Small Business Growing

Archive for October, 2011

Achieving Extreme Organization: Start a Productivity Transformation with Simplicity (2)

We underestimate the impact our physical work space has on our motivation and personal productivity.

We develop habits and accept them as “normal,” but some habits can severely constrain our level of productivity, and personal satisfaction.

Here is the simple – yet overlooked – point I’d like to make in this brief post:  There is a very good chance you have way too much “stuff” in your work space, and if you do it can really slow you down, on many levels.

The structure, logic, and basic order of our physical space has everything to do with how productive we can be on any given day.

Where do you start if you want to get a more functional, deliberate, and productive design for you work space?

Start by asking and answering this question:  What can I throw out to make the space lean, more visually coherent, and eventually far more productive?

Then start somewhere…anywhere.

Pick just one focused area of your work space..maybe one file in one filing cabinet (physical or digital, and eventually both), and get that one area totally cleaned out and organized.

Then work through the whole space, one small area at a time.

Toss everything you can, being aware of legal needs to hold some docs.

Removing the things you do not actually use in the performance of work, is one first step in applying design principles to your personal performance.  The intent is a design of space and a discipline of maintenance that contributes to flow, speed, ease, organization, rapid retrieval of documents and other “things” you use to do work,  and that great feeling of being in control.

Tossing is so obvious and simple that it is often overlooked, but know that there is good theory and more than enough sophisticated thinking behind the design of uncluttered work space.

Clutter in your work space is like carrying extra weight on your shoulders.  Remove it and feel the liberation.

[Fran O'Neal is a small business owner, consultant and researcher who helps business owners use a remarkable business growth system.  He is also the founder of The Entrepreneur's Journey, an educational ministry for small business owners.]

Small Business Leadership: Listen Better, Grow More

As small business leaders we are in a steady state of dealing with business challenges that require something we have not necessarily gotten good at doing:  skillful listening.

One of the critical skills of exceptional leadership, and certainly of small business leadership, is the ability to listen consistently and skillfully.

You can start improving this skill anywhere, anytime.  And if you do, you will get “hooked” on how satisfying and rewarding it can be to really “hear” and “see” what good listening reveals.

There are dozens of ways to upgrade your listening capability, but here is one simple place to start.

Begin by asking more questions, and after you ask the question, just be quiet and listen.  The truth is, most of our conversational routines happen automatically, without much thought.  When you get aware of better listening, and start by asking more good questions, you are on the road to taking your small business leadership skill to a whole new level.

Christian Business Ministry: The Entrepreneur’s Journey

If you are a small business owner looking to grow and improve your business, we’d like for you to know about The Entrepreneur’s Journey.

The Journey is a faith-based program that explores how to grow and operate one’s enterprise on Biblical principles.

It is a journey of discovery, learning, networking, improving the quality of your business, and exploring the “Higher Calling” of your enterprise.

We spend one evening a week, for 15 weeks, going through a very structured set of topical areas that cover major subjects and disciplines to grow and improve the business.  The current Journey cohort has started, and is full, but if you have an interest, be in contact, and we can answer any questions and let you know about the next start date.

Pre-registration is required and because we limit the number of participants, it is good to get information well before the program begins.   The next Journey program will start around March of 2012.

You can also visit the Journey’s website, and do let us know if you want to know more.

Why Referral Business Does (or Does Not) Come In

For many small businesses, referral business is golden.

Nothing rivals the potential customer who comes to you with a nice recommendation from someone you previously served.

But the reality is that many small businesses are not anywhere near the volume of referral business they would like.

There are many reasons why we don’t perform at the optimal level of referral business.

We’ll discuss these reasons in future posts, but let’s start with the most important consideration.

Why would a customer be inclined to tell others about us?  The obvious answer is that they had a great experience, especially as they assess the prime deliverable they were expecting to receive from our business. In other words, the prime service or product we provide has to be delivered in such a way that the customer’s prime expectations were satisfied, at least at a level that would incline them to share us with others.

If we come up short in this, the additional; things we do to enhance customer value may have an impact at the margins, but most people will be judging us on the major service or product they expected to receive.

Bottom line:  to earn referral business get the main things delivered with excellence.  And we do this in lots of ways, one of which is to lay out clear, simple, repeatable processes and systems that get it done with consistency and reliability.

There are many ways to build referral business, but if our main deliverable is uneven or poorly executed they all become window dressing around a less that attractive centerpiece.

If you would like a more detailed essay on this topic, do request our free E-Boklet, “The Road to Repeat and Referral Business.”

A Small Business Must Do: Living Beyond The Fear Envelope

When fear is properly understood and placed within its right context, it can be a friend.

But for many people, fear sucks the life and energy right out of their spirit.

For small business owners, fear can bring a business down.

Fear does not have to be a destructive force, but the reality is that many people live with a low grade anxiety that takes the form of negative images that replay in their mind like memories of a frightening movie.

Fear is common to the human condition, but as small business owners we can learn to better channel it so that it serves a constructive, rather than a destructive purpose.

Use this short article to assess whether you have unhealthy fear in your life, and consider what strides your business could make if you were living with less irrational fear.

Conduct a life experiment in which you ask and answer the question,

How different would my life be if I lived each day, with fear only serving a positive purpose?”

If you direct attention on just how much fear you have, you may discover that it is playing more of a role than you realized.  Like many thought patterns, fearful thinking can become so automatic that it starts to be invisible. We become automatic in our reactions, and the fear sits below the surface, but it impacts how we think, feel, and act.

As with so many positive changes in our life, it starts with getting conscious and fully aware of how we are thinking.

What impact does fear have?  In its negative form, fear reduces our sense of confidence, undercuts our ability to take action (fear paralyzes), gives us a distorted view of reality, and puts us in an anxious state where we are liable to over-react to life’s setbacks.

What is the path toward a more fear-less life?

Start with the experiment mentioned above.  Just take one fear that is present in your life, and assess what impact it is having on how you think and feel.  How would your life change if you could live without the negative presence of this fear?

We’ll discuss a few simple strategies to reduce or eliminate irrational fear next time, but just getting conscious of it is a great start.  You may find that simply becoming aware of fear starts to get it off “automatic pilot” and reduces its presence.