Last week I continued with our series of articles on the 5 factors that impact on a businesses growth.
In particular I talked about the importance of making sure your business is appropriately capitalised and not leaving untapped sources of funds dormant within your business.
How did you go spending the $2 million dollars on your business?
Did you uncover any interesting insights or get further clarity?
5 Growth Limiters
1. Leadership skills on the part of the owner(s)
2. Systems
3. Marketing skills within the business
4. Available capital
5. External expert support to management
This week I will share with you the importance of ensuring you have appropriate suitably qualified external support to help you achieve your commercial objectives.
So who are the people you need on your business success team, as I like to call them?
Let’s run through a quick checklist of your present advisers for:
1. Business Planning
2. Goal Setting, Monitoring and Goal Attainment
3. Taxation and Accountancy
4. General Management issues
5. Staffing matters
6. Product and Service knowledge
7. Sales and Marketing
8. Legal issues
9. Asset Protection
10. Wealth Creation/Financial Planning
11. Your Exit Strategy/Succession Planning
12. Insurance – business, income protection, trauma, life etc.
How did you go?
Yes, to be successful you do need more than have an accountant and lawyer on your success team.
Would you/your business benefit by having an adviser, consultant or coach hold you personally accountable for achieving greater results from the business?
If your answer is yes, then you should make a forward booking to have an initial conversation for this possibility with a Right Team or Results In Business Institute, Business Improvement Specialist.
No matter where you are located in Australia or New Zealand we have Business Improvement Specialists available who assist business owners take their business to the next level.
(For clarity we have people within our trusted network you can assist you with every one of the twelve areas mentioned above).
Of course, you could also do nothing, and nothing will change.
Hmmm …
Personal accountability is not something that is particularly popular these days. So often, people in their personal, professional or business lives are looking for a scapegoat to push the blame onto rather than having a good, hard, long look in the mirror and accepting that changes need to be made.
What about you?
Now, remember if you have the right people on your success team they will make a quantifiable difference to your bottom line. There will be no mistaking the positive impact they have.
I dare say if you cannot identify where your current advisers are making a difference to your bottom line, then you need to ask yourself why, and probe to identify if they are value adding to your business.
If they are not – find another adviser who can and does value add.
A typical example I use for illustrative purposes is accountants.
Now, like all professions, there are those that are good and
those that are not.
Some accountants are what I call “rear vision” accountants. They will tell you how your business went last year (after the event). It’s too late then to affect the trading results of last year.
This is not a beat up on accountants – after all I am a member of CPA Australia and have been so for around 15 years (although I choose to coach and consult for my clients and I specifically do not provide accountancy or taxation advice).
Many see their role as providing some tax planning and attending to the compliance issues of their clients which are important and necessary.
Yet many in the accounting profession will lament their inability to do both the compliance work as well as actively get involved in coaching and consulting with their clients to ensure that their business thrives.
It is my contention that what your business needs is an external adviser who will hold you and your team accountable to make changes in your business and how that will affect the current week/month’s trading results and those weeks/months into the future so your current and future trading results and the return on your investment can be optimized.
This requires working together collaboratively. It is not something that magically occurs with a meeting once a quarter.
It also requires time, energy and commitment on your part as the business owner to follow through and the willingness to be held accountable and perhaps even to be told things that you may not want to hear.
Homework:
1. Who do you need on your success team that is not currently in place? Why?
2. Are your current advisers making a quantifiable difference to your bottom line? If not why not?
3. What areas of your business would you like to optimize in the June 2008 quarter? How do you intend to do it?
It was my intention to cover the critical matter of outsourcing and why you should do it by reference to an illustrative case study on the value of your time as a business owner. However, I have decided to hold this over until next week.
Meanwhile you might want to give some thought to this question:
As a successful business owner what is your time worth to you/your business? (I want you to come up with an hourly rate.)
Make sure you read next week’s article and I am positive you will be challenged and hopefully inspired.
Invitation and challenge for progressive “forward vision” accounting firms:
If you are the principal or managing partner (or you know the principal/managing partner) of a “forward vision” accounting practice serving the small to medium sized business community throughout Australia and/or New Zealand, which is passionate about helping your (their) business clients achieve maximum returns on their business(es) AND you (they) are willing to work collaboratively with a network of Business Improvement Specialists for the benefit of their clients, then I extend an invitation for you to have a confidential discussion in the first instance with me.
If you are interested in taking up this invitation, drop me a line to invitation@rightteam.com.au | 
