that the artist can be commissioned to create a unique piece. More commonly, though, businesses are further to the Custom side of the continuum without being purely so. A high-end consulting company would fit this definition. Its clients have unique needs that often require custom solutions. While the consulting company may develop solutions that can be reused across a vertical market or functional area, the majority of its work will be Custom.
Placing Portions of a Company on the Standard-Custom Continuum
While it is helpful to place the overall company on the Standard-Custom Continuum, it is often more revealing to identify the percentage of the business that fits in each category. Many business owners see their business as unique—no other business is quite like theirs. When placing their business on the Standard-Custom Continuum, business owners tend to exaggerate to the right. Being intimately familiar with the details of their business, all they see are the nuances, and it biases their assessment of the business to being more Custom than it actually is.
The problem with this mindset is that it prevents standardization in cases where it would be beneficial to the business. Taking a custom approach, when a semi-custom or configurable approach would be suitable, results in increased variability in the processes and execution of the work. This in turn leads to inconsistent quality and varied customer experiences.
The reality is that some portions of every business can and should be Standard (e.g., onboarding new customers, processing invoices, payroll, etc.). If every aspect of a business is brand new each time, it’s nearly impossible to maintain a consistent client experience, track and improve operations, or train new employees. Considering what portions of a business fall into Standard, Semi-Custom, and Custom helps business leaders combat a bias toward uniqueness. They can start to see areas of the business that are currently treated as semi-custom or custom but could be standard, or things that are custom but could be semi-custom.
Remember, the more Standard a business is, the more scalable. Standardized processes and procedures create efficiency and help a business sustain higher profit margins.
The concepts in this article were taken from Business Model: Architecting a resilient, profitable business. Available through The ReWild Group and Amazon, the book explores in depth this and other concepts while providing illustrations to help business leaders incorporate the ideas into their organizations. Get your copy today, and don’t forget to download the free workbook that serves as a companion guide to the book.
Watchmaker vs. Beekeeper: Which is the most effective mindset for a business owner?
As any business owner knows, there are challenges that come with the territory of owning, running, or leading a business. Interruptions and obstacles are frequent, causing degrees of turbulence during even the best of times. How is it that some businesses succeed while so many fail? We know it’s not a matter of avoiding every challenge; it’s also not true that every successful business leader has been extraordinarily lucky.
No, there’s something else that makes the difference. When we consider what sets apart some businesses from others—what makes some businesses successful—we find that there is a fundamental difference in the way that the owner approaches challenges.
As any business owner knows, there are challenges that come with the territory of owning, running, or leading a business. Interruptions and obstacles are frequent, causing degrees of turbulence during even the best of times. How is it that some businesses succeed while so many fail? We know it’s not a matter of avoiding every challenge; it’s also not true that every successful business leader has been extraordinarily lucky.
No, there’s something else that makes the difference. When we consider what sets apart some businesses from others—what makes some businesses successful—we find that there is a fundamental difference in the way that the owner approaches challenges.
The Watchmaker Mindset
We use the analogy of a watchmaker to explain the typical approach to solving problems. A watchmaker works in a world of precision and control. Watches are finely calibrated machines with delicate, intricate parts; they are inanimate objects with no agency or will, passive pieces of the equation. When something breaks, it is up to the watchmaker to identify the problem and find the solution.
The Beekeeper Mindset
Contrast this picture of a watchmaker with that of a beekeeper. The beekeeper understands how the hive functions and what it needs to thrive, but he can’t make the honey himself. His role is to foster an environment that supports the bees to produce honey. What appears to be mass chaos and confusion is actually an orderly process. Appreciating the dynamics of the hive, the beekeeper doesn’t attempt to control every detail. Instead, he depends on creating a healthy environment that creates positive ripple effects to influence areas he can’t reach directly.
Now apply these two approaches to the mindset of a business owner. The watchmaker takes control over every aspect of the business, assuming that nothing will happen without his direct intervention. For the watchmaker, chaos is always a sign that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. The beekeeper, on the other hand, has a natural facility to work with complexity and chaos. He understands that his business is a living, intelligent entity that will continually self-organize around and through its problems and challenges. Understanding that there are a lot of dynamics at play, the beekeeper approach focuses on fostering the right environment for the team to thrive rather than attempting to isolate and fix every problem.
The Best Mindset for Business Owners
Our research shows that it is the leaders with a beekeeper mindset who are able to sustainably grow a business. That’s why our business growth framework, Organizational ReWilding, is designed to give leaders the structure they need to navigate the inherent chaos of running a business; it is not a list of “things to fix.” The structure is based on research and reflects the experiences of more than 1,300 business owners, representing a broad range of industries, locations, and issues. It does not assume that businesses are all the same or that every outcome is guaranteed. It does, however, assume that intentional change will result in positive ripple effects.
To learn more about how you can leverage Organizational ReWilding to improve your business, check out the Element Book Series. Each book delves into one of the 11 elements of an exceptional business and includes practical tools you can use, including a free workbook to track your notes. To find out how other business leaders have been impacted by Organizational ReWilding, view our Testimonials page.
Does your business have a Vision and Mission?
The Vision and Mission are foundational statements about why an organization exists. When given proper emphasis, they can act as a north star, guiding the company through whatever happens in the future. Although they are often grouped together, a company’s Vision and Mission are distinct statements.
The Vision and Mission are foundational statements about why an organization exists. When given proper emphasis, they can act as a north star, guiding the company through whatever happens in the future. Although they are often grouped together, a company’s Vision and Mission are distinct statements.
Vision
A company’s Vision is a picture of the future, an image of where the company is heading. A Vision is aspirational in that it serves to pull the organization forward towards an image of what could be. When properly crafted, a Vision provides energy and unity for the organization.
Because a Vision should reflect the unique personality of the company, there is no template or script that it must follow. As a general guideline, the Vision should be concise and compelling, connecting with both the heart and the head.
Mission
A mission is a statement of a company’s purpose. A strong mission includes three fundamental components: what the company does, the value the company delivers, and the customers the company serves.
The Importance of Vision and Mission
Vision and Mission are two separate terms that are often confused or used interchangeably but having both is key to a successful business strategy. If a company has only a Vision, which describes an ideal future state, the details as to how to accomplish that Vision are left to interpretation. The result is a lack of clarity, conflicts in decision-making, and an organization that can feel lost or scattered.
On the other hand, if a company has only a Mission, which describes the company’s purpose, the goal or future of the organization is lost. This leads to confusion, a lack of direction, and an organization that feels stuck or uninspired.
Together, the Vision and Mission statements provide an organization with a purpose and a path. By establishing points of alignment for all other activity in the organization, they also create greater unity and cohesion within the team.
There are three key reasons that Vision and Mission are important:
They intentionally design a future for the organization. When learning to ride a bike, new riders must look ahead to where they want to go. Looking straight down or to the side causes them to lose balance. In a similar way, a purposefully crafted Vision provides a point of focus that helps the organization keep its balance and guides the company over the long-term. Without this structure to keep eyes forward-looking, the organization is left looking straight down at the challenges of the day or to the side at distractions. This leads to drifting, imbalance, and eventually a loss of momentum.
They create guide rails for the organization to follow. The Vision and Mission statements serve to guide the organization, keeping it on a set path. For every decision that arises—whether it’s selecting employees, designing operations, or developing new products—the organization with a strong Vision and Mission is going to have clarity about where it wants to go. The founders of the business may decide to change paths over time, but it will be a conscious choice and not an accident.
They build a sense of unity and buy-in throughout the organization. As team members connect to something bigger than themselves, they are instilled with a sense of pride and comradery. When people feel a sense of belonging, they are more loyal and committed.
When an organization has a strong Vision and Mission, it has clarity about its identity and purpose. Both components are important because together they provide a balance of where a company wants to go and how it gets there.
Vision and Mission are part of the Business Model element, one of the 11 elements of an exceptional business. You can get a copy of the Business Model book, available on Amazon, to learn more about the other factors that combine to make a business more resilient and more profitable.
Three tips to help retain your best employees
Employee retention is a hot topic for small business owners. How do you keep your best talent? The time and effort required to find the right people is no small matter. With so many things vying for your attention, you need to know that you can depend on your best employees.
If money were no object, the solution would be simple. In the real world, though, resources are limited. Fortunately, there are things besides money that can help with employee retention.
Employee retention is a hot topic for small business owners. How do you keep your best talent? The time and effort required to find the right people is no small matter. With so many things vying for your attention, you need to know that you can depend on your best employees.
If money were no object, the solution would be simple. In the real world, though, resources are limited. Fortunately, there are things besides money that can help with employee retention.
Here are three low-cost ways to help you keep your high-performing employees.
Regular One-to-One Meetings
It’s hard to overstate the value of meeting one-on-one with your employees. Especially when held on a regular basis, these sessions provide an opportunity for you to hear the concerns, struggles, and accomplishments directly from your employee. In return, the employee has an opportunity to bring up issues they may not be comfortable with in a group setting. One-to-Ones are a powerful way to stay connected with your employees and address issues as they arise. Rather than guessing as to how someone is feeling about their work or trying to solve problems that don’t exist, you get accurate, real-time information. What’s more, your employee knows you’re paying attention and that you care.
Strong Core Values
Ideally, your business has a well-developed set of core values and you make those values known when you are interviewing potential employees. Provided the core values are consistently demonstrated, your company should have a culture that is clearly defined. Not only does that make it easier for a potential employee to know if he or she is a good fit, it also makes it easier for that person to stay. Company cultures vary widely, and while another organization might be able to offer better pay, it’s unlikely it can offer the same workplace environment that attracted your employee in the first place.
Recognize Achievement
One way to recognize employee achievement is through bonuses, but if financial rewards aren’t possible, don’t give up on the idea of recognition. Small gestures can go a long way towards making employees feel valued—and people who feel appreciated for their efforts are much more likely to stay. Something as simple as an email expressing your gratitude or the gift of an extended lunch hour can make a big difference for your employees.
You want your business to be exceptional, and we have tools to help. Learn more about the rules for growth that will guide you through the current stage your business is in and propel you towards greater growth and success. Start by finding out your Stage of Growth using this quick calculator. Then visit our Stage Guidebook Series and select the book that’s right for you. Not only will you find out more about best practices for keeping great talent, but you’ll also learn strategies for every dimension of your business—from finance to marketing to process improvement. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Discover the rules of growth for your business today!
KPIs: Measurable outcomes that keep you accountable
There will always be urgent issues that require your attention. But without a set of focused goals, those issues can easily take over your entire business.
Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is an effective way to focus your time and energy. When used correctly, KPIs serve to keep the important metrics of your business at the forefront, where you can periodically review and assess them.
The urgent demands faced by a business owner never seem to stop. From employees and vendors to clients and customers, there are a lot of people and problems vying for your attention.
If you’re like most small business owners, you work hard. Every day, you show up and do your best to confront the most urgent issues first, hoping to get a little space before the end of the day to work on the long list of tasks that are important, but not necessarily urgent.
This mentality of putting out fires is well intentioned, but the problem is there’s never much room for anything else. Instead of making progress, you feel further and further behind. And even though you’re exhausted at the end of each day, you can’t necessarily point to what you accomplished. Where is your energy going?
How KPIs keep you focused on priorities
There will always be urgent issues that require your attention. But without a set of focused goals, those issues can easily take over your entire business.
Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is an effective way to focus your time and energy. When used correctly, KPIs serve to keep the important metrics of your business at the forefront, where you can periodically review and assess them.
What is a KPI?
A KPI is a measurement that helps gauge how a business is functioning. It’s not comprehensive of every aspect of a business, but by looking at a specific aspect of a business it serves as good proxy for its overall health.
A KPI should be both quantifiable (measurable with reasonable accuracy) and stable, so that it can be meaningfully compared across time. An example of a KPI for an insurance claims processing company would be identifying its error rate in processing claims. This would be an important indicator of quality.
Advantages of KPIs
By tracking a set of KPIs, you get the benefit of knowing whether your efforts have been successful or not. Instead of wondering where your time went, you have objective measures to show you. Even more importantly, KPIs can help you determine how much time and energy to spend on different things in the future.
KPIs create accountability. You choose to track something—say, the number of outbound calls placed every day—because it’s important to the health of your business. At the end of a month, if there were 30% fewer outbound calls placed than the month prior, you are forced to find out why and ensure it doesn’t happen again. Instead of a nebulous “let’s do better,” clear goals provide for a clear path of action.
KPIs also serve to help focus a team’s efforts. People tend to perform based on how they are measured. By making clear to your team which outcomes matter most, you give them confidence that their efforts are important and won’t go unnoticed.
By reviewing your KPIs on a regular basis, you’ll consistently get a snapshot of your business’s health. That knowledge will inform your day-to-day activities and help you prioritize between the things that are urgent and those that are important.
The concepts in this article were taken from the Key Performance Indicators element, one of the 11 elements of an exceptional business. Visit our website to learn more and subscribe to the blog to receive future articles straight in your inbox.
Two common mistakes that stop sales
As the second step in the business development process, sales is the function responsible for turning leads into revenue. It’s an important part of every business, large or small. Without revenue (or donations, depending on your business model), you don’t have the resources you need to keep your doors open and continue providing the same high-quality products or services.
Sales professionals have the benefit of extensive training, but not many small business owners have that luxury. As with so many other aspects of business, the small business owner improvises, learns on the job, and picks up resources whenever possible.
As the second step in the business development process, sales is the function responsible for turning leads into revenue. It’s an important part of every business, large or small. Without revenue (or donations, depending on your business model), you don’t have the resources you need to keep your doors open and continue providing the same high-quality products or services.
Sales professionals have the benefit of extensive training, but not many small business owners have that luxury. As with so many other aspects of business, the small business owner improvises, learns on the job, and picks up resources whenever possible.
Business consultants are often in the same category. Their background may have been in finance or operations, but chances are they don’t have any formal sales training. Their livelihood depends on a steady flow of clients, which makes sales a critical part of their business.
While there are many factors that go into a successful sale, there are two common mistakes that can easily be avoided.
Giving away too much, too soon. As a business consultant, you have a wealth of knowledge to impart. Essentially, you’re selling your knowledge and experience as valuable shortcuts to help business owners get further, faster. In your eagerness to close a deal, don’t be too quick to give away all that hard-earned information for free. It’s common for the prospect to ask questions—and understandable that you want to provide solid answers. After all, part of the sales pitch is demonstrating your proficiency. But be aware that people are more than happy to take what they can get for free. If you’re willing to answer any and all questions the prospect has, you may very well be selling yourself short. Wait until the contract is signed before divulging all the answers.
Hearing what you want to hear. Are you hearing what someone is saying? Or are you hearing what you want to hear? Selective listening is something we’ve all been guilty of at one time or another. Maybe not in a sales situation, but almost certainly with close friends and family. Sometimes, it’s almost impossible to hear what a person is saying because you want so much to hear a particular answer. It’s almost like having a filter over your ears that screens out anything negative and replaces it with the answer you’re looking for. When a prospect says, “That seems like it could really be a useful product for me,” what you hear instead is, “Sign me up! I’m ready to get started.” Take them at their word and proceed accordingly—you’ll save yourself from unwisely using your time.
The ReWilder Network is a global team spanning five continents. Are you ready to join? Thanks to online certification, it’s more convenient than ever to become a Certified ReWilder. Learn more about The ReWild Group and the services we offer to small and midsize businesses through consultants like you.
Is your message hitting its target?
Oftentimes, businesses struggle with knowing whether their marketing efforts are working. Are potential customers getting the message? Are there more effective ways to advertise? What will boost sales?
While there is a lot that can be said about crafting a message to have the biggest impact, the focus of this article is not on the message itself, but rather on who the message is for. It’s a crucial first step that many businesses skip. You can have a finely crafted message with gorgeous visuals, but if it’s not reaching your intended audience, you may as well be shouting in the dark. No one will respond.
Oftentimes, businesses struggle with knowing whether their marketing efforts are working. Are potential customers getting the message? Are there more effective ways to advertise? What will boost sales?
While there is a lot that can be said about crafting a message to have the biggest impact, the focus of this article is not on the message itself, but rather on who the message is for. It’s a crucial first step that many businesses skip. You can have a finely crafted message with gorgeous visuals, but if it’s not reaching your intended audience, you may as well be shouting in the dark. No one will respond.
What are Customer Segments?
Every business owner should take time to identify and define three Customer Segments. A Customer Segment represents the key groups of customers a company serves; combined, they represent the company’s ideal customers.
Why three? Because three is enough to force a business to look beyond the most obvious groups it targets to help expand its reach, and more than three will result in a loss of focus.
The primary distinction between the three segments should be the customer’s needs—a customer in one segment will have different needs than a customer in another. By diving up a customer base in this way, the business can develop targeted strategies and business development activities. (Business development encompasses all the activities that generate, grow, and sustain revenue, including marketing, sales, and customer service.)
An Example of a Fast-Casual Restaurant
A simple illustration will help explain how this works. A fast-casual restaurant is located close to residential neighborhoods, local businesses, office buildings, and several high schools and college campuses. The restaurant has identified three Customer Segments: Businesses, Families, and Students. Each of these segments requires a different business development strategy, different messaging, and likely has different buyer triggers.
Businesses - The marketing messages to the Business segment will focus on catering and team lunches. The marketing plan may include visiting local businesses and handing out samples or specials to entice employees to try the restaurant. The plan will also include contacting Office Managers at local businesses to market catering services, with an emphasis on how convenient it is to place group orders.
Families - Marketing messages to Families may include an emphasis on easy, healthy dinners with options that are enjoyed by all family members. The plan may include sending postcards to nearby neighborhoods, posting on online neighborhood groups, and advertising at local grocery stores. Special offers might include free kids’ meals on nights that traditionally have slower traffic.
Students - Marketing to Students may include special deals if a customer has a student ID. The restaurant might also set up a food tent during school events or sponsor sporting teams and other school clubs to broaden visibility and attract more students.
The restaurant’s messaging and business development strategy are more effective because they are targeted to specific groups. They aren’t marketing the convenience of catering services to students or spending time going door-to-door in neighborhoods to talk about student specials. They know who they are selling to and are making sure their messaging and strategies are aligned. Having three Customer Segments encourages the restaurant to pursue customer diversification; it also helps them to focus on a manageable number of segments, which keeps efforts from being scattered.
Before you spend time and money crafting your next advertising campaign, take a step back and define three Customer Segments. Then consider how your business development activities and strategies will need to be refined to most effectively reach each one.
The concepts in this article were taken from the book Business Model: Architecting a resilient, profitable business, coming October 2022. Find this book and more in the Elements of an Exceptional Business series, available on Amazon.
Struggling to find that work-life balance? This can help.
It can be difficult to draw boundaries between your personal life and your work life—especially if you own a small business. Despite your best intentions, it may feel as though you’re never giving enough effort to one or the other. The elusive work-life balance can feel impossible to attain.
While we don’t have a magic wand that can stretch time (still working on that!), we do have some advice for managing work-life balance based on the experiences of small business owners.
It can be difficult to draw boundaries between your personal life and your work life—especially if you own a small business. Despite your best intentions, it may feel as though you’re never giving enough effort to one or the other. The elusive work-life balance can feel impossible to attain.
While we don’t have a magic wand that can stretch time (still working on that!), we do have some advice for managing work-life balance based on the experiences of small business owners.
Look at the big picture
This concept is simple and yet hard to overemphasize: don’t look at each day individually to determine if your work and personal lives are balanced. If you tally the number of hours on any given day you spent on work and the number you spent on your personal life, you will rarely come out feeling good about the ratio.
Why? Because on some workdays, there is a disaster at every turn. The shipment is late, the customer is unhappy, the new hire doesn’t show, and your computer decides to quit. On those days, work is going to require more of your time and attention than it normally would.
On other days, your youngest wakes up with a fever, your oldest forgot about his science project, and the refrigerator repairman is supposed to show up to your house … sometime between 8am and 5pm. On days like that, work is not going to get your highest and best.
So instead of tallying up the score one day at a time, it’s better to look at larger chunks of time to evaluate your work-life balance. Set aside time every twelve weeks to go over a set of questions. Think through each one and write down your responses. If you can get into this habit, you’ll start to see patterns that were hidden when you were only focused on the day-to-day. Sure, that one day was awful, but how did things go overall the past three months?
Questions for your (quarterly) consideration
Here are some specific questions to ask yourself to help you evaluate your work-life balance:
What were the big highlights or achievements?
What were the setbacks?
Is there anything I could have done differently? If so, what?
How are my relationships with my family?
How are my relationships with my friends?
How is my business?
This is also a good opportunity to look ahead at your schedule for the next quarter. Are there any big events coming up? Any holidays? Any significant changes to routine, either in work or at home? Taking note of these shifts can help you be more prepared for when they come. Your expectations will be adjusted to the reality of how much time you have available for certain projects.
For example, if you know that you will be implementing a new software system at work the next month, it’s probably not a good time to start adding volunteer hours to your schedule. Or if you are moving to a new home, don’t take on any additional work projects. Allowing for the ebb and flow of work and personal life makes it easier to strike a balance.
At The ReWild Group, we believe that work is a fundamental part of human existence. When a person is part of an exceptional workplace, they can apply their natural talents, grow as an individual, and develop new skills. This person returns to home and society as the best version of themselves. We invite you to learn more about our mission and explore the resources we make available for small businesses (many are free!).
There’s no time for burnout.
Your cell phone is ringing. It’s also beeping, letting you know that a text message has come through. The afternoon is full of back-to-back meetings. You’re sitting at your desk, wondering how the day could already be half over when it feels like you just got started. Looks like it will be another late night …
Sound familiar? If you’re a small business owner, we’re writing with you in mind. We understand all too well the way a person can get swept up in the day-to-day details of running a business, making it difficult to keep your head above water. We also recognize that burnout is a very real issue for small business owners. Whether it’s after one year or ten, everyone finds their breaking point if they are constantly under the gun.
Your cell phone is ringing. It’s also beeping, letting you know that a text message has come through. The afternoon is full of back-to-back meetings. You’re sitting at your desk, wondering how the day could already be half over when it feels like you just got started. Looks like it will be another late night …
Sound familiar? If you’re a small business owner, we’re writing with you in mind. We understand all too well the way a person can get swept up in the day-to-day details of running a business, making it difficult to keep your head above water. We also recognize that burnout is a very real issue for small business owners. Whether it’s after one year or ten, everyone finds their breaking point if they are constantly under the gun.
Working on your business vs working in your business
The fact is burnout is inevitable if you don’t have a plan for change. It’s possible to dig deep and work hard for a season of time, especially if it’s in the service of a longer-term possibility; but to be faced with an overwhelming amount of work with no end in sight isn’t tenable, even for the most resilient of spirits.
When small business owners say that they don’t have time to stop working, what they really mean is that they can’t let up on the work they’re doing in the business. These are the day-to-day operations that keep a business afloat. If they don’t pitch in, deadlines will be missed, clients will be lost, and vendors will go unpaid.
They are so preoccupied with working in the business they don’t even realize that they are missing something more critical, which is working on the business.
What’s the difference? Time spent working on the business refers to time spent thinking critically about why the business exists and where it’s headed. It’s time spent working on strategies that can govern day-to-day decisions and proactively steer the company in a certain direction.
When business owners step back from the day-to-day and dedicate time to this type of planning and strategy, they find new solutions from a new perspective. It’s like hopping on the interstate at rush hour and finding yourself stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. You were in a hurry, so you didn’t check traffic beforehand. But taking just one or two minutes at the front end to plan your route would have ultimately saved you time, not cost you.
This is why we caution business owners: you don’t have time for burnout. You’ve invested too much and come too far to give up now. Take some time to plot your course. This post on the Thinking-Doing Sequence is a great place to start.
The ReWild Group is dedicated to multiplying the number of exceptional businesses in the world. Towards that end, we’ve made a number of tools and resources available for free on our website. To go even deeper, check out our series of books for small business owners.
Business Consultants: Are you having the impact you want?
Business consultants and advisers want to have an impact on their clients. The whole reason most of them get into consulting is to make a difference—to use their knowledge and experience to help business owners thrive. A common frustration we hear from consultants, though, is that they aren’t able to make the significant progress they’d like to. They don’t get the opportunity to go deeply enough with a client to make a significant, long-term impact.
Business consultants and advisers want to have an impact on their clients. The whole reason most of them get into consulting is to make a difference—to use their knowledge and experience to help business owners thrive.
A common frustration we hear from consultants, though, is that they aren’t able to make the significant progress they’d like to. They don’t get the opportunity to go deeply enough with a client to make a significant, long-term impact.
Instead, many consultants feel that they are dealing with surface-level problems and nothing deeper. While they’re able to fix a problem or two, in the process of doing so they uncover a dozen more problems that go unaddressed.
Understanding Root Causes
Organizational ReWilding is a powerful business growth framework that goes beyond surface symptoms to address the underlying causes. It’s able to do this because it’s not based on just one person’s experience or one company’s history; Organizational ReWilding is based on research of over 1,300 small and mid-size businesses gathered over three decades.
The depth of research is directly related to the depth of the solutions. Patterns emerge when businesses are studied across industries, and those patterns point to answers that can’t be found in individual cases alone.
Organizational ReWilding is grounded in the concept that businesses go through stages of growth that are based on the number of employees it has. People are the number one driver of complexity—more so than location or industry or even economic conditions. When you add more people to a team, things get more complicated, and it’s possible to predict some of the challenges the company will face as a result.
It's also possible to predict the challenges that will follow as the company continues to grow. This is incredibly empowering for business owners, as it allows them to prepare for the future even while they are successfully navigating the present.
The Organizational ReWilding Stages of Growth Matrix
The Organizational ReWilding Stages of Growth Matrix provides an excellent overview of the methodology. You can download it for free from The ReWild Group website—click here to get your copy.
Even a quick glance at the Matrix will help you to understand the depth and sophistication of the framework. Organizational ReWilding is a powerful tool that you can add to your arsenal as a business consultant. You will have the satisfaction of bringing more value to your clients and making changes that have a deep and lasting impact on the entire business—not just solving for one department or one team, but impacting the entire company for years to come.
Check out the Matrix to learn more about this exceptional tool. Contact us today to learn how you can start making an even bigger impact by leveraging the research and insight provided by The ReWild Group.
If you know your company’s Stage of Growth, we invite you to dig deeper into concepts presented in the Matrix. (Don’t know your Stage? Click here to find out!) The Stages of Growth Guidebook Series is a collection of books that explore the different dimensions of a business at every Stage, from 1-7. You can get a copy from Amazon or The ReWild Group Store. Start your business growth journey today!
Struggling with time management? These three barriers might explain why.
One of the most frequent challenges we hear from small business owners and leaders relates to time management. Many tell us that that part of the reason they wanted to own their business was to have more control over their schedules, but in reality, the opposite is true. They feel like their business owns them, not the other way around. Despite working long hours and most weekends, they can’t get ahead.
Following are the three most common barriers we see keeping business leaders from effectively managing their time.
One of the most frequent challenges we hear from small business owners and leaders relates to time management. Many tell us that that part of the reason they wanted to own their business was to have more control over their schedules, but in reality, the opposite is true. They feel like their business owns them, not the other way around. Despite working long hours and most weekends, they can’t get ahead.
Following are the three most common barriers we see keeping business leaders from effectively managing their time.
Rationalization
It’s only 15 minutes. I can do it faster anyway.
I don’t have time to train someone else how to do it.
Nobody else knows how to do this as well as I do.
Recognize any of these thoughts? They’re all examples of rationalization. These are excuses we tell ourselves when we spend time on activities that are not important. The problem is it’s possible to rationalize away large portions of your day, every day.
After all, if you’re spending your time doing routine tasks that could be delegated, it means you’re not spending time on other tasks that could be far more important. Urgency tends to dominate our schedule, controlling our decisions about how we spend our time throughout the day. It makes rationalization a persistent barrier for many people. It won’t go away on its own, either, which is why it’s so important to adopt a new habit.
Every time you begin working on something, ask yourself, “Have I made up an excuse that rationalizes why I am doing something that is not important?” Get in this habit and you will be equipped to combat rationalization.
Distractions
The second barrier to effective time management is distractions. Distractions are anything that impact our ability to stay focused on work.
We all face them, too! The distractions in today’s workforce are more invasive than any previous time. Our ever-connectedness to our phones and the limitless access they provide means that something else is always vying for our attention—and that’s not counting all the distractions in the office.
In order to get the most out of your time, it’s important to identify frequent distractions and work to moderate them. You can think of these as healthy boundaries that protect your time.
Here are a few suggestions on how you can do that:
Turn your work phone on Do Not Disturb and place your cell phone face-down on your desk.
Turn email pop-up notifications off so you’re not tempted to divert your attention from what you’re doing and respond to an email the second it hits your inbox.
Schedule periodic, recurring meetings to work through your team’s challenges as opposed to allowing them to be raised at any time of the day.
Designate “power hours” where you concentrate on an important activity for 60 minutes. (These can work well the for the entire team, too.)
Lack of Delegation
The third barrier is lack of delegation. If you work in a very small office, you might not think of delegation as an option, but in today’s gig economy, it’s viable for almost anyone. You can find hourly help online for routine tasks like bookkeeping or scheduling.
Delegation doesn’t always have to be to someone in a junior position, either. The idea is to hand off any tasks that you can. This can mean sharing work responsibilities with peers and colleagues as well.
Delegation is important because it achieves two critical things:
First, it provides your team members the opportunity to grow in their skills and responsibility. This helps them to be more engaged in their work as they experience greater levels of achievement.
Second, delegation provides you an opportunity to grow as well. The time freed through delegation can be used on work that builds you as a manager and leader. The failure to delegate usually means that this critical work, that can only be done by you, never gets done.
Delegation is the great multiplier of a leader’s abilities. Your effectiveness as an individual has finite limits, but as a leader who delegates work to a growing, learning team, your effectiveness multiplies.
Put this knowledge to work
One of our philosophies at The ReWild Group is that the enemy who is known is better than the enemy who is unknown. Simply naming and describing the problem goes a long way towards solving it. Know these barriers that are keeping you from effectively using your time. Look out for them in your day. Ask yourself if you’re rationalizing your time away, set healthy boundaries to avoid distraction, and provide opportunities for others to grow through delegation.
The concepts presented in this article are taken from the Strong Management Team engagement (known previously as the Exceptional Manager Program), one of the 11 elements of an exceptional business. Visit us online for more resources, tips, and tools to help you become a more effective leader.
CEO peer groups: Advantages, disadvantages, and an alternative
For most CEOs, their jobs have been evolving since they first started the company. Many were experts in a trade or a skill and were able to build a successful business on that expertise. As their business grew, however, they found themselves faced with new types of challenges, such as learning how to manage managers, how to delegate effectively, and how to communicate the vision and mission of the organization.
CEO peer groups provide a way for leaders to get outside perspective on their businesses. While they carry certain advantages, there are also some disadvantages. In this article, we consider both the advantages and disadvantages of CEO peer groups, closing with an alternative.
For most CEOs, their jobs have been evolving since they first started the company. Many were experts in a trade or a skill and were able to build a successful business on that expertise. As their business grew, however, they found themselves faced with new types of challenges, such as learning how to manage managers, how to delegate effectively, and how to communicate the vision and mission of the organization.
CEO peer groups provide a way for leaders to get outside perspective on their businesses. While they carry certain advantages, there are also some disadvantages. In this article, we consider both the advantages and disadvantages of CEO peer groups, closing with an alternative.
Advantages of Peer Groups
A successful peer group is one that meets regularly, usually monthly, and provides a forum for CEOs to learn from one another. Perhaps someone in the group has experience with the type of challenge that another person is facing, or maybe someone can recommend a consultant to help with a particular issue. Typically, groups will choose a topic each month and select a book or a video to focus their discussion.
Peer groups also provide the discipline of structure, giving CEOs a set amount of time to work on the strategy of their business, as well as accountability for decisions made and implementation of those decisions.
Finally, peer groups provide community. The experience of being a business owner and CEO can often be a lonely one. Even during times when the answers aren’t obvious and there are no immediate solutions, the time spent with people who understand the ups and downs of your situation can be tremendously encouraging. Maybe you didn’t need a specific answer, just the reminder that if you keep going, the answers will come.
Disadvantages of Peer Groups
While there are many benefits to CEO peer groups, there are also some disadvantages.
The exposure to a variety of ideas and experiences can be beneficial, but can also be haphazard, relying on the latest trends rather than on tried-and-true practices that have been proven to work. The lack of focus can result in wasted time and energy—going skin-deep into an ever-revolving array of topics and never deeper into solutions that bring results.
Another disadvantage to peer groups is that you aren’t likely to get a clearly delineated path for moving forward. You will get advice and hear personal experiences, but those may not translate into concrete action steps.
Along the same lines, there is no finish line when it comes to peer groups. While continuously meeting with other business leaders can provide some degree of structure and accountability, there is no ultimate goal of being equipped to the point where you no longer need the group.
An Alternative to Peer Groups
Working with a trained and certified coach or adviser provides many of the same highlights as a CEO peer group but with added benefits. In addition to support and structure, Certified ReWilders also provide the following:
Holistic approach – Rather than jumping from one topic to another, Organizational ReWilding works in a holistic fashion. After first assessing the overall health of the business, the areas to pursue are strategically chosen in such a way that brings about the greatest benefit for the entire organization. Surface symptoms can obfuscate the real source of issues; Organizational ReWilding works below the surface to address root causes.
Deeper impact – By addressing root causes to issues, Organizational ReWilding makes an impact that is both deep and lasting. Just as is true in nature, the rewilding process involves making a change in one area and seeing a ripple effect as the results of that change impact other areas. Part of the process for business owners is learning new concepts at a deep and practical level, and then infusing those concepts into their business.
Work path – Diagnosing the problem is only the first step to finding a solution. When you work with a Certified ReWilder, you will be given a clear path to follow, complete with accountability, goal setting, and reflection. You will have tangible tasks that will move your business forward and clarify your values and mission.
Pre-determined time frame – Deep and lasting change doesn’t come about overnight. Organizational ReWilding is a process that takes time—typically, anywhere from 9-24 months, depending on the needs of the business. However, there is an end to the process; it is not designed to last forever. The goal of Organizational ReWilding is to equip and train business owners to effectively navigate growth long after the engagement is over.
If you are looking for a community of like-minded peers with whom you can regularly connect and learn from, CEO peer groups are a great option. For more focused, hands-on work specifically tailored to your business, consider partnering with a Certified ReWilder.
If you’re ready to talk to a Certified ReWilder, contact us today! Our network of Certified ReWilders spans the globe. We’re ready to partner together with you to tackle the challenges facing your business and bring lasting, impactful solutions.
Sales versus marketing: Which is more important?
Many small business owners struggle with knowing where to allocate their time and resources. One issue we hear about a lot has to do with sales and marketing—which is more important?
The short answer is that both are important, but what we’ll look at today is the relationship between the two and how the industry your business is in has a lot to do with knowing which one deserves more of your time.
Many small business owners struggle with knowing where to allocate their time and resources. One issue we hear about a lot has to do with sales and marketing—which is more important?
The short answer is that both are important, but what we’ll look at today is the relationship between the two and how the industry your business is in has a lot to do with knowing which one deserves more of your time.
Clarifying the difference between sales and marketing
To ensure that we’re all on the same page, let’s begin with definitions of sales and marketing.
Marketing generates leads. Marketing communicates with the prospective market and works to turn them into qualified leads.
Sales turns leads into revenue. Sales starts where Marketing ends. It takes the leads generated by Marketing through a consistent process and converts them into revenue.
You’ll notice there is a distinction between the point at which either function picks up with a prospect and leaves off. Marketing is responsible for generating leads—casting a wide net to raise awareness—while sales is responsible for generating revenue—working with a warm lead. Marketing is where business development begins, while sales is the process of turning a lead into revenue.
You can’t have one without the other, which is why collaboration between the two functions is so important. Even in a very small business, though, when you have one person responsible for both, it’s helpful to separate the two different purposes.
Marketing can take a person who is completely unaware of a product or service and get their attention. They can educate the person on the benefits of the product and the problems that it solves. The more interested a lead has become in a product, the better the odds are for sales to turn that lead into revenue.
If sales is spending its time making cold calls to people who have never heard of the product, it’s not performing its function. Ideally, marketing should be handing off warm prospects to sales, who will then take that lead and successfully close on it.
Where should I focus my efforts?
The amount of time spent generating leads versus converting those leads into revenue will depend on the type of business you run. Businesses that provide consumer goods tend to have a heavy focus on marketing. Think of an ice cream shop or clothing boutique, where more than half the battle is getting a prospect through the door. The effort put into sales at that point will vary, but the product (ice cream or clothing) is not a complicated one and the prospect already has a high degree of familiarity with the genre.
Businesses that have complex products or services, or are selling high ticket items, tend to be more focused on sales. An insurance company, for example, will spend a significant amount of time educating a lead about their products, putting together quotes, and helping them choose the best package. Or a landscaper who is helping a homeowner design a new backyard will create a proposal for the project after discussing many different possibilities.
While it’s important to know which area requires more emphasis in order for your business to succeed, it’s equally important not to neglect the other area. Businesses need both sales and marketing, and ideally, they will work closely together to generate leads and convert those leads into revenue.
Marketing and Sales are two components of Business Development Structure, one of the 11 elements of an exceptional business. Visit the Element Guidebooks page for more information on this essential book series for small business owners. To speak with a Certified ReWilder about how to bring Business Development Structure to your business, click here.
How to avoid the reactive trap: the Thinking-Doing Sequence
Many small business owners are caught in a trap of reaction: they spend nearly all their energy reacting to requests and urgent demands. No one sets out to start a business with the goal of it consuming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On the contrary, most small business owners are looking for independence. Unfortunately, the demands of a business are often urgent and can easily become overwhelming.
The Thinking-Doing Sequence is a structure that helps shine light on what it is that business owners are doing with their time and why adjustments may be necessary.
Many small business owners are caught in a trap of reaction: they spend nearly all their energy reacting to requests and urgent demands. Think of the salon owner who finds herself serving clients and dealing with employee issues, leaving her zero time to think about the big picture of her business. Or the head of an engineering firm who is buried in projects and in a cycle of responding to one crisis after another, without time to get his head above water to try and prevent the next one.
No one sets out to start a business with the goal of it consuming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On the contrary, most small business owners are looking for independence. Unfortunately, the demands of a business are often urgent and can easily become overwhelming.
One of the cornerstones of Organizational ReWilding is structure. Structure plays an integral role in each of the 11 elements because it helps organize large amounts of information and sets the stage for clarity and focus, all of which are vital to the health of a business. (To read more, see our blog post on Structure, Clarity, and Focus.)
The Thinking-Doing Sequence is a structure that helps shine light on what it is that business owners are doing with their time and why adjustments may be necessary.
The Thinking-Doing Sequence
As illustrated in the above graphic, there are two major areas of classification and four steps in the Thinking-Doing Sequence. The major areas are working on the business and working in the business. The four steps are Critical Thinking, Focusing, Planning, and Doing.
Ideally, the owner will spend a significant amount of time working on the business, but we all know that reality doesn’t always align with the ideal. Oftentimes, working in the business takes priority. That’s why, as we look more closely at each of the four steps in the Thinking-Doing Sequence, we’re going to start with the end of the sequence and work backwards.
Doing
Doing encompasses any activities involved with the execution of the business. It speaks to what: What is required to deliver our service or product to customers?
If, as a business owner, you are stuck in a place where doing the work is all that you do, you’re in survival mode. You are constantly reacting to the next email, phone call, or other immediate need that is before you.
While many businesses function this way, it’s suboptimal. Chaos is the norm for a reactive business and brings with it persistent problems such as high employee turnover and tight cash flow. Over time the trauma of this chaos leads to owner burn-out and frustrated employees.
Planning
If you take one step back in the Thinking-Doing Sequence, you’re now in Planning. Planning is focused on the how. How are we going to do the work? It involves looking ahead to the future, perhaps three to 12 months at a time, but it can also mean as soon as the next day or the upcoming week.
Planning occurs at an operational level. It accounts for the scope of the work and the logistics required to complete it, factoring in such contingencies as staff capacity, tools or equipment that will be needed, and scheduling.
The ability to plan gives a business an advantage over one that is caught up only in Doing. It helps to alleviate some problems before they occur and to reduce the organizational trauma that comes with disorder. Even with planning, though, a business may not be very competitive or distinguished in the marketplace, because it does not consider the bigger picture questions.
Focusing
Focusing is related to priorities; it establishes which of the many projects and initiatives the business will choose to prioritize. Of all our options, which projects will we be pursuing?
Focusing looks further down the road than Planning; a business is looking beyond just the coming months to one or more years in the future. At this stage in the sequence, a business is setting goals and coming up with strategies that will help achieve those goals.
Once a business has some strategies and goals in place, it can measure against those goals. This provides clarity as the business plans and executes on which activities are bringing them closer to their goals and which are not. Adjustments can be made throughout the year, keeping a business more agile and responsive to its environment.
A business that can achieve some level of focus more consistently directs its energy to initiatives that move the organization towards its long-term goals.
Critical Thinking
As the first step in the sequence, Critical Thinking addresses the highest-level question that faces a business: Why are we in business in the first place? Why should the marketplace do business with us?
Understanding the why informs every aspect of the business. It feeds into the business model, which drives structures; it influences values, which shape the culture; it informs decisions about how the business goes to market and which customer segments are ideal.
While Critical Thinking has such a great influence on a business, it’s often skipped over by business owners. When that happens, the business tends to have poorly defined strategies. Rather than being anchored to solid identities, these strategies tend to look more like a lot of ideas about what might be possible.
An organization that has spent sufficient energy on critical thinking has a strategic advantage over those that do not. The clear picture of why the organization exists creates a vision for the entire organization to pursue and informs values that unify its people.
Each step influences the next
While it’s common for businesses to be stuck in the Doing part of the business, it’s also not unusual for a business to start with strategy or planning. The reason why the order of the Thinking-Doing Sequence is so important is that each step influences the next.
Critical Thinking establishes the foundation for the business, which then informs the goals and strategies that are developed during the Focusing phase. Focus is critical to Planning because it provides structure around how the business can accomplish the big picture ideas it came up with during Critical Thinking. And Planning hones in on the best and most efficient ways to carry out the work – the Doing.
The Thinking-Doing Sequence can be applied to smaller decisions as well. It’s a great way to reassess the old ways of doing things. When a company feels stuck in a process or a decision, walking through the sequence gives clarity as to whether the outcomes are serving the goals of the organization or not.
When a company begins with Critical Thinking and moves through the Thinking-Doing Sequence, it gains a strong foothold to avoid the trap of reactionary chaos. Rather than responding to the random demands of the moment, the business can execute and measure its progress against a well thought out plan that is anchored in its reason for existence.
The Thinking-Doing Sequence is part of Business Model – one of the 11 elements of an exceptional business. Our mission is to multiply the number of exceptional businesses globally. Join the conversation on LinkedIn.
Why sales can’t depend on just one person
It’s likely that you have an idea in your mind of “The Salesperson.” This is the smooth talker, the rainmaker, the person who’s never at a loss for words and somehow manages to turn the most aggressively uninterested prospect into an eager buyer. While this persona exists for a reason, it’s not a good way to build a sales team. As a business owner, you can’t rely on finding that one extraordinary salesperson in order for your company to function.
It’s likely that you have an idea in your mind of “The Salesperson.” This is the smooth talker, the rainmaker, the person who’s never at a loss for words and somehow manages to turn the most aggressively uninterested prospect into an eager buyer. While this persona exists for a reason, it’s not a good way to build a sales team. As a business owner, you can’t rely on finding that one extraordinary salesperson in order for your company to function.
Structure is a critical component of every function of an organization, but especially when it comes to sales. Since revenue depends upon sales, you want the sales function to be repeatable and improvable.
Structure aids in making the sales process repeatable. It’s impossible to duplicate a person, but a process that can be repeated is very attainable. New team members can be onboarded quickly when they have a distinct process to refer to. Leads have a consistent experience across the sales team—it doesn’t matter so much which Sales Representative the lead works with because the process is essentially the same.
Structure also aids in making sales improvable. When the entire team is using a common framework, there is visibility as to what is and is not working. The process has been deconstructed so that individual components are understood and can be evaluated for effectiveness. Best practices can easily be identified, and any refinements made to the process will benefit the entire team, not just one person. Energy that would otherwise go into reinventing the wheel can be put to better use when the sales process is repeatable.
The Sales Pipeline
One of the most important ways a sales team can instill structure is through the Sales Pipeline. It serves as an overall outline of the main steps the Sales team follows to convert a lead into revenue.
The number and type of steps within the pipeline will vary depending on the needs of the organization. When the product is more complex, more steps may be required. The guiding factor should be a pragmatic one that centers around a simple question: What’s working?
In some cases, different customer segments may necessitate different versions of the Sales Pipeline for the same product or service. While there are many variables, the important thing to recognize is the value of identifying and describing a process that is repeatable and improvable. When the entire sales team adopts the same Sales Pipeline, the effectiveness of each step can be evaluated and improved over time. Each improvement will lift the performance of everyone on the team.
Sales structure is part of Business Development Structure – one of the 11 elements of an exceptional business. Our mission is to multiply the number of exceptional businesses globally. Join the conversation on LinkedIn.
How to tell a business owner what’s wrong with their business.
There’s no getting around it. It’s awkward. You’re face-to-face with a business owner who has poured time, energy, and effort into running a business. Things aren’t going well, which is why you were hired in the first place. And yet, even though your advice was solicited, you hesitate to share your findings with the business owner.
While we can’t get rid of all the unpleasant confrontations that may arrive throughout the course of work for business advisers, we do have some advice for anyone looking for a better way to deliver tough news.
There’s no getting around it. It’s awkward. You’re face-to-face with a business owner who has poured time, energy, and effort into running a business. Things aren’t going well, which is why you were hired in the first place. And yet, even though your advice was solicited, you hesitate to share your findings with the business owner.
Why? Because business owners can be very attached to their work. An almost parent-child relationship develops with small businesses when the owner has kept the business alive and afloat for a number of years (no small task!). If the business isn’t thriving, the owner can understandably be feeling stressed and defensive. Even though you have the business’s best interests at heart, the owner may be sensitive to hearing negative statements about their business and can take criticism personally.
While we can’t get rid of all the unpleasant confrontations that may arrive throughout the course of work for business advisers, we do have some advice for anyone looking for a better way to deliver tough news.
Lean on structure
The ReWild Group has an assessment called the Rewild Group Business Assessment (RBA). It provides a comprehensive evaluation of the health of a business. The assessment takes about 15 minutes for the client to complete. Once finished, the Adviser reviews the results and pulls a 20-page report that includes an actionable list of missing elements.
The objective report provides a solid reference point that is free from emotion. Rather than the adviser presenting an opinion, which can be open to interpretation, he or she presents research-based information. This diffuses any potential conflict and keeps the focus on improvements. In the words of one Certified Adviser, “With the ReWild Business Assessment, you … can present it to them in a way that makes sense but doesn’t hurt their feelings.”
Present a way forward, together
Another advantage to the RBA is that the structure of the report allows advisers to speak non-critically about the issues. Instead of the conversation feeling like a judgment on decisions or actions that were taken in the past, advisers can move straight to solutions. There is no need to dwell on the “Why?” when you can start talking about “What’s next?”.
Ideally, the path forward is one that utilizes the expertise of the owner and the guidance of the adviser. The adviser isn’t coming to take over the business; the owner is still a critical part of the solution. The owner’s buy-in is essential to the long-term success of any changes. By focusing on what can be done to achieve a better future, the owner is much more likely to be on board.
The fact is, there are many reasons that businesses struggle. Within a framework such as Organizational ReWilding (which is based up on the Stages of Growth), it becomes clear that businesses face common challenges, regardless of an individual owner’s decisions. More than three decades of research have shown that businesses share many similar challenges based upon the number of people it employs (people are the number one driver of complexity in an organization). The simple realization that the challenges facing a business owner are typical can be an immense relief.
At the end of the day, business owners are looking for solutions. They need to know that an investment of precious time and resources will bring a return. A strong business framework provides the structure and authority for advisers to confidently predict the outcomes of the consulting services they provide. It also provides the neutral playing field that makes a business owner more likely to accept the diagnosis.
At the ReWild Group, our mission is to multiply the number of exceptional businesses globally. We share resources, ideas, and advice in advance of that mission. If you are interested in joining us in our mission, visit our page for Advisers today!
