Is it weak to ask for help?

When you have a business challenge is your first thought, ‘How can I fix it?’ or ‘Who can help me fix it?’

I’ll bet you generally go into the solve-it mode, I used to do that too…and being totally transparent sometimes I still do!

As an entrepreneur, it can be difficult to release the reins and allow others to work on your ‘business baby’. You’ve put so much into building up your business you want everything to be perfect.

Both in my corporate and entrepreneurial life, I have struggled with delegating the time consuming administrative and technical tasks to others, as I was SURE they couldn’t do it as well and/or as quickly as me, and if I was going to have to teach them and then check it afterwards, I may as well have done it myself!

But I wasn’t doing myself any favours, I was busy being busy, my business wasn’t growing as quickly as it should have been because I was trying to do ALL THE THINGS, and my team wasn’t learning or developing.

The whole idea of recruiting and building a team is to free you up to do the high-value stuff, like speaking with potential clients and delivering excellence to your paying clients, it should also mean that you can go on holiday WITHOUT your laptop, iPad and iPhone, take the afternoon off to relax in the spa, or go to your children’s school play without worrying about what’s happening in the office.

When I’ve broken down the reason why most business owners lack trust in their team, it’s because they fear they’ll get things wrong, that they’ll change the winning formula that has gotten them this far.

Like my client Alice, who was struggling to focus on building her business because she was caught up trying to get the day-to-day things completed.

Her company mobile phone would not stop ringing, as her managers referred any difficult customers to her rather than dealing with them themselves.

This meant that the majority of her customers had her number and would just call, rather than talk to the manager for the relevant store (even though they’d be seeing them face to face regularly). The head office line hardly rang, so Alice’s assistant wasn’t inundated with calls. Alice felt trapped.

After spending some time with Alice it became apparent that her caring and maternal nature had meant that her managers didn’t even attempt to solve tricky problems, they just called Alice for the answer.

My first suggestion was to change her mobile number and remove it from all the business literature. Each store and store manager had a telephone number and there was a number for head office too.

We delivered our signature management training programme to the managers and their deputies, created a peer coaching group and created a crib sheet for the managers to be sure they understood the policies and processes so that they took ownership for managing issues and didn’t need to disrupt Alice, except for emergencies.

A month after the phone was disconnected Alice said “I feel like a weight has been lifted, I don’t know why I didn’t do that sooner, thank you”

Delegating is always a major subject in our Management and Leadership Coaching Programmes, so I thought I’d share a few tips to help:

Play to your strengths

Know what you are good at and stick to it. When you started your business you were a team of one and had to get everything done (sales, products, accounts, marketing, logistics). Now you can buy in support, either through outsourced providers (accountants, VA, social media, contractors) or employees.

Get the right support in and give them the autonomy to deliver. Getting support doesn’t mean that you have to lock yourself into a full-time permanent contract. If you are concerned that your business might experience a downturn (or you know the support you need is seasonal), you can hire casual staff or offer a contract on a fixed-term and/or part-time basis.

Take the time to train your team

Have you ever said, “By the time I teach them how to do it, I could have done it myself!” Ten years ago this would have definitely been me, but by the time I’d had to complete that task three or four times, I was wishing that I had trained someone, ANYONE else in my team to do it.

As annoying as it sounds, you have to invest time to free up time, whether it is setting up a system, process or training an individual and this is the same thing I say to clients who are too busy to find time the hire the staff they need – it’s chicken and egg! A fully trained and empowered employee means more freedom for you.

Train your team and have them document the process and keep it up to date, then whenever you have a new joiner or promote a team member you have a process manual ready!

Block out your time

It is really easy to get distracted by the admin needed to run a business even with an administrator or VA on staff, so block your time for specific tasks.

I do write down my Must-Dos for each day and the time that I am dedicating to them. Then at the allocated time I close down my emails and put my phone on airplane mode so that I keep focused.

I use a variation of the Pomodoro method. Instead of working for 25-minute sprints with a 5-minute break, I work for an hour or 90 minutes and then take a longer break.

This helps me to focus on a particular project as I find that it can take a while to get into the zone and once I get there it can be difficult to stop (and I like to complete tasks in one hit if I can).

Change your location

When I first started my business, I worked from home and would spend the first couple of hours in the day, cleaning and tidying before I started working and then would be carrying out other chores too. Have you ever popped into the supermarket to come out two hours later?

It didn’t take long to realise that being at home wasn’t helping my focus and so I found a co-working space to work from. The change of location was just what I needed, there were no dirty dishes or laundry to distract me but lots of businesses to connect with.

Once you have a team (working alongside you or remotely) it can be easy to be constantly distracted with their tasks and challenges. I used to struggle when I overheard a conversation that I wanted to chip in on; my ears would switch on and the focus on my task would go flying out of the window.

If you are constantly being interrupted by your team asking for your help (for outcomes that they are capable of delivering) or you can’t resist ‘offering’ assistance and keeping all the real decision making for yourself, it’s time for you to find somewhere else to work from at least one day a week, to give you and your team some space to be great.

The saying that, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, was definitely true in this circumstance. If there is truly an emergency your team will get in touch, don’t worry it will be fine.

Try these tips and you’ll get the help you need to take your business to the next level.

Need help hiring the help you need or developing the leadership skills you or your team need, schedule a call to see how we can help you.

Are you constructively nosy

What did you study? Where did you graduate? Where do you stay? Are you married?

I’d just started working with a new company and every meeting started this way. I felt like I was being interviewed all over again! But it was just their way of getting to know me – it was a way to get to know me and establish some common ground.

And after a while I realised that it was perfectly fine to be curious, I found out things about individuals that would have taken me months in other companies because we English people can be a little too polite.

I was at a virtual networking event last week and the host asked us to introduce ourselves and say what our special power was and I said: “I’m nosy”.

Now I’m not nosy just for the sake of it, I like to understand how things work and why things are done the way that they are done. Ask me to do something and nine times out of ten, I’ll ask you a question to make sure that I truly understand what you want and why you need it.

It’s because I’m aware that we don’t know what we don’t know, so if you tell me the background, I’ll be better placed to give you the solution that you need. The same applies to when I communicate with my team, I could make assumptions about their knowledge and aspirations but it is better to ask the question and be sure.

I had a client who was grooming a member of her team to become her second in command and was crushed when he left to pursue a career in secondary education; she’d assumed that his insight and interest in her pre-school meant that he wanted to continue working with under 5’s, but she hadn’t asked, it meant that she’d wasted time and hadn’t given the opportunity to others in her business. The good thing is that once she started asking the right questions of her team, she was able to identify those who wanted to progress and create a training plan to support them.

So before you start succession planning, have 1-2-1’s with your team, you might get a surprise.

Some good questions to ask are:

• What do you enjoy about your role?

• What would you like to delegate?

• What is your ideal role?

• Where would you like to be in a year?

• What support do you need to achieve your aspirations?

You don’t have to wait until it’s performance review time.

If you need assistance with your people plan, schedule a 20 minute FREE Team Strategy Call and get some actionable tips from us.

Managers, the new poor relation?

Gil’s business has been going for 6 years. It’s grown steadily year on year, and Gil built a really great team to support him and bring in the additional skills that he needed to professionalise his operations.

In the last year his team grew from a nimble 30 to over 100 staff. Far from being that answer to their fulfilment issues, product quality and customer service quality declined, while staff turnover increased.

At first the decline in quality was put down to poor hires, but when the problems continued, and a couple of grievances were received from staff, it became apparent that there was a deeper issue.

The rapid growth of the business meant that high performing staff were promoted to management positions, and given responsibilities for recruitment, staff development, budgets and production, with little or no management training or previous experience.

It was assumed that those promoted would be excellent managers, but no actual training or support was given. This led to inconsistencies in way staff were managed, which led to division and resentment within teams, and certain behaviours going unchecked. For example: when Donna asked her manager to work from home 2 days a week, it was approved informally. However when Amira asked her manager for the same, it was refused with the reason that it was bad for team morale. Likewise sickness hasn’t been treated the same, with managers interpreting the policy differently.

The newly promoted managers were also struggling to get their day job done and deal with staff, so were getting burnt out and still failing to reach their numbers.

We often find that great staff are promoted because they are amazing at one thing, but as business owners we know that a management role comes with lots of plates to keep spinning.

We helped Gil’s team support their managers with a bespoke Management Development Programme to ensure that any skills gaps were addressed, all managers had a clear understanding of their responsibilities and were provided coaching and mentoring support.

Are your Managers the poor relations?

January is a great time to review the skills of you and your managers. If you need some help, get in touch to discuss how we can help you.

Are you always getting excuses?

“She always comes in with an excuse. Traffic, overslept, ran out of time, the client said …. It’s exhausting … I can’t rely on her and it’s costing me business”

It’s amazing the amount of business owners that struggle with getting some members of their team to take ownership and deliver what they need consistently.

Being able to trust your team to get on with things, while you get on with the CEO tasks that you have is vital. If you don’t have time to plan for growth, it won’t happen. And keeping track of what everybody is supposed to be working on, is time consuming and exhausting, not to mention the fact that most people don’t react well to micro management.

And then the next thing you know you are doing EVERYTHIING, despite having a team to support you. Have you experienced this? I know I have!

Its two sides of the same coin …

You need to trust your staff and your staff need to feel empowered and supported in their decision making and that happens over time, because you don’t want a renegade who just makes decisions without understanding the consequences.

So how to get your staff to take ownership, so you have freedom to focus on the things you need to do:

Lead by example

You have to demonstrate the behaviour that you want to see in your team. Let them shadow you when you deal with client issues. Let them see how you prioritise and sacrifice to get things done.

Give them the outcome not the blueprint

Let you team know the end goal and let them find their own path, you never know they might find a quicker, cheaper alternative path.

Ask for the solution to the problem / Issue

When your team come to you with an issue or problem, try asking them for solutions, rather than offering the answer.

Allow them to fail

This is a hard one, but failures teach goo lessons. Sometimes you have to let things slip and observe how an individual fixes the issue without you being there as a safety net.

The only way to stop receiving excuses, is to refuse to accept them. This means that there will be difficult conversations and there may be individuals that are unable to withstand the pressure or additional responsibility. However if you set the standard and demonstrate the behaviours you expect, you will have a responsible, motivated team; which will enable you to take your business to higher heights.

If you need help developing the right behaviours in your team our Management Essentials Training course is available for online self-study or we can tailor it to your policies and procedures and deliver it in-house, contact us to discuss your needs here

Delegate or Drown

As an entrepreneur it can be difficult to release the reins and allow others to work on your ‘business baby’!

Both in my corporate and entrepreneur life, I have struggled with delegating the time consuming administrative and technical tasks to others, as I was SURE they couldn’t do it as well and as quickly as me and if I was going have to teach them and then check it afterwards, I may as well have done it myself! But I wasn’t doing myself any favours, I was busy being busy, and my team wasn’t learning or developing.

The whole idea of delegation is to free you up to do the high value stuff, like speaking with potential clients and delivering 100% to your pay clients, it should also mean that you can go on holiday WITHOUT your laptop, iPad and iPhone or go to your children’s school play without worrying about what’s happening in the office. After all you became an entrepreneur to have freedom and flexibility.

I’ve had many clients say they are so busy, they need help but they have no time to find someone or they just can’t find someone who they can trust to do thing just how they want it done! Fact is, it doesn’t matter how it’s done, if the end result is want you want.

So with this in mind, here are a few signs that it’s time to start delegating:

• Its 3pm, you’ve been working all day, but haven’t completed any of the MUST DO tasks on your list.
• You’ve just spend the last 3 hours trying to make ONE SIMPLE CHANGE to your website.
• You can’t remember the last time you switched your laptop before 10pm.
• You can’t remember the last time you had a no technology day. (email/mobile/facebook/twitter/instagram).
• Some days you get to the end of the day, have been ridiculously busy but can’t name a thing you’ve done and so have no sense of accomplishment.
• Your only solution (on a regular basis) is to just work through the night, so you can get everything done.

If this is you, it’s time to consider what tasks you can delegate and then train, coach and mentor your team or find a service that you can outsource some tasks to.

To find out more, check out how we can support you here.

Sure you want to be called a Leader?

In the beginning of this month’s focus on Leadership, I said that to be an entrepreneur you had to be a leader. To be successful you’ve got to do a great job of influencing and motivating your team, clients and most importantly yourself – especially when no one else sees your amazing vision!

It’s a tough life being an innovator, taking risks and daring to be different, the very definition of an entrepreneur is: ‘A person who sets up business or businesses taking on financial risk in the hope of profit’ or  ‘One who organises, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise’.

So, how do you build the mind-set needed to be a risk taker who bucks the trend and goes with their gut - with the right planning and research of course!

And the answer is RESILIENCE!

The definition of Resilience is ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness’

Resilience is all about how you deal with the challenges and obstacles that come your way. We all know that being an entrepreneur isn’t all blue sky thinking, ah-ha moments and sweet sales! The question is how you bounce back when you feel stuck or get feedback that makes you question yourself.

A little while ago, as part of a training programme I was asked to ask friends, family, colleagues and clients for 3-5 words that they would use to describe me and almost all of them said resilient. I was surprised, I didn’t write that down about myself, but as I thought about it I realised that I’d been building my resilience all my life and love proving naysayers wrong. I loved it when I passed my driving test before my ‘friend’ who said they’d get there’s before me or when I decided to go back to university to do my Masters and people told me it would be too hard as a newly-wed with a demanding full time job. I’ve never let doubt or worry prevent me for going for what I really wanted!

So, below are a few tips to help you remain focused when the only cheerleader you have is yourself:

Start your day right

I find that the tone with which I start my day has a big effect on my mood and productivity. I try to make sure that I start the day right by either going for a run or exercising most mornings. I also read a daily devotional and pray to set up my morning before the rest of my family wakes up. I find that the exercise wakes my brain up and the prayer puts my heart and mind in the right place.

Keep a Positive Attitude

I remember when I worked in customer services during my summer holidays, I realised that if angry customers shouted at me and I remained positive, I was able to calm them, sort out their issue and not feel so stressed myself. Always try to see the positive in every situation, sounds corny but there really is always a silver lining.

Don’t take things personally

Your business is your ‘baby’, as an entrepreneur it’s difficult not to take things personally as you have put all your passion into achieving your dream and taken the associated risks. I used to get very emotional when things didn’t turn out the way I planned, even when others gave me positive feedback, all I could see were the errors. You have to learn to separate your individual self-worth from the success of your business because everyone will have an opinion on your business but that doesn’t mean it’s how that think or feel about you. I’ve learnt to say “That’s an interesting idea, thank you” and let it go.

Remember you can’t please everyone

As a business owner you try to please your clients or product users and keep your team motivated. It is good that this is your focus, however remember that “You can please some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time”. You can lose focus and begin to doubt yourself and doubt and fear have killed more dreams than failure.

Try these tips this week to build your resilience and you will feel more focused and less stressed. You can find the vlog on this subject here.

Want to build your People Management resilience? Check out our online training programme here.

You're not a Coach!

A big part of developing your leadership skills, is learning how to coach, mentor and influence individuals. So I guess your question is what’s the difference and why is it important?

Well …

Coaching is … generally task or objective related, helping an individual to do something specific and once that has been completed the relationship normally ends.

Mentoring is … generally long term and future driven. They work best when the mentor isn’t directly responsible for the mentee.

Influencing is … the ability to effect the character, development or behaviour of an individual.

Now I believe that the key skills that links all of these together are LISTENING and EMPATHY.

To influence, coach and mentor you need to understand the other persons, likes, dislikes, aspirations, hopes, fears and learning style. Then package your advice and instruction accordingly.

You have to ask questions and then really listen and engage, then respond in an authentic way. It’s pointless saying “I’ve been there” when you haven’t. The idea is to use questions to help the other person come up with the solution, rather than just telling them. It takes time to build your skill at having this type of conversation without getting frustrated.

Good questions to ask include:

• What could the best outcome be?
• What part of what you just said could be an assumption?
• If I were in your shoes and asked you that question, what would you say?
• What are the positive outcomes of this negative situation?
• What would you try now if you knew you could not fail?
• When will you start?
• What are you waiting for?
• And?

This week, when your team comes to you with issues, try asking questions instead of just giving the answer (where appropriate) and see what happens. Let us know in the comment’s below. You can find our Vlog on Coaching here.

To find out more about the services we offer and book a discovery call, click here.

Happy coaching and mentoring!

Are you a Leader or a Follower?

“Leaders Bring You Along, Managers Push You Along”, have you ever heard that saying?

There are distinct differences between a manager and a leader, even though you do have leaders who manage and managers who are leaders.

Remember when you started your business? You had to motivate yourself, push forward and make things happen. You had to win that business, make the sale and convince your family, friends and funders that your business was a going concern that will be hugely successful?

You led them to understanding your business, to join you on your business journey as a client, investor or cheerleader. That’s what a leader is, someone who takes people with them, using a compelling message.

Sounds easy right?

As an entrepreneur, you need to have the skills of both a leader and a manager. It’s not easy as often influencing others can take more time than just directing them to a task! And time is always short for an entrepreneur!

However the pluses for leading your team, is that by giving them greater autonomy, you get freed up to do the high value tasks that only you have the skills to deliver and who knows what amazing ideas your team may have for improving your business, creating efficiency and increasing your bottom line.

Below are some of the differences in the behavioural characteristics of a leader and manager:

Manager v Leaders Behaviours

Manager Drives employees ... Leader Coaches them

Depends on authority ... On goodwill

Inspires Fear ... Generates enthusiasm

Says “I” ... Says “We”

Places blame for the problem ... Fixes the problem

Knows how it is done ... Shows how it’s done

Uses people ... Develops people

Takes credit ... Give credit

Commands ... Asks

Say “Go” ... Says “Let’s Go”

See my Live Video on the subject here.

Next week we will be looking at how to develop your leadership behaviours.