• High maintenance clients who are focused on your rate. If you have clients who require a lot of hand-holding, who constantly ask for free services, and who call you back to go over invoices in detail, you’ve got a business-destroying problem on your hands. They may be the nicest people in the world but they can take away from other customers who cost less to manage and are therefore more profitable. If a clients gets too demanding (even if their demands are disguised as requests), revisit how much you do for them for free.

• Vendors with whom you are too closely tied for critical situations. As a business owner, you probably have vendors who provide you with any number of services. And it’s often nice to work with just a few people who know what they are doing rather than spread yourself too thin by trying to manage a whole bunch of people. But you need to watch your vendors carefully: If you are extremely reliant on them to come through (because they provide you with several critical services) make sure their own business is in good shape. You don’t want them dropping the ball for too long simply because they can’t keep their own house in order).

• Employees who just warm desks. The world somehow has balance: There are entrepreneurs who dream of living a life of unfettered freedom and there are employees who like the consistency of employment. We need each other in order to coexist in perfect harmony. But sometimes you get an employee who likes the consistency of employment without the hassle and sweat of actually doing work. They are a drain on your revenue without contributing to your business. Unfortunately, if you run a small office, it can be extremely difficult to do anything about them.

• Decision makers who have a different view than you. Decision makers could include majority shareholders, partners, COOs or CFOs (if you’re the CEO), or other key people on your management team. You need everyone moving in the same direction but if they feel that the business should go somewhere else, you’ve got a potentially bad situation if they start making decisions that run counter to how you feel the business needs to go.

Businesses frequently fail from these people because these business-destroyers are cloaked in good relationships. They get close to entrepreneurs and usually have the best intentions and positive feelings toward the business owner and the business. But, as you can see by reading descriptions of them; their views are just not aligned.

One of the most difficult things you’ll have to do as an entrepreneur is identify and remove these people from a position of influence in your business.

Good luck!

Related posts:

1. How to Take Your Business to the Next Level
2. What Compels People to Hire You (Instead of Your Competitor)?
3. The Three Stages of Small Business

There is an invisible set of stairs that entrepreneurs perceive in the life of their business and every business owner has the desire to move their business up these stairs toward some (possibly unknown or unstated) level of success. They know that each level requires new efforts and techniques and ideas and comes with its own challenges and rewards.

But the problem is, what the heck are the levels? There’s no manual anywhere suggesting what the levels are. Yet, every entrepreneur knows that they are at one level and they want to get to a higher level. I have people asking me all the time to help them move to a higher level.

In case you’re reading this and wondering if I have somehow divined what the levels are, I haven’t. But I have discovered something else: Moving from one level to another is often preceded by dissatisfaction at the current level as well as an increasing amount of chaos and sometimes an unsettled feeling. I compare it to a child’s top that is spinning smoothly for a while and then starts to wobble. The business starts to wobble, unbalanced, just like that top. That “wobble” is often the time when a business owner wants to move to the next level. But here’s what I recommend first:

Instead of focusing on the next level (which is difficult to do anyway because it’s hard to know exactly what it is for each business), focus on making your current level perfect. Address that unsettled feeling and that chaos. Get it under control.

You can do this by:

• Creating or revising your business’ systems.
• Revisiting your business plan.
• Hiring someone to take care of your details (or extending the responsibilities of someone you’ve already hired).
• Taking a vacation to clear your head.
• Perfecting your current operation.
• Looking at your expenses and reducing them.
• Revisiting your business model to see if there are additional revenue opportunities.
• Strengthening your customer service.
• Increasing the consistency and quality of your marketing.
• Increasing the quality of your deliverables.

“But Heather,” you say, “I want to get to the next level. What you are telling me is how to make my current level better.”

Indeed that is exactly what I am doing. And the reason is: Your current business, which is probably running well enough (after all, you are looking at moving forward) needs to be tightened up a bit in order to more effectively move forward anyway. And, as you move forward, you want to maintain as much control as you can (and as much profit as you can) and cleaning house will help with that. You will also gain a fair amount of insight into how your business is running (and that could reveal for you exactly how you can move forward).

If your business is starting to feel like it’s becoming unbalanced and you’re wondering if you’re ready to move to the next level, make your first step a house-cleaning effort to strengthen your current business and that will help you get to the next level faster and more profitably.

On to the next level!

Related posts:

1. How Entrepreneurs Can Get the Benefits of a Team (Without Selling Part of Their Business)
2. These People Will Destroy Your Business
3. 6 Lessons that Moving Can Remind Us about Business

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Your business is up and running and growing… and you want to grow your business further. You want your growth to be smart and effective and you want to avoid costly missteps and expensive “rabbit trails” that can pull you off track.

The problem is: You’re busy. You’ve got a full plate. You’ve got enough to do without piling on other activities (even though you know that business growth is critical). So, do you cut back on current success to encourage growth? Do you cut back on future growth to enjoy current success? Neither of those options is ideal!

There’s good news and it’s something you already know. With effective delegation to an assistant, you can enjoy even greater success today while strengthening and building your business for an even greater future.

This probably isn’t news to you but here’s why I’m mentioning it: I’m holding a free teleconference for a small group of people who will have the opportunity to “pick my brain” and learn what you can do to grow your business with more effective delegation or through the better use of a VA.

Teleconference overview
The teleconference is called “Full Schedules to Fulfilled: Delegating and VA’s for Business Growth” and it is free to a limited number of participants. I’ll be joined by my colleague Deb Walker and we’ll offer some advice and answer your questions about delegation and working with an assistant and how those elements contribute to growing your business.

Even though you know that delegating and having an assistant are good ideas, there may be techniques, ideas, challenges, tricks, and tips that we can help you with. Drawing from my years of experience as an entrepreneur of several small businesses, as a project manager, and as a productivity advisor for business owners around the world, I would love to share some “delegation mastery” ideas. And Deb’s insight will be valuable too. She brings a wealth of cross-industry experience to her work at ContemporaryVA and the oversight she provides to a staff of 30 VA’s ensures consistent, high quality work gets delivered to clients.

Normally I charge for all consultations but these calls (which I will be recording and plan to use in the future for promotional purposes) will be completely free. The teleconference will be about 60 minutes in length with 10 to 15 people on the call and we will specifically cover these three areas:

• Delegation Effectiveness
• Whether a VA might work for you
• How to use your VA more effectively

…and how these “tools” can grow your business.

I’d love to see you there!
If you already have a virtual assistant, we’ll show you how to use them more effectively by turning them into a valuable, proactive business asset (rather than a helpful but reactive order-taker). If you don’t have a virtual assistant already, we’ll show you why this might be the next best step for your business; a step that will transform your business in ways you never realized were possible.

So, if you’d like to grow your business and have been looking for an “edge”, this call could be it. But there are only a few slots left (I’ve already had some interest from a couple of my other channels) and I’d love to include you in the teleconference! Just enter your name and email address below and we will send the dial-in information to the first twenty who sign up!

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Can’t wait to speak with you!—

Related posts:

1. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 2
2. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 1
3. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 3

As someone who thinks about business productivity a lot, developing strategies and helping businesses take action are two key elements of what I do. Entrepreneurs often do a great job of creating strategies (after all, what entrepreneur doesn’t love to dream up new opportunities for their business!?!) but they struggle with turning those strategies into actions. If you have great ideas but you often feel like you’re plodding along doing the same old thing, you’re certainly not alone. Even some of the biggest companies in the world complain about this as a constant problem they face.

In this blog post I’m going to give you a step-by-step way to create actions from your strategies.

Step 1: Write out your strategies. (I’m assuming you can do this already; I think lots of entrepreneurs find strategic development to be the easy part!) Write down plans and ideas to take you to new levels of success.

Let’s use as an example the strategy: “Become a thought leader in my market.”

Step 2: Break it down. Most strategies are big, fuzzy ideas and not easily actionable. So you need to break down your strategy into smaller pieces. Some people call these objectives (but others consider objectives to be subsets of goals – whatever). I don’t care what you call them. Just list the elements that will make up your strategy; list the things that you feel will fully contribute to achieving your strategy.

In our example of thought leadership, the elements might be: “publish a book”, “develop a proprietary system”, “get a regular column in a periodical”, “speak regularly”, “get quoted in the media”… and there might be several more.

Step 3: Create actions for each of these objectives. Now it’s time to create step-by-step, easy-to-implement actions for each one. Get as basic and granular as you can so that all you need to do is sit down, do whatever it says, cross it off, and move on to the next step.

In our example, “Publish a book” might have actions like: “brainstorm, write chapter 1, write chapter 2, write chapter 3, write a proposal, query an agent… (etc.)”

You will have some actions that are dependent on other people and could influence the course of your plans. These are inevitable but you should try to reduce them as much as possible or put them as early as possible into your plan. That way, if other peoples’ decisions change your course, it will change your course earlier rather than later.

Step 4: Set dates. Beside each action, set a due date. This is an important step, even though it seems like a lot of work. Setting a date is not just setting a deadline, but it also helps you to get a realistic view of what your timeline to completing your strategy is going to be like. You might desire to achieve your strategy in six months until you count out all of your dates and realize that it will take two years to write and sign a deal on a book. And as you start implementing these actions, you might discover that new situations occur that speed up or slow down your timeline.

Step 6: Go! Now it’s time to start acting on these. Work toward the “due dates” on each one, but be willing to adjust all of the dates as you go. And, as circumstances and technology and opportunity changes, you might need to add or subtract objectives or actions; that’s okay.

This was a quick-and-dirty step-by-step way to turn strategies to actions and there are more subtle points to be made. But this is a good start and I’ll touch on some more ideas in the near future.

Related posts:

1. A Great Innovation Strategy
2. 8 Ideas for Twitter Lists
3. It’s March. Do You Know Where Your Resolutions Are?

Don’t Let Your Heart Be Broken

Take Control of Your Life Once and For All

5 Bad Work at Home Habits: Are You Guilty?

What Freelancers Can Learn From Rodeo Announcers

The Silent Rise of the New Work Pioneer

Why I Banned Twitter at My Last Event

Read more of my favorite posts on HeatherVilla StumbleUpon.

Happy Reading!

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In a couple of days, my calendar is going to ping me with a reminder. It’s going to say “One month in – how’s it going, Heather?” This reminder is for me to review the new business strategies I intended to integrate into my business this year.

Each year, I list out a bunch of strategies I want to integrate into my business. Some are marketing strategies, some are productivity strategies, some are customer service strategies; that kind of thing. I always have a really bold and vibrant vision of the year ahead and it’s easy for me to actually create so many strategies that I simply can’t implement them all effectively.

What I find is that over time, some strategies simply can’t be done in the day (because I don’t have time, for example) while other strategies become quickly integrated into my daily routine.

I was speaking with a colleague of mine who does something similar. She had developed several strategies she wanted to integrate into her year. For example, she wanted to increase her article marketing and she wanted to do more blog commenting. We usually chat about our strategies from time to time so I asked her how hers were going nearly one month into the year. The blogs were easily integrated in and are now a habit for her. The articles, however, are not. We talked about the reasons that could be and what she and I discussed might be helpful for you, too:

• Integrating new strategies into your daily schedule is important to do from time to time, but not always easy. I’ve found that if you want to be more successful at making them habits, you need to do everything possible to make it super-easy to do. The easier they are, the more likely you’ll do them and the more likely they will become habits.

Take exercise as an example: Lots of people make a New Year’s Resolution to start exercising… and then they fail. One of the reasons is that exercise might be an hour or two commitment a few times a week: Driving to the gym, working out, showering, driving home. It adds up so it’s not compelling to do. The secret to integrating it into your life is to make it really easy at the very beginning. Start with a 5 minute workout at home; have a friend call to remind you. Then, increase your workout to ten minutes. Then to fifteen. Then twenty. Eventually you will find yourself at the gym doing a full workout, but by then it will be a habit. To get there, though, it had to start easy.

It’s the same with my friend and her articles: Instead of writing an article a day – her original goal – she should start with an article a week. Or, split the work between herself and a freelancer. Eventually, she can increase her own effort. And she should decide ahead of time what the article will be about, rather than staring at a blank page.

And it’s the same for your 2010 goals. The goals that easily integrated into your business – celebrate them. And the ones that you’re struggling with one month in – take baby steps and make them easy. You may not start out as boldly as you had originally dreamed but making them easy will help to make them habits.

Have a great time!

Related posts:

1. It’s March. Do You Know Where Your Resolutions Are?
2. First Things First
3. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 2

There are lots of innovation opportunities that we face everyday, but acting on them can scare people off. Entrepreneurs might wonder “What if I fail?” The answer to that question is: “Great!”

Innovation and failure are both important
In his blog, For Better Innovation – Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, business venture capitalist, Jim Estill writes about the three things that every entrepreneur needs to do when they fail.

Estill goes on to explain what he means. In being willing to fail often, businesses are actually innovating more frequently and they are likely to succeed more often than a business that only wants home runs and barely does any innovating at all. Fail fast and fail cheap are his second and third points and he asserts that failing fast and cheap allow for more rapid (and less costly) innovation to occur.

That’s brilliant. I like it because it first recognizes that people don’t succeed 100% of the time and, in saying that, it also admits that people probably shouldn’t succeed 100% of the time. (It’s the old adage that says if you are achieving 100% of your goals, you aren’t setting high enough goals).

How you can make sure that you fail often, fail fast, and fail cheap
First, make sure that you are building innovation time into your schedule. Start by setting aside some time each week and keep a running list of problems or challenges that you want to work on.

Second, decide how much time you can spend on innovation before you make a go/no-go decision. A day? A week? A month? It might depend on what the ultimate pay-off is at the end. (If it will earn you millions then you might give yourself more time than if it is simply an innovation that can save you a couple minutes a day).

Third, decide how much money you are willing to invest. Don’t try to bootstrap every innovation without spending a cent. Instead, at the beginning of the year, set aside a percentage of your revenue as research and development money and decide on the parameters of the project that will determine where you will spend your money. For example, you may want to spend money on projects that will have a direct bottom-line impact to your business or that you are only willing to spend up to 25% of your R&D budget on any single project.

Jim Estill is right: Entrepreneurs should adopt the willingness and drive to fail often, fail fast, and fail cheap and when they do they will see far greater success because of it.

Happy blogging!

Related posts:

1. An Innovation Mindset – “Should you listen to your customers?” Continued
2. Good Fast Cheap is still relevant
3. Heather Podcasts – Good, Fast, Cheap – Pick 2 (Episode 2)

One investment that gets overlooked early in the business (and is usually invested in much later down road) is an accountant. Early in the life of the business, the entrepreneur might just use pen and paper and a shoebox to do their financials. Then later, they might invest in computer-based or web-based bookkeeping software. And later, perhaps they might bring an onsite or virtual bookkeeper on board.

There is some advantage to using the computer-based or web-based software… if the business owner has the time to input the numbers themselves (or if they have an assistant who can do it for them). And, there is some advantage to hiring a bookkeeper to take care of the books. Either of these two options is a good, lower cost option (and definitely superior to the “shoebox” method). The advantage, of course, is that the software or the bookkeeper can bring some order and structure to the business’ financials.

While the software and the bookkeeper are investments into the business owner’s sanity, the accountant is actually an investment into the business’ longevity and profitability. That’s because a bookkeeper, like the software, is just about maintaining order but an accountant is about developing insight and uncovering opportunity.

A bookkeeper will punch the numbers on the calculator and deliver nice, clean books to you. An accountant will deliver your books to you and point out where you can lower expenses, how you can raise revenue, what growth opportunities exist, and what challenges you’ll face in the near and distant future. As well, they’ll help you through the complex process of taxes.

(Now, I should note here that this article is NOT disparaging bookkeepers. They have an invaluable role in an organization and they can bring a certain level of helpful insight to the business owner. However, the accountant is certified to deliver more insight in more ways.)

So, what should you as a business owner invest in? Early on in your business you should consider a bookkeeper or some bookkeeping software, just to keep the books in order. But as early as possible you should consider bringing in an accountant who can deliver the insight you need to grow.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

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So, how does a business get from “survive” to “thrive”? I suggest that the clue is in the title: Are you managing? Or managing? Yes, it sounds strange so let me explain:

Are you managing your business like the captain of a ship, directing this, automating that, delegating the other? Or, are you barely managing to get your work done each day, hoping that tomorrow will be different but not really sure how? That is the ultimate difference between thriving (the former type of managing) and merely surviving (the latter type of managing).

There is a huge difference, not just in activity but in mindset. All too often, the mindset is (unconsciously) one of survival: Business owners take on all the tasks, working a bit here and a bit there on everything, and hoping that they can keep it all together. They are pulled from one situation to the next. I think it’s a lot like juggling knives: Once the knives are in the air you don’t want to stop juggling for fear that the sudden change in rhythm will cut! Unfortunately, this is a very reactive mindset because business owners will spend too much of their time putting out fires and answering to issues. Yes, they will have some glimmering moments when the job is humming along nicely, but most of the time it feels like a frantic pace.

The “thriving” mindset is one that business owners should strive for. It’s a challenge and not all entrepreneurs will reach this “Nirvana” of business-thinking. It starts with the idea that you need to let go of quite a bit of the effort that you’re hanging on to. Rather than trying to do it all at once, the thriving mindset does this:

1. Identify the most important actions. (Hint, they’re not ALL important)
2. Identify the rest of your activities.
3. Create ways to automate as much as possible.
4. Focus your efforts on the actions you listed in step 1.
5. Delegate, revise, or stop doing the activities in step 2.

In presenting this idea to business owners, they usually come up with a few objections. I’ve listed those objections below with my counterpoints:

• Objection: “Everything I do IS important!” My response: No, it’s not. Everything you do feels important but it really isn’t important. What is truly important is: First, dreaming great things for your company; and second, bringing in new prospects, turning them into customers, and repeating that process over and over. The dreaming/visioning effort is something that is solely yours and cannot be delegated. The sales funnel effort is yours to think about and modify but the actual activities can be automated and delegated.

• Objection: “I don’t have the money to invest in automation.” My response: Automation is a convenient word but doesn’t necessarily mean that it all runs without any input from you. A checklist for a series of common tasks is a good example of “automation” that doesn’t require a lot of investment. Templates for emails and letters is another great example of “automation”. One professional I know uses an assistant to select 10 qualified leads from the hundreds of semi-qualified ones and he contacts those leads and closes 4 – 5 of them. Because he’s not spending his time qualifying and then closing, he can focus on closing and his close rate has increased dramatically.

• Objection: “You’re suggesting that I STOP doing my non-essential activities?” My response: Try it. You might be surprised. This was a sticking point for me early in my career but someone advised me to test it and see if my ignoring certain activities had any impact. In most cases, it did not and I eliminated them entirely, freeing up so much of my time.

The captain of a large ship nicely illustrates the “thriving” mindset. The captain is able to maneuver his or her ship through water (sometimes wide open oceans, sometimes shallow and rocky narrows) but rarely does the captain actually do the work. The captain oversees the effort, directing, advising, and relying on his or her expertise to make changes, but trusts staff and automated effort to act in order to bring the vision to reality.

That is the thriving mindset – the mindset of someone who is expertly managing his or her business.

So, are you managing? Or are you just managing?

Good Luck!

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1. Heather Podcasts: Managing a Virtual Team, Advice by Deb Walker – Virtual Team Manager (Episode 5)

One of the most important (and most overlooked) steps in any complex project is the end-game play. You don’t have to be a sports aficionado to know what I’m talking about. The end-game is the last step in the project. If a business is developing a new product to bring to market, the initial end-game is often perceived to be: “selling the product successfully”. While that’s important, it shouldn’t be the end-game. That goal is positive and optimistic and should be present in your planning, but there are other considerations that a project manager should allow for:

• What if the product isn’t successful?
• What if the product becomes so expensive to produce that it will never sell?
• What if the market shifts while the product is being developed?

That’s just an example from bringing a product to market. There are other examples. Another common one is the start-up of a new business. For entrepreneurs, the end-game is often thought to be “profitable operation”. That?s a great goal to work towards, but…

• What about when the entrepreneur wants to retire?
• What happens if the business isn’t profitable?

End-game plays should not be confused with goals. A successfully selling product or a business’ profitable operation are both ideal goals. But the end-game is very different. The end game should take into account a variety of contingencies, each with their own exit strategy.

For example, if the product isn’t successful, is there a way to make it successful? Is there a way to sell just the concept? Should it be scrapped? What happens to the project team if each of those scenarios happen?

Or, another example: If the entrepreneur wants to retire, should she or he shut down the business? Can they sell it to someone? (Who? How?) Can they pass it along to a family member?

In each example, a contingency is selected and thought through and the organization’s recommended exit strategy is outlined. The result? No matter what happens, there’s a plan.

Rock your plan,

Heather Villa

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