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setting business goals

How To Set Quality Business Goals

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2 MIN READ

Goal setting in business is the holy grail of success. As they say, what gets measured gets improved. If you can quantify the current performance of you and your team, you can then begin to track how things are improving or diminishing over a period of time. That’s where Performance Goals come in. Not all businesses operate in the same manner, so not all Performance Goals will be equally suited to all companies. 

When you’re setting goals with each member of your team you need to understand the type of goals that will be most helpful for creating accountability and enhancing performance. 

setting business goals

“Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.”
Napoleon Hill

Setting Lag Goals

Lag goals are usually results-oriented, meaning their achievement comes directly from your routine business activity. Lag goals are easy to measure but not as easy to improve or influence. These goals target outcomes such as the number of sales made or the amount of revenue produced. 

Setting Lead Goals

Lead goals measure what is actually being done in the here and now. They are easier to influence or improve because they deal with immediate progress and show the likelihood that you will reach your aims.

To put it simply, the difference between lead goals and lag goals is the difference between counting the number of workouts you do and counting the number of kilos you lose. The workouts are directly within your control, while the weight loss is something you cross your fingers for in hope. 

When you’re setting your business goals, be clear on the difference between lead goals (which target your daily and weekly routine activities) and lag goals (which target the results or the output of that activity).

 

Goals Should Be Countable

Performance goals are lead goals so they must always measure countable, finite things. Tracking subjectivities like feelings or experiences is best done using survey ratings, or by tracking a tell-tale action at work.  

Quality Goals Solve Problems

Performance Goals are most valuable when they are focused on solving specific problems in your business such as improving your sales, revenue, accuracy, and customer satisfaction.

Direct Your Business Goals Towards Your Company Mission

Make sure some of your Performance Goals relate directly to how you’re going with fulfilling your company mission and vision.

Track Progress Of  Your Achievements

Your Performance Goals should also track your progress towards keeping your company promises to your staff and also your customers. 

Make Your Goals Sustainable

To make your Performance Goals sustainable, set up routines to track and measure performance, then routines to review the data. 

improving business efficiency

How To Choose What To Offer In Your Business

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2 MIN READ

Choosing what to offer in business is often one of the biggest strategic challenges business owners face.

Over the years you’ve probably tried lots of different ways to take your services to market. It’s likely you have developed plenty of different packages and taken on a multitude of different projects or clients to keep the cash flowing in the right direction. That flexible responsiveness is essential in the early years of your business when you are testing the market to see what works. It will also be essential to your ongoing success as market needs and available technologies continue to change and improve. But when you’re working to bring the best out in your remote team, there’s a need for restraint.

improving business efficiency

“I wanted to figure out why I was so busy but I couldn’t find the time to do it”
Todd Stocker

A business without a clearly defined focus on what they offer and how they deliver it simply can’t grow. If you’re chopping and changing on a whim your business is reactionary, impulsive and directionless. A business like that waters down their reputation and confuses the message they take to market. You can’t experience the big growth you want if people are confused about what you do.

It’s also impossible to manage the operations of a business that keeps changing or has too many different tasks going on. If you expect your remote team to be able to work with confidence and independence, you will strategically eliminate all the noisy, frantic, unnecessary tasks from their days and give them clear and specific boundaries about what they need to do and how they need to do it.

To be plain:
One of the best things you can do for your business is to reduce how much is being done, and simplify how those things are done. Five of the best ways to do this:

1. Work with a coach to clarify your core message and refine your offerings
2. Stop delivering packages that don’t make you real money
3. Limit the amount of time you work to dramatically highlight your real business priorities
4. Use a process map to cut out the inefficiencies that waste time and money
5. Get clever with automations to eliminate repetitive tasks

“Freedom is people realising they are their own leader.” Diane Nash

Leading Your Team Starts WIth Leading Yourself

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2 MIN READ

Leading your team well starts with you rising to the challenge of leading yourself. It’s a vital starting point for everyone in leadership, but especially for those running a business. Rates of anxiety, depression and burnout are horrifying for business owners. It’s a fact that 82% of entrepreneurs face burn out at least once in their career.

Leading yourself in strength and autonomy is a life-long mission that will have new mountains unfolding at every step of the journey. We could spend months on why it’s so important to nurture yourself, and how to keep reaching new heights of your own potential. But let’s focus today on some essential reminders to keep you on the straight and narrow of your own self-care. This is the only way you will experience increased success in leading your team.

“Freedom is people realising they are their own leader.” Diane Nash

Establish Routines That Serve You

Take a look around the landscape of your “normal life”. Honestly evaluate how you’re going with managing the areas that are key to fulfilment and well-being. Boldly ask yourself if you’re happy with the state of your health, your relationships, your mindset and mood, your financial management, your business growth, and other areas that are important to you as a person. Build the systems you need to grow your business sustainably.

Build Relationships That Lift You Up

Jim Rohn says we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. I’ve found this to be so literally true that it has made me quite ruthless with the way I manage my calendar. Your friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances all leave a deposit as they move in and out of your life. Make sure you’re filling your mindset bank with ambition, learning and encouragement.

Defend Boundaries For Fulfilment

It’s all too easy to let things slide. To say yes to a small thing when you should have said no. To compromise on choices with your health, time, finances and general well-being. Only you control your choices, and only you have the power to say no when there are more important, valuable things to take care of. Your life will be defined by what you say no to.

Embrace Change With Every Part Of Your Being

If you want to enjoy different outcomes in your business it means moving away from the old into the new. It will take some bold steps to learn new skills and some clever thinking to resolve problems that will arise along the way. But the life you want doesn’t exist in how things were, or even how they are now. Every single thing you have ever wanted can only come when you create change. This is how you can achieve new freedom in business.

Guard Your Outlook

Feeling afraid, pessimistic, unworthy and overwhelmed are all normal human responses to hard times. But none of these feelings are the absolute truth. They’re real because you are feeling them, but they’re also fleeting. They can be dealt with by reminding yourself there are greater truths of success, ambition and empowerment that you can bet on. How you see determines what you see. 

managing your inbox

Managing Your Inbox With These 5 Steps

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3 MIN READ

Managing your email inbox means more than simply staying on top of things. With your inbox clutter-free and in control, you and your team will enjoy greater productivity and clarity at work. It might take you a while to get on top of your inbox and bring your emails down to a level that you’re personally happy with. Along the way, developing more productive habits for managing your inbox is the essential step to building sustainable, healthy email habits. 

It’s entirely normal to feel overwhelmed when you open your inbox each day. People spend about 28% of their workweek dealing with emails, which equates to about 13hrs of low level, reactive work that rarely results in progress. Only 38% of the emails in the average inbox are important and relevant to your core business. This means the rest of all that administrative bulk is nothing more than noisy junk that needs to be cleared efficiently before you drown in the quicksand. That feeling is not imaginary. Research has proven that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover from an email interruption, which erodes away your peace and sense of control in your work.   

Let’s simplify this for you by setting up a simple system to respond more decisively to all those messages. The next time you open your inbox, choose which of these five categories apply to each unopened email and respond accordingly. 

Delete

Is this email essentially junk that you simply don’t need or want to read? This is an easy decision to make: Delete that email forever! 

You’re best also to decide this point if you ever want to receive this email again from this sender. If not, take 10 seconds to unsubscribe from this sender, or create a filter to automatically delete the email the next time it hits your inbox.

managing your inbox

Delegate

There will be emails that need to be dealt with, but not by you. Create a simple process to put that email on someone else’s desk. You could forward the email to a team member with a quick message to instruct them on how you want the matter handled. Or, if you’re comfortable with giving someone else access to your inbox, you could create a folder for them inside your email account. Then when they log in they can head straight for the folder with their name on it and get busy dealing with the messages you saved inside. Mastering the fine art of delegation is simple with more tips here.

Delay

Reducing the feelings of desperate urgency that can arise when emails come in is an essential benefit of managing your inbox well. When emails come in they reflect the sender’s agenda, which does not always align with your own. Set up ways to deal with matters when it suits you. You might ‘star’ emails that you plan to deal with later at a set time each week, or put them in their own ‘Later’ folder to be opened at a scheduled time that fits with your schedule. 

Reply

Many emails in your inbox can be cleared with a simple, quick reply. Bounce emails back to the sender with a super short response which keeps things moving and off your desk like a hot potato. Using templates if you can will make this process even quicker for you and your team. 

Keeping these emails short and sweet is key. Don’t be drawn into lengthy, unnecessary stretches of dialogue when replying to emails. The less time you spend typing, the faster you can move on to more important things in your day.

You might also want to think about including a message to explain your preference for brief messages in your email footer. If your core values permit this approach, you can write up a friendly statement like this for your email footer:

Thanks for your email. You might notice my reply is short and sweet. We do this on purpose. It’s not that your message is unimportant. It’s that we just love to keep things moving here at [BUSINESS NAME]. Spending less time in our emails is a big part of that. We appreciate doing business with you and hope you understand. 

Do

The last category of emails is the most important for you to work with. These are the ones that require you to take substantial action. They will be the emails related to ongoing projects, client work, supplier arrangements, business partnerships or other matters central to your business growth. Processing all your other emails quickly and efficiently will give you the time and headspace you need to do this ‘real work’ hidden away inside your inbox. 

Successfully managing your email inbox is a journey, rather than a destination. Be patient with yourself as you get busy clearing the bulk of your email overload. Be realistic about what you can actually achieve. Avoid falling onto the trendy trap of shooting for Inbox Zero. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

resilience for business owners

3 Ways Resilience Blocks Business Growth

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3 MIN READ

Resilience for business owners is usually something people think of highly. Pushing through hardship to emerge victoriously is celebrated by successful business owners everywhere. It is certainly an asset to be able to battle through challenges in business. Surviving tough times is an essential aspect of business success, but is it always a positive thing?

Don’t get me wrong. You should be genuinely proud of the way you have grown your business, holding on with white-knuckled determination to make it through. Like all your peers, things have not always been easy for you in business. But you have prevailed. Every win you’ve enjoyed has been possible because you gritted your teeth and decided to battle through. You chose to forge a pathway of success right through the eye of the storm.

“Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.” Nelson Mandela

Resilience is essential for business owners intent on achieving increasing levels of success. However, there is a risk that the pride you take in your ability to push through could be holding you back. Let me explain …

Resilience focuses on survival instead of growth

When you’re battling it out in the trenches of adversity, making it out alive is the name of the game. You need to harness every resource you have and direct all your efforts towards overcoming the threat. It is vital that when tough times come, you have the strength, tenacity and determination to survive. This approach itself is not a problem, but it can’t draw you on to greater heights.

If you’re a survivor you need resilience, but if you have the visionary aspirations of a leader you will rise from strength to strength to build a legacy others only dream of. This is how you can lead your business away from the battler phase through to wide open spaces of lasting influence. Shifting away from the survival mentality empowers ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results in their business.

A dependency on hardship can become an identity problem

Business owners should take pride in their resilience. In fact, often this resilience becomes a defining attribute of the person themselves. When you pride yourself on being the one who pushes through, others will notice. You will inspire others to keep fighting through their own tough times, and you will likely inspire yourself. These are all good things.

But if the story ends there, you will always be tied to the battle, and you will inadvertently create a model for others to stay tied to their battles too. If you ultimately see yourself as a battler, you will always be drawn to battles. As a result, you will never be free of those battles. You will never rise above to access freedom, abundance, and true wealth. How you see changes what you see. Lift your vision beyond the trenches. Do away with the drama. Don’t look for what you can achieve by winning the fight. Instead, look outside the fight altogether. Imagine what life could be like if you weren’t caught that cycle any more.

Resilience attracts battlers

“It’s great to see you! How have you been?”

“Oh, it’s been tough. I’ve got problems with my staff, delays with my suppliers, and my daughter is 16 going on 35. Need I say more!”

“Yes, I know what you mean. I’ve been working late all month fixing mistakes my staff made, and I’ve got stock stuck on a dock because of a strike. And my son… suspended for two days because he just can’t keep his mouth shut. I’m hearing you.”

Does this type of conversation sound familiar to you? Like attracts like. If you’re wearing your tough times like a badge of honour, chances are you’ll find others who approach life exactly the same way. Jim Rohn says you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. Take a look around your circle and honestly evaluate the attitudes your closest people have. Then, pause to consider the effect this might be having on you and your attitude.

At the end of the day, resilience will get you through almost anything, so it is vital for business success. But it is only ever useful amidst hardships. Isn’t life meant to be a little better than that?

Why busienss leaders must work less

Why Leaders Simply Must Work Less

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3 MIN READ

Self care for business owners is often conceived as an “indulgent luxury” that many believe they can’t afford. Are you like the average business leader wearing your long work hours like a badge of honour? Many owners pour blood sweat and tears into building their company with the pride of a martyr. Have you stopped to consider the price you are really paying?

I’m a big fan of hard work. However, if all that effort is not actually bringing you the results you want, maybe it’s time to look for a better way. There are several reasons that looking after yourself equates to preserving the best interests of your company. Self care for business owners comes down to realising that business health and personal health go hand in hand.

A Tired Body Can’t Work Well

Did you know the average person spends 649,401 hours sleeping during their lifetime? I bet there are some days you’d love to stack up 10 or 20 of those hours and enjoy them all in one go! Caring for yourself does not only come down to managing a healthy diet and an active lifestyle. SleepFoundation.org tells us that sleep is just as important as diet and exercise.

Crafting a lifestyle that allows you to go to bed early most nights of the week will work wonders for your personal health. As a result, your performance at work will be more energised, focused and productive. Set up some firm boundaries around how you manage your schedule to make sure you are in the driver’s seat of your sleep pattern.

A Tired Brain Can’t Solve Problems

Exhaustion will always lead you quickly to survival mode. As a result, your vision narrows to focus only on perceived threats. Your ability to reason progressively shuts down. Reactivity replaces deliberation. A real or even perceived threat can help mobilise your attention. However, this is not the approach of a well-balanced leader. When it comes to solving complex problems that have multiple variables, you need your highest cognitive resources.

Real-life has certainly shown us that threats can come out of the blue. A clear, well-rested brain can gauge multiple factors of any given challenge much more effectively than one that is tired and overwhelmed. Set aside time each week for thinking. Yoga might suit you, or meditation. Perhaps you’re more like me and love getting your heart rate up with some exercise. Do whatever you need to do to clear your mind so you can approach challenges with your best foot forward.

A Tired Heart Can’t Connect

I’ve never met a business owner who was not motivated by the desire to spend more time with the people they love. Being your own boss always involves the freedom to enjoy healthy fulfilling relationships with those you hold dear. When we’re looking at ways to increase levels of self care for business owners, this must be overtly connected to enhancing intimate connections.

When you miss out on sleep you become snappy, irritable and stressed. A recent study from the National Sleep Foundation found that 25% of participating couples were too sleep-deprived to even have sex. Exhaustion and burnout were never the aims you set out to achieve in your business. If you have been too busy to change this situation for yourself, perhaps you would consider adjusting your lifestyle for the sake of the relationships you have with your family and friends.

Why busienss leaders must work less

“Leaders live by choice, not by accident.” ~ Mark Gorman

A Tired Mind Can’t Create

Your business growth relies first and foremost upon creativity, innovation, and mastery of change. Prioritising time to rest and recharge will not only create space for more of your brilliant ideas. It will also a ignite the leader in you so your team are also encouraged to bring their best innovations and ideas.

Overworking suffocates your business growth. Far too many owners spend too long in video conferences and phone calls, too much time in front of your computer, and too many hours running the hamster wheel of business life. This results in you inadvertently wasting the very resource your business needs to remain vibrant and alive: creativity. Nurture your inventive self, and show up at work fresh for your team to champion their creativity as well.

A Tired Spirit Can’t Imagine

Effective self care for business owners celebrates you as the inspired genius who conceived this entire operation in the first place. It was your big idea that got this business off the ground. Things have continued to move forward because of your insight and your creative flair. The one thing that only you can offer your growing company is the inspiration of a leader.

Perhaps it would be wise to pause and ask yourself about the life you want to create moving forward. With so much up in the air right now, it is the perfect time to conduct a bit of an overhaul. At the end of the day, you may as well pursue the life you actually want, right?

 

time management tips that work

The Little Things Make Big Things Happen

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4 MIN READ

Time management is a term so overly used that it has come to mean almost nothing. In our supremely fast-paced society, we dedicate our days to grand projects and pressing deadlines. We set goals and push through daily pressures, resistance and obstacles to achieve them. Sometimes it is easy to become so focussed on the elusive rewards of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that we become disconnected from the here and now. 

If your aim is to become the master of time management, it’s time to grab hold of one simple truth:

It’s the little things that make big things happen. 

On their own, most of the little jobs and activities you do each day don’t amount to much. Even if you had constantly clean workplaces, crystal clear filing and record-breaking levels of output, they wouldn’t make that much of a difference in themselves.

time management tips that work

“Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.” Lord Chesterfield

Lasting impact is made when each small part of your business system flows freely. This is the only way any organisation can consistently generate positive change. Effective time management comes down to these five simple principles:

Leaders Maximise Their Time

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” Michael Altshuler

When it comes to making the most of your time, it’s all too easy to fall into the victim trap without even realising it. With your overfull schedule this week you might wonder how you will get anything done. The phone rings and you need to attend to someone else’s urgent priority. Then there are your family, friends and team members who seem to need you constantly.

If your schedule is too busy you are the only one who can change that. Regardless of the demands on your time or the pressures around you, you do have the capability to carve out the time you need. Block out No Go Zones that are reserved for the achievement of your aims without negotiation.

 

Effective Planning Is Foundational To Time Management

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Abraham Lincoln

Jumping headlong into the first task that pops into your mind without mapping out a plan is a recipe for time-wasting. Develop a system which reminds you of the routine tasks you need to complete regularly, and schedule time for these. Then set up a notes system to get all those work thoughts out of your head and recorded somewhere for reference. I love my Rocketbook for this (and so does the environment 😉  ).

Once you have all those tasks and projects out of your head and in front of you, it’s time to map out a plan. Larger projects are best managed with software such as Trello, Asana or Monday.com. Work that can be completed in one sitting should be set as daily goals. The message here is to plan your work then work your plan.

 

Managing Time Means Forget About Multi-Tasking

“The shorter way to do many things is to only do one thing at a time.” Mozart

Slipping into old habits of distraction is a perfectly normal challenge to overcome when mastering the use of your time. You might find your self with 20 browser tabs open at any given time. Perhaps you have three emails drafts that can’t be sent until you complete them. Maybe you have shiny new tech tools that you bought but never got around to installing or implementing. You might even tell yourself your brain works best with multiple pots on the boil.

If increasing your output whilst reducing stress is your aim, this has to stop. You can’t argue with science. Your brain is not capable of giving high-level attention and focus to more than one task at one time. Set up one task, work on it until it is done, then focus on switching quickly between tasks. If you need to capture those runaway thoughts that spring up while you’re working, make a habit of working with a notebook beside you.

 

Prioritise Your Efforts To Make The Most Of Your Time

“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important.” Steven Covey

Setting boundaries around your life’s most vital priorities, then maintaining these boundaries ruthlessly is key. This is the only way to succeed in making the most of your time. Not everything you are tasked with is urgent. Indeed not everything you have on your plate right now is important. Some of the things on your to-do list are probably not even relevant to where you’re headed. If you’re struggling with knowing what to invest your time and effort into, your first step to managing your time well is to sort that out.

I realised long ago that true success is about choosing what you want, then choosing what you are willing to give up to get it. Dedicate yourself to clarifying exactly what you want out of your life. Commit to finding what you want to give back. Purchase some personal development books to focus your vision. You might even reach out to a coach or mentor to help you find your purpose.

 

What Does Your Time Really Mean?

At the end of the day, the big things in your life rely on the little things to work. Mastering each moment is the only way to truly create the impact you’re looking for. Functioning smoothly in wide open workspaces elevates your performance. Quickly accessing quality resources fuels transformational outcomes. Producing exemplary results every time turns your workers into leaders. All of this comes back to their ability to make the most of their time.

Becoming empowered with skills and strategies to master your time, means the energy you spend on the little things feeds the achievement of the big thing. When companies function this way, every effort contributes to the delivery of solutions which change your clients’ world.  

 

Power Doesn’t Come From Within

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3 MIN READ

Empowering yourself as a leader starts with connecting your personal capacity with the opportunities you can find in the world. Facing upheaval often causes many of us to question how much control we really have in our lives. There are so many things we simply have no power over in life. However, it’s important to remember that even amidst the most brutal circumstances, we are powerful to withstand and even affect dramatic change.

Quite simply, we do not lack power. But sometimes, it’s easy to become confused about how to activate that power to face everyday challenges. Massive problems arise when you try to empower yourself as a leader by trying to manufacture a power you can’t actually believe.

You Need To Prove Your Capacity To Believe It

You are a smart person. You’re intelligent, thoughtful, and reflective about yourself and the difference you want to make. As a result, you need evidence for your beliefs. A motivational seminar will make you feel great, but it won’t necessarily prove that you are powerful. Positive affirmations will help you, but they won’t allow you to actually demonstrate your capacity. Even when you visualise yourself rising to new heights, you still lack the experiential evidence that your highly evolved brain needs to be convinced that you can really reach those peaks.

IMG_4401.JPG

I’d like to suggest that the journey of empowering yourself as a leader relies on you putting your own power into action. Like all of us, you have a unique power primed for activation within yourself. To realise your unique capacity, you need to embrace the reality that empowerment can only be situational.

The opportunities we need to empower ourselves as leaders come from the world around us

I lost my voice in 2009 after working through a sinus infection I developed while teaching. The effects of the injury sent me into a spiral of powerlessness which lasted a total of eighteen gruelling months of isolation. Progressively, I developed a very healthy depression complete with flourishing drinking habit. I was a mess, emotionally, physically, spiritually and socially. It was the most disempowered I have ever felt.

Making positive progress through this dark time depended on me proving to myself that I really was in control of myself.  To stop drinking and start to win over the depression, I had to go without the drink. Then I had to start performing the actions of a happy person: running, laughing, dancing, loving my friends and family actively. This season taught me lessons that have helped me ever since. It just might help you muster up your own fullness as well:

TODAY’S BEST IS TOMORROW’S BENCHMARK:

Following a pathway of genuine improvement is the only way to empower yourself as a leader, because this provides daily proof that you can withstand and even create change. This means taking on a lifestyle of constant increase, always pursuing new heights. You get to enjoy the rewards of this moment while taking in the panoramic views of the bright future ahead.

Living this way means that you can resist backing down or making compromises, even when tough times come. This mindset means this part of your life is better than it has ever been before, and it can only get better from here.

NEVER BREAK A DEAL WITH YOURSELF:

You will never believe you are powerful if you watch yourself fail at commitments. Honestly, you are better to never make the commitment in the first place than make one and break it. This is because your self-respect is the central pillar of your power. Once you make a promise to yourself, you must keep it if you want to succeed in empowering yourself as a leader.

I encourage you to pause before you make a commitment because failing to achieve them can have a damaging and even destructive effect. Instead, try this approach to goal setting:

SET UP WINS, NOT GOALS:

Rather than being set in stone, your goals can function more as an expectation of the sequence of wins you have set yourself up for. You will always get better at being your best if you simply practice being that person in your daily life. To pursue any goal you must first let go of it. This relief from striving will prevent you from the burnout that comes from chasing big goals that seem unobtainable. And it will allow you to take new risks in business without the pressure of being tied to the outcome.

Remember your most reliable source of empowerment comes from the small smaller wins you achieve consistently. The greatest endeavour is making a life that allows you to string these wins together.

 

You can take each of these three approaches into every area of your life when empowering yourself as a leader. The attributes of self-respect, constant improvement, persistence, and celebrating wins will always offer more lasting reward than finite, limited progress. These attributes give us the lasting proof you need to believe that you are able to make a lasting difference.  Watch your own successful performance in the world, then transform that evidence into the belief that you can turn any disaster into an opportunity for growth and achievement.

 

business leaders inspiring their staff

Why Business Leaders Shift From Inspired to Inspiring

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4 MIN READ

Like most of us, business leaders all over the world are looking for inspiration. Billions of dollars are generated each year in sales related to self-help. People spend money on life coaches, motivational speakers, and courses or events which inspire attendees to achieve new greatness. It is a massive consumer industry on the rise. Soul searching millennials, stressed-out parents, and ambitious career builders are all on the hunt for the next way to elevate themselves and enhance their futures.

To participate in this trend is easy. Social media provides access to the promotion of resources that never end. The internet delivers materials right to your inbox or Zoom screen. Your global community joins you in celebrating the learning and development. They cheer you on as you advance towards your potential.

It feels great too! Who wouldn’t want to join an army of optimistic people on a mission to achieve more, be better, pursue their own personal greatness? Sharing with others as they come into their own is uplifting; doing that yourself can be euphoric.

But today, a question for business leaders:

Are you merely inspired yourself, or do you inspire others?

“A boss has the title, a leader has the people,” Simon Sinek

There is a massive difference between sitting in the crowd and presenting from the stage. When you’re building a business, it’s all about commanding that leadership role.

Inspiration is not conveyed by mere osmosis. Simply being positive and optimistic about how things are going in your business will not make your team automatically positive and optimistic too. Influential business leaders know it’s vital to shift from being inspired yourself, to inspiring others with your business mission. You need to strategically communicate the vision you have for your team, your clients, and your community. This does not happen by accident. Here are three ways you can master the art of harnessing your own inspiration to go on and inspire others.

 

Business Visionaries Have Consistent Messaging

“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room” Jeff Bezos

You started your business to achieve one main thing. Clarify exactly what that mission is to make it short and sweet so it is easy for others to capture that vision.

Think tagline!

Then plaster that short, sweet mission statement everywhere: on your website, in your company email footers, on your signage and in the tea room. Print it on T-shirts, open your team meetings with reminders, put it in your team position descriptions. Put it on your company header, tell your team members in their quarterly review, make it the centrepiece of your advertising and marketing.

Do not waver. Do not deviate. Do not become distracted. Shout that one message from the rooftops so everyone can join the inspiration you have for your business mission.

 

Business Leaders Set Achievable Goals

“Process drives culture, not the other way around, so you can’t just change the culture, you have to change the system.” Eric Ries

It may not seem as romantic as your original vision, but leading others to their own inspiration starts with taking a systematic approach. The inspiration you have needs to inform not only what people believe about the business, but how they operate each day.

Think systems and processes!

Lead your team in building out the procedures that get everyone working towards that vision with momentum and confidence. Empower your team to find the most effective, efficient way to work. Then  make that way the new normal. Set up regular reviews for your team so you routinely check in with them to offer support and celebrate their progress each quarter. Have systems in place to ensure that you can help your team get back on track even when standards might start to slip at work.

Everyone in your team will be inspired when you find ways to celebrate the vision being brought to life through achievement and increase.

 

Business Mentors Build Personal Connections

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing” W. Edwards Deming

You can talk all you like about how your business is growing and your team is expanding. But taking others with you on the journey of business inspiration relies on you building a system to lead them. When you connect with other business leaders, you should be able to describe exactly what you’re doing to build the visionary leaders in your company.

Establishing ways to facilitate a sense of personal ownership, belonging and success for your team is foundational to your success. Your staff don’t only want to be acknowledged and rewarded. They actually need it. 79% of people who quit their job cite lack of appreciation as the reason, so actively demonstrating you care is vital to the long term health of your company.

Think mentorship!

When you were just starting out on your own, your job was to just keep going! With so much to do and so little time, your own inspiration was the fuel you burned to get that business off the ground. But building a business to expand and scale requires a paradigm shift. Inspiring your team to build your business for you means maintaining routines which make your staff know just how much you value their contribution. Take them under your wing. Connect with them regularly. Set them up for success with clearly defined expectations and rewards for achievement. Ask them what they want to achieve, and give them what they need to make that happen. As a business leader, you can make their days count for something more significant than their salary.

Watch what happens in your company when you shift from being inspired yourself to inspiring others.

 

Home Truths About Business Leadership

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3 MIN READ

With all of us in isolation lately, we’ve been spending vastly less time around others than our usual schedules would require. It’s got me to thinking about the person we are when nobody is looking. I’ve been reflecting on how to make the most of the extra time we have to spend with ourselves at the moment. My thoughts lead me to realise a powerful key to personal growth. Today, I wanted to share it with you:

Who you are in private determines what people see in public.

A Time For Reflection

There’s a significant reduction in the amount of face time many have with their staff, their friends, and even their family and loved ones right now. Many are working from home, pushing through the distractions that come from children, pets, partners and even deliveries. Some are struggling through at their dining tables or makeshift work stations without a dedicated space to get stuff done. Others, like myself, have adult children living out of home now, so isolation brings the sadness of not being able to visit them or other loved ones.

I bet all of us are missing the comfort of our old routines, and the familiarity of how things were. Despite the massive changes we’ve been forced to navigate lately, all of us have been gifted with a unique opportunity to dig down deep to explore more of what we’re really made of in this season of isolation.

I’d love to invite you to join me in this special time of reflection by having a “heart to heart” with yourself. Who we are now is everything. How we respond in ourselves will make a defining difference to the outcomes we experience on the other side of the crisis.

“The empires of the future are empires of the mind” Winston Churchill

Do Your Routines Serve You?

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle

Take a look around the landscape of your “normal life”. Honestly evaluate how you’re going with managing the areas that are key to fulfilment and well-being. Boldly ask yourself if you’re happy with the state of your health, your relationships, your mindset and mood, your financial management, your business growth, and other areas that are important to you as a person.

The physical distance you need to keep right now might just be a blessing. It may well give you the space to conduct a lifestyle audit you’ve never had the opportunity to do before. Take advantage of the viewpoint you have right now to create some healthy new habits in your life. Match your intentions and ambitions with the little actions that will progressively create ease and flow across every area of your life.

Are You Getting Where You Want To Go?

“Long term success is a direct result of what you achieve every day. Goals provide your daily routine” Rick Pitino

For many business leaders, this lifestyle audit has been long overdue. The small things you do each day lead directly to the circumstances experienced by your family, your staff, and of course by you! If you’ve become stuck in a rut now is the time to acknowledge where you are and plan to turn the corner. The insights you uncover and plans you devise now in isolation may change the very future of your company.

Have the courage to think about how things actually run in your business. Will the way routine work is managed actually lead you to the achievement of your goals? Are your staff engaged and productive at work? Is everyone clear on exactly what they need to do, how it needs to be done, and why they are doing the work at all? Business success relies on clear vision being activated in tight workplace routines.

Do You Feel Free And Empowered?

“Freedom is people realising they are their own leader.” Diane Nash

I’ve never met a business owner who started their business because they wanted to work long hours and get stuck at work fixing other people’s mistakes. Every owner I know, plus all those in the research, says they are in business because they want to make a real difference. They want to be their own boss and enjoy freedoms in their lifestyle, their finances, and their relationships.

If you cannot confidently say that your daily routines at home and at work have created a lifestyle of freedom and empowerment for you and yours, it is time for a change. The entire world is in transition! You have the chance now to prepare for new outcomes. Set up new ways of working which liberate you from the burden of business growth. Develop systems which elevate your team and increase their performance at work. Create new boundaries for your life which lock away time for the things that matter most.

Now you can work in private to make a big difference in public. Now it is time to focus only on building a business that can make an impact that lasts.