Action Coach Portsmouth

Action Coach Portsmouth

Chloe Smith

Fire bullets, then Cannonballs

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You’ve probably heard us sing the praises of a fantastic book called ‘Good to Great.’ It’s a fast-paced management book in which the author, Jim Collins, explores concepts which enable organisations to take the leap from good to great.

Today, we’re going to look into a theory explained within ‘Good to Great’ which talks about bullets and cannonballs.

Bullets vs cannonballs – which to fire and when?

Imagine you’re about to spend some money on marketing. We often liken this to the process of firing bullets or cannonballs. Cannonballs may be an effective means of hitting your target, but they take time to load, they’re difficult to aim and costly to use repeatedly. On the other hand, bullets are easier to aim and are a fraction of the price.

Captains of boats who engage in battle tend to fire multiple bullets to assess speed and distance before loading up their cannonballs. The cannonballs are saved until there’s a greater likelihood of successfully hitting a target. Plus, if you were to shoot first with cannonballs, you’ll soon deplete your stock and fail. This idea holds true in business. Rather than using all of your resources on one new idea, test in small increments and make adjustments until you have the right strategy for success.

Put simply, if we wish to find out where our target market is and where we can find new customers, we’ve got to fire some bullets and test some areas. For example, how many people are likely to respond to a direct mail? We have to think small and test things out on a small percentage of people to actually discover a target market.

Effective ammunition – firing bullets before cannonballs

The principle of firing bullets before cannonballs enables you to gain an understanding as to where an approach or marketing strategy would work, the amendments which should be made before a launch or even whether the idea or strategy should be shelved because of poor ‘hits’. Bullets before cannonballs is a tried and tested approach to getting it right. Whether that’s business direction, a marketing strategy, personnel changes or any business leadership principle, we’d recommend you read any of the strategic management books by Jim Collins. ‘Good to Great’ discusses this in depth and includes many relevant case studies where bullets vs cannonballs and other interesting strategies are put to the test.

If you’d like to learn more about these principles and how they can transform your business, we’d love to help you. Feel free to get in touch.

What does it take to be a great leader?

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While ‘leadership’ may be defined as the quality or ability to make a person a leader, there’s far more to it than that. Effective leadership is the key to achieving progress and success both at an individual level as well as across the organisation.

During International Leadership Week, we’re taking a look at what it means to be a great leader and looking at leadership styles in terms of analysing long term goals and objectives for success.

What does it mean to be a great leader?

When we think of great leaders, well-known names in business or politics may spring to mind, but what determines them as great? Are there definite traits we can consider as being essential for effective leadership?

Let’s delve a bit deeper. Whose leadership style do you admire and why? What’s the difference between your personal leadership style and the way your inspirational leader behaves or portrays themselves? Are there any behavioural aspects in your own style that either need improving or even totally eliminating?

As action coaches, we believe the answer to great leadership is a combination of ability, education, learning and upskilling – the act of achieving success through successfully aligning the why, the what, the how and the way.

Defining your leadership style

Now let’s turn the tables and think about ourselves. What style of leadership do you wish to define for yourself and expect from others in your organisation? Remember, your role as a leader is to motivate, empower and develop others, so what style do you wish to embed in them?

A personal leadership challenge

Being aware of your personal style – strengths, weaknesses, etc – will enable you to bring value to the people you lead and the organisation you work in.

So my challenge to you this week involves looking in the mirror, analysing your current leadership style and being honest with yourself. Be brutal in thinking about where your leadership style is at today versus where you’d ideally like it to be in the future. Then you’ll need to work out the steps needed to get there.

As an individual, what behaviours, traits or characteristics do you need to change? Where do your real strengths and talents lie, and are there any areas of education and learning that you’ll need to implement or adapt? Take time to think about your working day too. Do you spend enough time delegating tasks, encouraging others and giving them the freedom to make decisions?

It’s likely that this challenge may involve stepping outside of your comfort zone, but remember that there’s no clear cut answer for the best leadership style. It’s a question of identifying how to get the most out of your colleagues, understanding your organisation and putting in place an effective combination of style and techniques.

We’d love to hear how you’ve adapted your own leadership style, or how you’ve brought small but effective changes in your team. Feel free to give us a call on 02392 454 111 to share your story, or get in touch if you’d like us to help you achieve your goals.

The Compound Effect – How To Achieve Success

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Do you remember throwing stones into a pond or river, and watching how the tiny ripples they caused eventually spread out and grew?

Well, today I’m going to focus on that principle and tell you about ‘The Compound Effect,’ and how it can really make a positive impact on both your personal and business goals.

What is ‘The Compound Effect’

Quite simply, The Compound Effect is the ripple that’s achieved from the choices we make in life or in our everyday business decisions. As we all know, changing the habits of a lifetime or implementing new processes and procedures is a real challenge. How many times have we started the New Year with every good intention to resolve a situation, improve our lives or to start something new, only to find that those resolutions have been pushed to one side and forgotten about?

How can The Compound Effect work for you?

As action coaches we’ve worked with individuals and businesses of all sizes across many sectors. A common theme we’ve seen is that there’s always a big goal or a big change we can make in that business or to that individual’s life which will result in success.

However, much like those ripples in the water, we need to start small. Think about the areas of your business or personal life that need changing or improving, but instead of focusing on one big change to achieve that 180 degree result, concentrate on small tweaks. Those small changes, which you might normally dismiss as unnecessary or unnoticeable, when added together – The Compound Effect – have the ability to spread out and achieve great things.

Putting The Compound Effect into practice

So what small steps can you implement? As you engage your team, think about what changes they can make in the business? If you all pull together the compound effect is going to have a massive and measurable outcome.

Let’s think about it this way. If you make regular 1% incremental changes on a continual basis, eventually you’ll get to 100% of your target. So what are the 100 things you could change? Could you delegate some of these out to your team? Would they be easy to implement, and how quickly could you achieve those 100 tasks?

An exciting challenge

The more you start to think about The Compound Effect and the difference it can make to your business or personal life, the more exciting it becomes.

My challenge to you this week is to discover the 100 things you need to do to your business over the next 90 or 180 days which will have a compound effect and bring about massive change.

Remember to start small and work together as a team. Soon you’ll see how those everyday mundane or meaningless tasks are now having a positive impact in delivering the unexpected.

We’d love to hear how ‘The Compound Effect’ has helped you. Feel free to give us a call on 02392 454 111 to share your story, or get in touch if you’d like us to work with you to help achieve your goals.

Talk Money Week 2021: The importance of cash flow

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With the nation being encouraged to ‘join the conversation’ during Talk Money Week 2021, we’re talking about the importance of cash flow: what it is, why it’s important, and how you can measure and improve cash flow in your business.

It’s a fact that most businesses fail because they run out of cash and are unable to pay their bills.

Take, for example, the high-profile bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008; the biggest bankruptcy filing ever in the USA. One of the most successful and oldest investment banks in the world that failed not because it ran out of clients or sales but because it had insufficient assets to settle its liabilities, i.e., not enough cash to settle its debts. Ignoring this basic business principle brought down an organisation with $600 billion in assets.

What is cash flow?

Cash flow is, quite simply, the total amount of money being transferred into and out of a business.

The business word for cash flow is “liquidity” and is defined as the ability to quickly turn assets into cash and pay liabilities when they become due. To improve liquidity you have to speed up the conversion of stock into sales and debtors into cash while keeping creditors to a minimum.

Why is having cash flow important?

Irrelevant of the size of your business, your cash flow is vital. You have probably heard the saying, “Turnover is vanity, profit is reality but cash is sanity” and it’s the reason why the first thing I look at with my clients is how to improve their cash flow.

Without the cash to pay your staff, buy stock and pay the rent on your premises, your business cannot function, no matter how fast sales are growing and how successful it may appear to be.

  • The biggest blockages for most businesses are:
  • They are bad at collecting their debts
  • They are slow at converting their stock into sales
  • They are under-utilising their assets and not bringing in enough sales to cover their costs (here I’m referring to people and equipment)
  • They are running up more debt to keep the business afloat

Money is the lifeblood of a business; it needs to flow. If it stops flowing then, just like a river, pressure will start to build up and trouble will follow.

How can I measure and improve my cash flow?

The first step is to measure what you want to improve. In his book Keys to the Vault, Keith Cunningham states that financial indicators are the scorecard of business. If you do not know how to keep score, you can’t play the game. The quicker your game is being played the more often you need to keep the score.

For some businesses, it’s sufficient to check the key financial indicators on a monthly basis. For some, it may be a daily basis. But remember to avoid “paralysis by analysis” – choose the key indicators that are going to give you the information you need and act on the information quickly when required.

Some key indicators are:

  • Liquidity ratio – current assets / current liabilities
  • Debtor days – average number of days your clients take to pay
  • Creditor days – average number of days you take to pay your suppliers
  • Stock turnover – average number of days you hold stock
  • Bank balance – how much cash you have
  • Cashflow forecast – projection of your daily/weekly cash flow requirements

Now you are measuring your cash flow regularly, how can you improve it? Some of the best and simplest strategies that I have used with clients are as follows:

  • Request or increase an up-front deposit from customers
  • Ensure work is finished quickly and dispatched on time
  • Invoice immediately or on a more regular basis
  • Reduce your payment terms and charge interest to late payers
  • Have a debt collection policy and apply it rigorously
  • Review your overheads regularly
  • Minimise stock holdings and order on a ‘Just In Time’ system
  • Ask suppliers for better payment terms or discounts
  • Realise old/slow-moving stock and assets

For more advice on cash flow and how we can help you and your business, book your free, no-obligation call with one of our coaches online or call us on 02392 454 111.

5 tips for a healthy work-life balance

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National Work Life Week logo

It’s National Work Life Week from 11 – 15 October 2021 where employers and employees are encouraged to talk about wellbeing at work and work-life balance.

Adopting a positive work-life culture is key to building and retaining a healthy workforce. Quite alarmingly, in a recent survey conducted by Randstad, work-life balance was hailed as more important than salary for two thirds of Brits. Of course, it’s important every single year but this year, after spending the best part of 18 months doing everything from home, the work-life separation has become somewhat blurred.

 

With more businesses implementing hybrid and flexible working, here are our top 5 tips for business owners and their teams on how they can achieve a great work-life balance:

1) Start by listening

Use a confidential survey where staff feel free to tell you exactly how happy they are with their current work-life balance. Ask for their opinions on their top three barriers to switching off from work and what most affects their wellbeing at work. Knowing this will help you provide an effective range of solutions for your team to tap into.

There are a number of free platforms including Google Forms and Survey Monkey you can use to create your survey.

2) Extend the sense of support

Especially in today’s world, many employees dedicate their lives to their jobs and, more often than not, this can impact their personal lives. As an employer, it’s your responsibility to ensure that their downtime is kept exactly that.

Encouraging them to practise activities such as a 15-minute shutdown at the end of the working day, whether working from home or the office, will help to feel released from the work mindset, boosting productivity, motivation for tomorrow and a general feeling of accomplishment for today.

3) Stress relievers

Support your local business community by bringing in a variety of stress-relieving activities for your teams. From a simple pub lunch or lunch delivery through to escape rooms and spa days as rewards, bringing people together and rewarding them for consistently great performance at work strikes a healthy balance between work and play.

4) Prevent burnout

If you’re worried about taking quality time away from work, imagine if you were forced to stop working because of burnout. Provide a system for your staff to handover work during holiday time or shared shift patterns so they know they can switch off and recharge knowing the work isn’t stacking up while they are away.

5) Take care of your own wellbeing

Don’t forget, to be the best leader, your wellbeing must be looked after too. It’s important to take time out and practise what you preach to your team. There will be members of your team who will relish stepping up while you take some well-deserved time off!

It’s a stark fact that, according to the 2020 UK Workplace Stress Survey conducted by Perkbox, only 1 in 53 employees would choose to discuss their concerns with a superior at work, whilst 16% of people are prepared to leave companies that are causing too much stress.

Encouraging work-life balance should be a priority for businesses because attracting and retaining quality staff is the difference between being a good business and a great one.