5 Simple Ways to Improve Cash Flow in Your Business

As a startup or even home-based business owner, it can be hard to establish a name for yourself. One of the early challenges is that you are initially relatively unknown to the market, with an accompanying challenge typically being that you don’t have enough resources and network connections to build the profile you need.

This is the reason why many startups often don’t blossom into a sustainable business. Aside from the early lack of financial resources, there is the harsh reality of ensuring that you have found a way to differentiate yourself from your competition.

Cash flow strain is another one of the most common difficulties for many small business owners. However here are a few simple tips that can help to increase cash flow for your small business .....

1.   Accept different modes of payment.

Making the customer’s purchasing experience as hassle-free and efficient as possible will enable better cash flow. This includes sending out your invoices immediately and also accepting various modes of payment (whether through credit, PayPal or cash on delivery). This gives the customer more options to settle and they can choose which is the most convenient for them - making transactions with you easier and faster.

2.   Implement “pay on time” incentives.

One way to motivate your customers to pay right on time is to implement incentives whenever they do. This can be through small discounts or rebates whenever they pay on time (ie. before or on due date). Additionally, you might consider implementing penalties for customers who pay late.

3.   Affordable marketing .

Obviously improving sales will improve your cash flow. This can be achieved either by selling more to your existing customers - or by increasing your customer base. Winning more customers means thinking about how you market your business and how you will stand out from your competition, so as to be "front of mind" for your customers.

However, haphazard marketing and promotions can easily drain your business capital and expenses - but by using affordable and targeted strategies, you can maximize your sales return. 

One way is through content marketing, where you aim to inform and educate customers about your industry and establish yourself as an authority in that niche. This type of marketing is more affordable and it can give you high returns when it is done right. An increasing number of businesses are using social media marketing to communicate and engage with their customers more effectively.

4.   Keep track of your expenses.

If you have a hard time maintaining records of your cash flow and expenses, it is usually best to hire an accountant or book-keeper to take responsibility for that. Getting the right accounting program or app for tracking and reporting your finances will make your life easier – and make tax time less stressful.

It is important not just to accurately record your cash inflow and outflow – but also to monitor this regularly. This helps you measure your actual return on investment - and to determine whether your operating expenses and promotional tactics are in any way worth it.

It is also important to be able to separate your personal expenses from actual business expenses (which is usually mixed up when you run a small business).

5.   Cut costs - wisely.

You can improve cash flow by reducing operating expenses in your business. However be careful that in a frantic zeal to cut costs, you don’t strip away what could be important drivers of your business. Sometimes you’ve got to be willing to spend money to make money…….. For example, you can cut costs by no longer doing any advertising, sponsorship or promotions – but it’s likely your enquiries and leads will eventually start drying up……. So, it’s all about the wise pruning of expenses. 

Maybe you can look at negotiating better deals with your suppliers. See if you can get a better rate for example from your power company - otherwise consider changing suppliers. Even a home-based business can have significant power bills. 

Another idea to consider is getting shared office space at a lower cost – instead of leasing your own private office or premises. A novel idea is whether you might allow staff to sometimes work from home on certain days, which would help save on phone and power bills.

In closing, let me say that being a startup entrepreneur is not easy, especially if you lack experience in things like accounting, marketing or doing sales projections. But with the right preparation, a positive mindset and a desire to continue to learn and improve, then these challenges can be overcome.

Guest Author

Gemma Reeves is a seasoned writer who enjoys creating helpful articles and interesting stories. She is an entrepreneur who aims to assist other aspiring entrepreneurs in finding the best office space for their business.  You can check out her company here: -FindMyWorkspace

Small business and how to boost your sales success

Making a sale begins with finding a prospective customer

Attracting a customer and making a sale goes to the heart of any business. It’s sales that pumps money into your business. But this can’t mean sales at any price! It’s got to be a profitable sale and a win-win for both parties - particularly if we’re talking about you as an entrepreneur building a sustainable small business that is viable for the long term.

Quite often the entrepreneur is a brilliant technician. Maybe you’re like the bulk of small businesses in Australia - people who started out as “self-employed”. That is for example a mechanic, or plumber, or consultant, or hairdresser, or electrician, or musician, or artist, or accountant, or lawyer, or landscape gardener, or ……

Sales require strategy + process + selling skills

Sales and selling is often something that isn't particularly easy for many people in business – certainly this was the case for me when I began my consulting business over 25 years ago!  Perhaps this could be because many of us retain a distasteful stereotype of the old-school “pushy” car salesman seeking to manipulate us with tactics. None of us want to be seen like that …… And selling can become even more uncomfortable if you’re not naturally a so-called extroverted personality!

But in business – sales is as much about having efficient customer-friendly processes and procedures in place as it is about having selling skills. There's not much point to gaining an order for your product or service, if it's not delivered in good quality and on time as promised.

But let's return to the people side of the equation ..... I am convinced that anyone can improve their selling skills ….. It is about a combination of gaining techniques to help you listen better, to help you understand what your customer is wanting to achieve, and to help you present your solution in a clear and enticing way.

Effective sales comprise identifying opportunities and potential customers, generating leads from these opportunities and converting these leads and enquiries into sales at a profitable margin.  Sales is about attracting new customers to your business – just be careful it’s not at the expense of retaining existing customers …. And sales is about being alert for up-selling and cross-selling opportunities that genuinely benefit the customer.

I had a fascinating conversation recently with Ingrid Maynard, the founder of Melbourne, Australia based business The Sales Dr, who has more than 20 years’ experience working and consulting in the field of sales. She conducts master-classes in Selling Skills and advises business owners around Australia, Asia, the U.S and the U.K on how to leverage both their people and their technology to increase sales

1.     What was your early motivation in starting up your own business and what do you find most fulfilling about running your business now ?

I’ve always known that I wanted to create a business doing something that I loved.  It became a must for me even when I was working with The Body Shop….I just didn’t know what it would be!  What I discovered was that a business finds you, and that’s what happened to me. 

I won’t go into the whole story, but an opportunity I had grew and grew and grew to the point where I knew I had a business on my hands and could use a little help!  When I started Harvest (my first business), I wanted to bring some of the values I’d lived from The Body Shop into my own business.  So part of that was employing mums returning to the workplace and providing them with free childcare.  This meant that I was able to attract and retain loyal employees: Two of them stayed with me for 6 and 7 years respectively.

I love the creativity of having my own business, knowing that I can express what I love in a way that brings value for others.  I also love that my business will only grow to the extent that I grow, and to me, having a business is the best personal development tool in the world.

2.     You talk about the sales machine of a business comprising three core inter-dependent elements – prospecting, conversion and retention. .... In larger organisations these may be quite separate functions, with different staff specialising in each different part of the sales process  However as you know, the small business entrepreneur starting out will typically attempt to wear many different hats themselves. When should they look at outsourcing prospecting – which can be most time consuming - and what advice would you offer with this?

When I talk about creating a sales machine, what I mean is creating a sales system that works for your business.  Like any machine, it works for you not the other way around.  You program it, you monitor it, maintain/service it and make any adjustments or improvements as required.

The machine needs to have 3 key elements:

       i.         Attract new customers

     ii.          Convert contacts to sales

    iii.          Delight customers so they become part of your sales team

When it comes to small business, these functions don’t necessarily need to be people like they would be in a larger organization so leveraging technology, processes and content, with software such as InfusionSoft, sales machines are more readily available to everyone.

As the business owner, know which element of this process is your greatest strength and ensure you own it.  With the elements that you’re not as strong, get support.

Prospecting is something most people avoid, so if you know you’ll get more leverage meeting more of the right sales opportunities to convert than spending time on the phone, then it makes sense to outsource this element. 

When selecting the right provider, you’ll need to consider:

·         Investment vs return: don’t just choose the least expensive option.  Remember that for many of your prospects, this call will be their first impression of your company, and you can’t afford to get it wrong.  And you’ll also need to determine your budget or cost of acquisition.  It shouldn’t cost you more to acquire a new client than you’ll generate in revenue.

·         Training: how do they recruit and develop their callers?  How confident are you that you’ll be represented in the best possible way?

·         Reports: how transparent are they with their activity and what is their expected rate of conversion from hours to meetings

·         Be realistic: remember it’s an opportunity to meet with more of the right prospects so be clear about what is important for the callers to identify, and focus more on relationship and first impressions than on “selling” your service at this very early stag

3.     Let’s take a look at converting leads and enquiries to sales ...... Why do some businesses fail to effectively convert –  have you found that the fault tends to lie more commonly with the poor quality of  leadsgenerated or is it with deficiencies in the personal selling skills of sales people?

Failure to convert leads and enquiries is usually a combination of both poor quality leads and deficiencies in the personal selling skills of sales people.  

Start by having absolute clarity as to your company’s why.  Once you know this, you can determine who to target and how to target them.

Without wanting to sound clichéd, take time to understand the pains and pleasures of your prospective clients and develop a question deck to use in a face to face meeting with prospects that will help you both identify their pain fast, and identify what they want to achieve and why in order for you to establish the best way for you to create value for them.

Train your team to enable them to confidently understand how to skillfully navigate these questions to qualify prospects and enquiries.

In addition, even if someone has made an enquiry, they may still have fears about working with a service like yours and it’s your job to bring any objections or commonly asked questions out on the table first.

And your process needs to reel them in gradually so that at every opportunity you’re building a sense of what it will be like to work with you, and get them keener and keener as you go.

Ask your team to individually write down your sales process.  If you have more than one version, it’s a sign that you need to regroup, and ensure everyone is on the same page for maximum momentum.

So essentially, it comes down to:

       i. Knowing why prospects have come to you  

     ii.  Possessing a comprehensive sales toolkit

    iii.  Training your staff, so that everyone is singing from the same songbook

    iv.  Efficient processes to ensure your customer receives what was promised

4.     Through your sales coaching work, you’ve observed hundreds of sales people – what are some of the most common mistakes that you see them making? ..... Do you still see sales-people out there, attempting to too quickly “sell a product” rather than find the right “solution”?

All the time!  And it’s an easy trap to fall into. ….. I’ve found the most common mistake is when we get into a scarcity mentality: “I’ve got to make my target!” and then desperation in achieving a sale at any price will flavour any conversations with prospects.  Prospects will sense this and will rarely be attracted or engaged.  Because the conversation or meeting is all about what the salesperson wants/needs and ceases to be about the prospect. 

This is where salespeople get locked into a narrow “convince and persuade mode”, where prices/margins are squeezed needlessly, where a transaction instead of a long play approach is taken and when a salesperson won’t say no, even when they know the outcome won’t be good for one or both parties.

Coming from a mind-set of abundance means you can be totally present with a client or prospective client.  The conversation becomes about solving your client’s underlying pain and creating value.  Even if that might mean not taking them on as a client. 

When you are a business owner who is also a sales person, your job is to find prospective Raving Fans, so you’re qualifying prospects “out” as much as you’re qualifying prospects “in”.  If you’re not a good fit for one another, it will be better for both parties that you recognise when to walk away and refer them to someone else.

5.     What are the differences and similarities with B2B sales compared to B2C selling?

To me, sales is about building relationships and making connection and treating every person as a client (knowing they’ll either buy today, in the future or refer someone to you or all 3!)

Every customer should have an exceptional experience as they have their pain points addressed and their desires fulfilled. 

The temptation with B2C sales is to treat customers as transactions as the sales cycle is shorter than it is with B2B clients.  While that’s true, having a” long play” mentality will create a tribe of Raving Fans who are so connected to you, to your brand and organization that they drive others to your business as well as choosing you over anyone else in your space.

With B2B, you’re able to be more selective with the prospective clients you want to target and proactively approach them as well as using other marketing strategies to generate inbound enquiries.  With B2C it’s more typical to use attraction strategies such as advertising, brand and marketing to drive business to you, in order to then capture them.

6.     I know that you’re passionate about the need for small business owners to have the right mind-set..... Can you share some thoughts on this theme?

Absolutely!  “State” or mind-set is key to achieving anything. 

It’s difficult to be resourceful when you’re fearful or in a scarcity mindset because your brain literally shuts down.  So you need to have practical ways of changing your state of mind to be as useful to you as possible in order to achieve what you need to!

Regardless of whether my clients are part of a sales team, are sales leaders or business owners, I teach them why the following mindsets are crucial to their success, and how to build rituals around creating and maintaining them:

Abundance: creating a sales and business philosophy that recognizes that there is more than enough for everyone, and where I create the most value is where I’ll be the most successful

Accountability: recognizing that there is always part of an outcome that has been the direct or indirect responsibility of you as an individual.  Owning your part in it, learning from it and then moving forward

Commitment to ongoing growth and improvement:when we enter into any situation with an open mind and a sense of curiosity, we are open to learning something new.  As soon as we think we already know, we close ourselves off to possibility and new information.  It’s never ending, and as such, is exciting.

Having a clear why: when you have clarity around your purpose as a business owner, it crystallises what you need to do, how you need to do it and creates a stronger sustained desire for taking action.  Clarity of purpose enables you to eliminate activities that are not core and aligned to your purpose.

Part of my role as a sales coach is to help business owners develop rituals and routines that will empower them and anchor them in positive mindsets.  These are as individual as the person themselves, so I work to explore what works for each client, and help them to ritualize them so they can go into that state whenever they need to.

 7.     Any final tips?

Keep on learning and growing.  As a business owner you’re always selling:  whether it’s an idea to your team, selling your value to customers, getting a bank loan or marketing to your database.  Because selling well is both a science and an art, there is always more to learn about yourself so you can build on your strengths to let the world know about you and support yourself in the areas where you need help. Whether you do this formally through training, coaching or study - or informally through podcasts, books or networking, make it a regular habit. Investing in your own growth will invariably grow your business.

Thank you to Ingrid, for some great tips on both sales strategy, process and selling skills

About the interviewer
Brian Carroll is the founder of Performance Development, a training business in Melbourne, Australia.  He is an experienced management coach with a passion for helping people achieve their goals in life and business. You can find out more about Brian at his Google + profile

For Entrepreneurs -- The inner game of business

Self-awareness is essential to succeed as an entrepreneur

When you're preparing your business plan, you do a careful assessment of the external business environment. You look at your target market, your current competition, ease of entry for future competitors, consumer trends, and how you will differentiate yourself from your competition..

Well, that's all well and good. It's essential, no question about that. But just as important as understanding the dynamics of your external environment is understanding the critical dynamics of the "inner game" if you want to be successful in business. You've got to have self-awareness to succeed.

What am I talking about, you might ask? ....... In the same way that you look "outside" and study your competition as part of preparing for potential threats to your business, so too you need to look within. You need to check  "inside" and see if there are any obstacles that  could get in the way of you enjoying success as an entrepreneur. Here are three to watch out for ....

1. Procrastination & "over-thinking" it

Investigate, analyse, plan, act and review ...... Isn't that how it's all meant to go? Except the problem with procrastination is that we can get stuck in the analysis stages - thinking, thinking and then maybe doing some more thinking.

Hey, by all means make sure you've got all of the information that you need - and think through the risks and the various permutations - but there comes the time when you've got to recognise you've done enough research and it's the time for action! Otherwise it becomes paralysis through over-analysis.

So what can underlie procrastination? ..... Sometimes it can be the fear of making a mistake. Sometimes, it can be waiting until we feel we've got the "perfect" plan or product, so that we won't make a mistake.

But so often in business, there can be advantages in being "first to market" - there can be recognition and profile in achieving this. Although obviously this should never mean delivering a shoddy product that will damage customer goodwill! It does mean however that you don't want to continue to delay release of your product whilst you keep on refining and  incessantly adding further enhancements to the design. Quite often product design enhancements can continue to occur after release, as long as the product has been functional and offered value in the eyes of your customer. In other words - you don't necessarily have to wait for perfection.

Innovation is not about coming up with a good idea - it's about acting upon the idea. A good idea is worthless until its converted to action. And if you are able to achieve "first to market" then at least for a while, your rivals will be chasing you whilst you have been able to gain important market share, as well as build some brand loyalty.

2. Impulsiveness

Then there can be a quite different type of inner obstacle at the other end of the spectrum - action without adequate thought or analysis. This can be the entrepreneur who is driven by an uncontrollable sense of urgency - and the fear that someone else will steal their idea and get to market "first". At the extreme, it's like jumping out of a plane with a burst of adrenaline, and later checking on the way down if you've got your parachute on properly, if at all. It's captured in the old phrase "Ready. Fire. Aim"

Other times it's just the passion and enthusiasm of these entrepreneurs that creates this overly-optimistic expectation that the market will love their idea or product - what's not to love!! ..... So they recklessly rush to market neglecting any proper due diligence in testing the concept and may risk over-capitalising in the business before realising they've seriously over-estimated the level of demand or under-estimated the strength of their competition. .

3. Worry and anxiety

There are many variables that you can encounter when you're starting-up and running a small business. Some things are outside of your control - whether it's the state of the broader economy and it's influence on consumer confidence, or even the weather itself (flood or drought) and it's impact on your operations. Interest rates, fuel prices, the reliability of your internet service provider are some other examples.

There's stuff that happens that we can't control and to which we must be able to accept and adapt.

As an entrepreneur, one of the toughest lessons can be learning not to worry about what "might happen". We simply have to focus on what we can control. If the market changes - then we pivot. Sometimes we will alter our tactics - sometimes it requires a bigger adjustment and our game plan and strategy must be altered.

But the point here is, there's no benefit thinking and dwelling on what can go wrong. We prepare a contingency plan of course .... But then we've got to control our mind and our thinking, so that we don't lose sleep imagining these worst-case scenarios. We identify the risks - but we also step back and assess their likelihood and probability, so as to keep some perspective. So do not allow your mind to regularly indulge in fantasising about what can go wrong.

Otherwise it's like carrying around a little imp on our shoulders who keeps whispering in your ear negative chatter that fuels your fears and escalates your anxiety. Remember, your mind is meant to serve you  - in the same way as your car does. After all, you don't climb into your car and let it take you where it will. You drive the car, you determine the direction you want to go. Same with your thinking - take control.

Besides, I'm often reminded of the Mark Twain quote 

"I've wasted half my life worrying about things that never happened"

Winning the inner game

There's no point beating your competition if you can't also win the inside game. It takes self-awareness, a healthy level of emotional intelligence and a dose of humility to continue to work on improving yourself.

Ever seen someone winning a race - several strides ahead of their nearest competition. And then they stumble just before the finishing line? And there was absolutely nothing on the track that could have caused them to stumble ..... Or have you ever seen a tennis player just a point away from winning the match, who had been serving superbly throughout much of the game - and yet all of a sudden, double faults on match point up - then finds a way to lose

Well, I would say that fear of success might just possibly have come into play. After all, you've got to feel deep within that you deserve to be successful and that you deserve to be happy - otherwise  unknowingly you will find ways to sabotage yourself.

The inner game, the mental game, is one that you can't afford to ignore as an entrepreneur. Mental toughness is an essential quality to cultivate. Whether it's to help you achieve your goals in life, sport, or business, the psychology of the inner game adds another dimension to success that you need to seek to understand.

About the author
Brian Carroll is the founder of Performance Development, a corporate training business in Melbourne, Australia.  He is an experienced management coach and a qualified psychologist, with a passion for helping people achieve their goals in life and business. You can find out more about Brian at his Google + profile

Personal productivity tips for small business owners

You can't control time - but you can control how you use it

Time is money when you’re running a business – so wasting time means you’re wasting money. And none of us knowingly want to do that.

A question that you’ve probably reflected upon as a business owner is how can you achieve more in the time that you have available. The success of your business relies very much on how effectively you use your time.

Have you experienced days where you’ve been running around frantically in your business - so busy and overwhelmed that it seemed like you could hardly pause to take a breath? And yet when you looked back at the end of the day you wondered how much you had actually accomplished,  and how much of real significance was achieved? …..  Just because you’re busy, doesn’t mean that you’re productive.

Personal productivity is about ensuring that you are focusing your time and energy on the things that will add the greatest value to your business. It means ensuring that that you are using all of your resources wisely - including your staff, materials, tools, data and equipment - and that you are completing the right tasks efficiently. There is a limit to the number of projects you can optimally work on in any given week – so you need to be selective.

Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Steuart Snookes, who runs a consulting business called Solutions4Success in Melbourne, Australia. He is a specialist in the field of personal productivity and effective time management in the workplace. He agreed to share some of his experience – and offered some priceless tips …..

1.   You’ve been running your own consulting business for many years – what have you found to be some of the major challenges and frustrations associated with being self-employed. And what are the compensating rewards?

One of the major challenges running a consulting business is that old chestnut of achieving a continuity of bookings. Almost all self-employed consultants struggle to even out the ups and downs of revenue and keeping a steady stream of income that can be totally relied upon.

Juggling the many hats that have to be worn to cover all bases is another major challenge as a sole operator .... Prospecting for clients; marketing activities; sales meetings; preparation, delivery and then follow up of workshops, presentations, coaching sessions, webinars; ongoing research, development and updating of content; catching up with peers; and all the administrative tasks such as invoicing, banking, database maintenance etc. Of course, some of this can be outsourced but how much of it depends of solving major issue number one!

And a third major challenge is that it can be very hard to ever really feel ‘off duty’ and to switch-off. I just had my first real holiday in a long time (three and a half weeks) but even then, work-related activity was constantly at the back of the mind.

The positives of running your own business include the huge benefits you gain with the flexibility and freedom of how you choose to allocate your time, which allows me to enjoy a number of personal interests I could never pursue if not self-employed. Along with that is the pleasure of travel (which I mostly find enjoyable) and meeting lots of people, many of whom are truly inspiring. And the highlight is probably the feedback received that the work I am doing is having an impact – it is very satisfying to know that I am making a positive difference.

2.   Steuart, you’ve worked in the field of personal productivity improvement for more than a decade. You’ve consulted with small business owners and coached senior executives  ...... What are some of the common mistakes that people in business tend to make in the way they go about managing their time on a daily basis? 

It may seem surprising but the common issues and difficulties are remarkably similar amongst most of those with whom I work. They are largely a result of our human nature. Most of the effective time management techniques and strategies are the opposite of human nature. So it takes lots of self-discipline, effort and energy to establish and then maintain good habits. Chief amongst these is the need, in most roles, for reasonably large chunks of uninterrupted time (on a regular basis) to focus on a high priority task.

"Single-tasking" allows the task to be done quicker and to a higher standard than if it is attempted when interrupted. But time, attention and focus is becoming increasingly fragmented in the modern workplace due to our ever-changing technology. Each of us is now so much more accessible to others and to sources of information than ever before. We have a wide range of devices distract our attention, causing us to work in a constant state of multitasking.

Some of these interruptions will sometimes have a high value. But when they interrupt an activity we are already engaged in, it compromises the attention we can give to either one. An example that highlights this comes from a controlled pilot program in San Francisco where a nurse who is preparing medications wears distinctive clothing or stands inside a clearly defined space whose meaning is “I’m doing critical work and you may NOT approach, speak to or interrupt me”. Results showed not only reduced interruptions, but also a significant reduction in medication errors.

Other common issues include inadequate planning; attempting too much; ineffective delegation; procrastination; ineffective meetings; and unrealistic and/or uncontrolled expectations, especially around timeframes (which reminds me of the saying “there are no unrealistic goals, just unrealistic timeframes”).

3.   Email overload has become a problem and source of stress for many business owners and managers – what are some simple strategies that can be used to gain some control with this?

Mastering email overload revolves around getting control of the three ‘W’s – WHEN to address your email, WHAT you do when you are addressing it and WHERE you place it once dealt with.

With email arriving in a constant stream these days, it is a major source of interruption, so it’s critical to control WHEN you allow it to get your attention. In a special report I’ve written on this subject, I’ve listed the 7 critical impacts of email and information overload – interruptions; loss of focus; multi-tasking; poorer decision-making; lack of ‘think’ time; degradation of crucial business activities such as meetings, manager-subordinate interactions, workload planning and communication effectiveness; mental health; and ultimately, quality of life (worklife balance).

So much of the negative impact from email results not from WHAT it is, but WHEN it arrives. And it really is so easy to control, by scheduling specific times to address email and turning off all alerts so that it doesn’t interrupt time doing other important tasks (many of which arrived by email themselves).

Even those people working in roles where they need to look at email on a frequent basis will be more effective by addressing email in a focused block of 5-10 minutes every half hour (16 times per day) or 15-20 minutes once per hour (8 times per day). Other roles allow checking email less frequently. Once the WHEN is under control, it becomes much easier to apply the WHAT and the WHERE more effectively.

4.   Forward planning and forward thinking is often said to be one of the keys to running a productive business. But there can be so many different types of changed conditions that can prove disruptive to one’s plans – staff who become ill, customers who turn to a competitor, unexpected cash-flow problems, equipment or technology crashing – is it better to avoid planning too far ahead?

Yes. It’s a good idea to have plans for the long, medium and short term and then adjust your focus according to the current situation. For example, year-end is a logical time for longer term planning but when you’re in the middle of a busy season you might refer only to short term plan. It’s good to regularly refer to medium and long tern plans to help keep perspective – it’s very easy to get caught up with the immediate and short term activities.

We tend to overestimate how much we can do in a day but underestimate how much we can do in a year. A longer term plan sets the compass bearing for the direction you’d like to be travelling in and that’s why it’s good to check it on a reasonably regular basis. It’s so easy to get off track when your focus is only on the immediate and short term.

As Stephen Covey said, we can often be very busy focusing on each rung as we climb a ladder only to get to the top and find it’s standing against the wrong wall! It’s also important to have 30 and 90 day plans and refer to these on a very regular basis (say weekly). These time frames give enough of a sense of urgency to keep moving.

5.   What can the business owner who employs staff do to ensure a productive workplace – how can they ensure their employees are working in the most efficient and optimum way?

I think you hit the nail of the head when you say ‘ensure a productive workplace’. So much can be done by controlling the environment rather than trying to control the people.

Most of us want the satisfaction of working hard, achieving results, making a contribution and feeling we’re part of a team but the space we work in so often mitigates against this. Most roles these days are multi-faceted and require different types and levels of thinking and conversation, but we attempt to do all of these various types of tasks and activities in the same workspace (usually a desk or cubicle).

Yet there is a real case for ‘different space for different activities’, especially if the usual workspace is highly interrupted. With most of us having access to mobile computers, smart pads and smartphones, we can now much more easily relocate to a space that suits the type of work we are doing. Move to a shared workspace for collaborative work; move to a closed space for individual work; move outdoors to free up creative thinking and so on. Most of the highest value work that can be done as a small business owner is what happens between our ears, often when we are in a reflective, thinking or ‘musing’ mode. It’s at these times, when we involve both the sub-conscious as well as the conscious mind, that we gain powerful insights, break-throughs, solve problems and have those special ‘aha’ moments.

Yet this is exactly the sort of ‘thinking’ time that has been squeezed out of the modern workplace due to overload, interruptions, attempting too much etc etc. There is great value in having more control (and flexibility) on where and when we tackle our key tasks and activities.

      6.   Any final personal productivity tips for small business owners?

Ongoing learning & improvement

To use the Japanese term – "Kaizen". Given the pace of change in the modern world, we need to be continuously learning & improving in each area of our business and also in our own personal development. It’s not a once a year activity - but an ongoing process.

Given that so much of good time management and productive practices and behaviours are nearly the opposite of human nature, we need to be working on them constantly. Workshop participants often say to me after a time management training session that not much of the material was new to them but that is was great to ‘refresh’.  Most of us know what’s required but don’t implement it on a regular basis. One of the essential disciplines is to consistently plan, prioritise and schedule specific time for your high priority items.

By putting the ‘big rocks’ in place first, much of your other activities will then fall into place....... Hope these thoughts have been helpful.

Thank you to Steuart, for sharing some of his experience with us. And here's a short video clip that reinforces the point about learning to focus on the top priorities in your business ...

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Time management tips; Stress management tips;  Self-motivation tips


About the author
Brian Carroll is the founder of Performance Development, a corporate training business in Melbourne, Australia.  He is a qualified psychologist and experienced management coach with a passion for helping people achieve their goals in life and business. You can find out more about Brian at his Google + profile