Legacy Foundation Business and Leadership

Archive for February, 2011

Any business owner who is struggling to stay afloat in the current atmosphere of declining sales would be wise to heed some key advice taken directly from savvy business consultants.

Economic woes seem to be a global problem lately. The only way that you can remain profitable, and perhaps even increase sales, is to take a good, long look at the state of affairs in your company.

What to Do Right Now

Unfortunately, time is of the essence when it comes to protecting your business. These are the first steps to take:

Perform an unbiased review of processes in your organisation. Develop new ones, rework existing ones, and adapt as necessary. Be ruthless in deciding what offerings are profitable and which are not. If a product or service is not selling, get rid of it. Lean Manufacturing principles are good to review, even if your business does not manufacture products.

Ways to Improve Your Business

Most business consultants will offer some valuable advice to get your company back on track. Here is a sampling of some of the things they might recommend for your company.

Schedule regular meetings for both managers and employees. This is one of the best ways to keep on top of what is happening in your business, now. Ensure you have a tracking system in place that assures customers are getting the products and services they request. Send out a customer satisfaction survey. If your customers are not pleased with your company, than nothing else really matters. Review your quality control procedures and make sure everything you provide to your customers is of top quality. Stay on budget. If any department is going over budget, then scrutinise why and take appropriate action immediately. Ensure that your accounts are paid up. Take action to collect on any accounts past due.

What You Must NOT Cut From Your Business

Perhaps the most valuable piece of business advice in the current economy is that there is one thing you cannot do without: marketing.

Now is not the time to scale back your marketing efforts or decrease your budget for advertising and promotion. Competition is at its most fierce, and the only way your company will stand out from the crowd is through effective marketing. Are you losing customers? Then get new ones via promotional tools.

These tips are some of the best advice gleaned from business consultants worldwide. If you are concerned with the state of your company’s finances, then don’t wait. Start making changes now.

The venue for the franchise exhibition was the GMEX. It has a lovely location, situated in the heart of Manchester and surrounded by beautiful buildings both old and new. There are lovely restaurants, bars and cafes all within easy walking distance.

The exhibitor list at the franchise exhibition in Manchester was wide and varied with businesses opportunities available starting from as little as 5000 pounds all the way up to 100,000.

Most of the exhibitors used standard shell schemes and stuck their posters on the wall ready to greet potential franchisees. A few had spent a small fortune, with bespoke stands, purpose built for the exhibition that really stood out from the crowd.

The attendee list of franchisors had all the usual suspects including Cash Generators, My Home, Punch Taverns, Chips Away and of course CityLocal.

There were a couple of really interesting franchises that captured my attention. One offered a beauty treatment that promised a tighter belly after a few treatments. They were doing free treatments to anybody daring enough to lie on their bed and expose their belly in front of the public.

There was another unusual franchise which stood out in my mind. It was a tiny van, emblazoned with logos and specially built to provide sandwiches & coffee to business parks. I can imagine people queuing to buy lunch from this well designed business on wheels.

The exhibition was really busy on Friday until around 2:30pm. Then the crowds slowly started dispersing and the exhibition closed at 5:00pm. Fran Info the organizers laid on free drinks and snacks for the exhibitors after the venue closed and this was our chance to talk to the other franchisors.

I find that on Friday you meet a lot of serious punters whilst on Saturday you get a lot of “tyre kickers” attending. People have to take time out from their normal work routine to attend on Friday and are therefore more serious about starting a business, whilst on Saturdays you get some people attending that have no intention of ever buying a franchise. Read the rest of this entry »

1)    Probably the most important thing you can do as a Christian leader is to clean up your act—if there is anything in your life, moral or ethical, which would not stand up to scrutiny if the entire world found out—you must eliminate it immediately.  Do not give anyone an occasion to think that you are a hypocrite.

2)    Be sure that every decision you make is honest and ethical.  You cannot effectively lead, as a Christian or not, when your decisions and actions are not above-board, fair, and honest.

3)    As a Christian leader, commit to telling the truth no matter what.  As a Christian leader, when you lie or tell half-truths, people tend to feel that your entire faith is a sham.  In fact, if you are habitually lying and telling half-truths, your faith may indeed be a sham.

4)    Learn everything you can about the tasks at hand, even if it means working in the trenches for awhile.  No one likes to be led by someone who has never done what they are doing.  This doesn’t mean you have to become an expert, just participate in the menial work long enough to understand the frustrating aspects of the work.  Another benefit to this is, when you have actually done the work, you can more effectively brainstorm solutions to challenges when they arise.

5)    Lead by example.  Do you expect your employees or secretaries to arrive on time for work, and dressed well?  Then you must do the same.  Sometimes it is so easy to think that you have earned the right to come in whenever you feel like it, or to return from lunch whenever you wish.  Sure, you may have earned the right, but you gain far more by setting the example for performance.  Do you expect others to work overtime when a project is behind projections?  Then you must be willing to do the same.

6)    Although you may feel you have earned the right to delegate away all the work, continue to be involved in productive tasks.  By doing some of the work, not only do you gain the respect of your employees, but also you keep in touch with the flow of things.  As a leader, it is easy to become disengaged from the actual productive segment of your business, and resultantly make decisions that look good on paper and sound good around the boardroom table, but are actually worthless when the rubber hits the road.

7)    Constantly reevaluate your own performance.  Often, you may spend so much time correcting the actions of others and solving crises you didn’t create, that you develop a sense that others aren’t as capable as you.  Consequently, you may not recognize when you are falling into bad habits that also need to be corrected.  Be the first to recognize and correct your own short-fallings.

8)    Avoid pride.  Once in a position of leadership, especially if you are good at what you do, it is easy to begin to feel that you are invincible.  Once that occurs, you become vulnerable to pride, and may make decisions you would frown on if your subordinates made the same decisions.  Maintain full responsibility for your actions, and keep them above-board at all times.

Bonus Step:

9)    Learn to manage your time.  When you are in a position of leadership and find yourself delegating away most of the time-consuming tasks, it is easy to lose control of your time.  Again, when your employees see you wasting your time, they will tend to do the same.