It's Time to Re-Define Team Training - Traditional Training is Dead

Why mainstream Leadership Training Has Expired!

It’s a given that people rarely follow advice, even when it’s good for them! We see examples everywhere – we are told by doctors to stop smoking, limit drinking, lose weight or make lifestyle changes. 

However even when faced with an immediate threat, we rarely change our behaviors.

This is because we are creatures of habit who crave constant familiarity in life. These habits are coded to keep us safe, meaning we rarely get uncomfortable enough to grow. 

This is the reason there are so few leaders in life because to be a great leader you must continually get yourself into uncomfortable situations where you are forced to grow mentally. We also possess strands of DNA passed on from our ancestors that do and do not serve us well. This DNA has its tentacles firmly rooted into our system and forms part of who we are today.

For example, I was recently forced to terminate one of my clients, as they were simply not prepared to do the work necessary to improve their situation. 

They had a degree of pain; they knew the course that needed to be taken; they clearly understood the why and the how, but they simply couldn’t take that necessary leap.

They wanted me the coach to do the hard yards, not themselves. After six meetings I had to remove myself. My client wanted to be number one in their industry, and they were on the way up. 

However, as the pressure mounted, the climb became far too great and it was a one step forward three steps back situation. I can’t do the hard yards for others. How can you solve someone’s problems when they are the problem and they don’t want to change?

The client must design his or her own path. As a coach, I simply shine a brighter light on the path to which they must walk.

The three key fundamentals to making leaders are:

I) Adversity in life

II) Continual daily / weekly laser leadership training

III) Experience on the job, with supported accountability

When I ask my clients what they think leadership is, the same answers always come back. Most will provide accurate examples of attributes a leader should and shouldn’t possess. They know what it takes to be a leader, and they readily want to change their behaviors to advance themselves. They just haven’t.

In my experience there are four key reasons why the majority of leadership programs are ineffective:

1. The training focuses on the individual, not the organization and the individual.

2. They are only made available for c-suite or middle management.

3. New individual and group leadership habits are not measured and made accountable on a daily basis.

4. Most leadership training is just theory based ‘knowledge dumping’ and not lived through and experienced, especially in a world where our minds are already overwhelmed.

Leadership theory based ‘knowledge dumping’ such as personality profiling, 360-degree assessments, 1, 2, or 3-day or monthly workshops and meditation are just a few common methods used to promote leadership and improve engagement in the workplace.

They all have their place in the training game, but to gain maximum traction, there is a new, faster and more effective method. It’s called ‘leadership living’ and all levels of the organization participate together in the workplace. It is an all-action methodology, which means team members will live, breathe and grow together as a united force. It breeds true engagement, uncovers more leaders and flows on via a waterfall effect to build a powerful and united culture.

Mainstream leadership and management training courses can be great in their delivery, and they do serve a purpose. Usually, the chosen leaders who are seen to have potential are given the opportunity to attend an external course. 

While these courses can be extremely inspiring when you’re there, it’s like taking a dirty fish from a dirty pond, cleaning it with new teachings and returning it to the dirty pond. The goal of course, is for the newly cleaned fish to come back and clean the dirty pond.

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However, a few days after a clean fish returns to a dirty pond it inevitably loses momentum and becomes dirty once again – the pond is far too big and too dirty for one fish to clean on its own, or with the small group that also participated in the cleansing.

So what’s the number one key to the success of your people? Engagement!

Most forward-thinking organizations now appreciate the importance of investing in engagement strategies, implementing standard reward & recognition programs to motivate and reward good behaviors and attitudes.

Why Engagement is the New Leadership The Strategic Way to Win in Business

Small and medium-sized businesses are the life-blood of our economy, but they face specific, ever-increasing challenges. The world is in the midst of an employee engagement crisis, with serious and potentially lasting repercussions for the global economy.

Without a doubt, one of the greatest challenges SME’s currently face is the attraction and retention of talent. Intelligent, honest, hardworking staff are critical to an organization’s ongoing success, but now more than ever, good people are hard to find – and they are even harder to hold on to! To ensure employee job fulfillment, loyalty and maximum ROI, the key ingredient that is so often missing is Engagement.

In a recent Gallup poll, it was revealed that only 13% of the world’s employees are engaged at work, and most disengaged employees would change employers right now for as little as a 5% pay increase.

The Engaged Employee - Does more than is expected.  Works with a passion and feels a profound connection to the organization they work for. They drive innovation and move the organization forwards, providing maximum return on salary investment

·        The Disengaged Employee - Does just what's expected.  Is essentially there in body only. They’re sleepwalking through their day. Marking time, but not energy or passion, into their work. They provide minimum return on salary investment

·        The Actively Disengaged Employee - Does less than expected.  They aren't happy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day these workers undermine the efforts of their engaged co-workers, often providing a negative return on salary investment.

Many organizations believe that strong leadership and an exclusive focus on the development of their leaders is the key to a winning culture. They are mistaken. Leadership is not the heart of your organization. The heart of your organization is its people and their contribution. Without actively engaged employees, the leadership message cannot be heard.

Trained leaders today have been overloaded with leadership knowledge and theory, but too often they are not sufficiently activated. We need to turn our attention equally to our staff, getting them actively engaged regularly through new, innovative and inclusive methods, thus creating a shared vision and buy-in.

It’s called ‘leadership living’ and all levels of the organization participate together in the workplace. It is an all-action methodology, which means all team members will live, breathe and grow together as a united force. It breeds true engagement, uncovers more leaders and builds a powerful and united culture. To ensure maximum impact and lasting change, everyone needs to be involved and everyone needs to be accountable.

Without HIGHLY engaged people, the leadership message cannot be heard

While these types of solutions certainly have their place, they can only be effective when operating as part of a broader strategy. The first step in the right direction is the creation of a winning culture. Strong culture and engagement are integral to each other’s survival. A quality culture can be defined as one united group with the same positive mindset owning and working towards the same winning vision.

Many organizations believe that strong leadership and an exclusive focus on the development of their leaders is the key to a winning culture. They are mistaken.

It is the people and their contribution that will make or break your business.

Organizations live and die by the people they employ – no matter what industry. Without actively engaged people, the leadership message cannot be heard. At the center of the most successful teams is the strategic empowerment and development of all team members, ensuring a clear pipeline to leadership and engagement.

In sports, the best teams know that success relies heavily on the contribution of everyone in the playing group. The trust and camaraderie within the team keeps them aligned and on track, and all players have the necessary skills and knowhow to be accountable, support their team, and embrace any level of pressure.

While business would benefit from adopting this sporting methodology, many attempt to do so with limited or short-lived success. Many of us understand the power of this line of attack; in theory, it’s great! It’s the adaptation and implementation that businesses struggle with. So how do we get there – and quickly? We start by putting the right system and strategies in place to ensure massive, rapid and sustainable change.

Are Your Employees WE or ME?

There are two types of people in every organization. The WE people and the ME people. If you have a critical mass of ME people you will always come second or lower. These organizations simply cannot handle pressure when it matters. WE will always WIN. The first thing you must do is ensure that your Leaders are 100% WE.

Collective Accountability

Critical for fast and sustainable success. It’s about ensuring everyone is regularly, and publicly held accountable in the right environment. All involved should commit to and regularly report on these key accountabilities which they set for themselves. This will ensure new habits are nurtured and old habits are purged.

Equality Creates Unity

Necessary to ensure team unity. The traditional hierarchical structure is not the most efficient option for businesses these days. Instead, successful companies are moving to an organizational structure that empowers, allowing employees to make more of their own decisions and avoid the rigidity of traditional models. This cultivates long-term buy-in and ownership.

Habitual Leadership Acts

Mainstream leadership training is generally knowledge-based, not action based. Habitual Leadership is ongoing and is all about actions. Leaders are not usually held accountable for the short or long term, which is why current leadership training strategies generally fail. We too often fall back into bad habits when returned to an unchanged environment. Sustained success requires consistent reflection and improvement.

The 2 Fundamentals

There are two fundamental requirements when building a thriving organization:

1) Quality systems, processors and game plans, which I call ‘the brain’ of the organization.

2) Quality leadership, engagement, and culture, which I call ‘the heart’ of the organization.

The two most important organs of the body are the brain and the heart, and we cannot survive without them functioning. They will work on small portions of blood flow, but they will be working harder than they should be, and it’s not sustainable long term. I liken this to analogy to most organizations that are just surviving. If you have an unlimited amount of blood flow, full of fresh oxygen, the brain and heart will work in unison at full capacity, and it will be better equipped if there are problems. This creates a thriving body (or organization).

Dynamic Flow

Good communication is the bloodline of any successful business, and if communication is slow, then the organization cannot flow. In larger businesses, departments often struggle to cross-pollinate relationships because individuals don’t know who their colleagues are, only what they do. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

'Group Activation Systems'

We now understand that it can’t be left to a few leaders within a business to create team engagement. Without actively engaged employees, the leadership message will be heavily diluted, and motivation will quickly fade. The heart of your organization is its people and their contribution. We need to turn our attention to our staff, getting them actively engaged regularly through new, innovative and inclusive methods. 

 Company training is the least desirable way to learn.

Instead, you need an all-inclusive Group Activation System that is neurologically designed and proven to reactivate employees. 

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90% of today’s business leaders think an engagement strategy has a positive effect on commercial success, yet only 25% of them have a game plan!

In today’s competitive world, your people are your edge. Old school business strategies and ‘knowledge dumping’ training programs are no longer sufficient when it comes to employee activation.  The game has changed. Have you changed your game to keep up?

To learn more about how implementing a Group Activation System into your organization
can increase team engagement, productivity, and profitability and how you can receive a

FREE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SURVEY

Download our Free White Paper  

Contact Us For More Information Contact
Steve Goranson, MBA at 904-739-0200

ActionCOACH & Team Engagement Specialist

www.createengagedteams.com 

Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Do You feel stuck? 

Do you feel that there is a glass ceiling that is holding you back from reaching your potential?

Check out this short video where ActionCOACH Steve Goranson will share with you a simple formula that will help your break through the barriers that are holding you back and keeping you in your comfort zone.

How will you break out of your comforts zone?

If you are ready to break out of your comfort zone and want to take your business to the next level sign up for a Complimentary Break Through 1/2 hour phone coaching session and discover the power of coaching

CLICK HERE to Register

Employee Engagement is the New Leadership

Our 6th President John Quincy Adams once said that if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.  

Those are powerful words.  Notice that he didn’t say dream or learn or do, he used the word "and".  Another sign of a good leader is one who can create leaders.  For any business, this is the first step toward creating a more valuable and sellable business.  

Good leadership develops an engaged team.  Today employee engagement is the new leadership.  Employee Engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals. Without developing engaged employees, you’re trying to move your business forward with an anchor hanging out the back.  

How much is employee disengagement costing your organization?   Here are 5 anchors of poor employee engagement that are costing your business growth, profitability, and your free time.

1. Poor Employee Engagement Creates a “ME” Culture.  Instead of working together towards the company’s common goals each employee is looking out for their own best interest.  You hear “it’s not my job” a lot and you get a lot of finger pointing.  They lose the perspective that when we work together as a team we all can achieve more: Together Everyone Achieves More.
2. Poor Employee Engagement Creates Wasted Time  When employees are not fully engaged they are not helping the company move forward.  They are doing things the way they think is best instead of looking out for what is in the best interest of the organization and what you strategically decided is best.  Without being focused on the company’s common goals, you get a lot of chaos and frustration which causes a lot of wasted time and money.
3. Poor Employee Engagement Creates More Missed Work
   When employees are working in an environment of chaos and frustration it takes toll on one’s personal energy and health.  This additional stress causes us to not get to work on time, to take more breaks, to leave early or just take unplanned days off.  This consistent interruption of work flow causes loss of productivity and profits
4. Poor Employee Engagement Creates Poor Quality of Work  If your employees don’t have their heart into it, they lose focus, they make mistakes and quality of output suffers.  The cost of this is enormous; loss of customers, wasting time doing work over, more overtime to cover the extra work involved, and increases in COGS.  These are the small hidden holes in your business that is sinking your ship and you don’t even realize it.
5. Poor Employee Engagement Creates Higher Employee Turnover  Good employees are looking for worthwhile work.. They want to be part of something big.  It’s hard to get motivated and engaged when you just feel that you are just a clog in a wheel.  The way to keep good employees is not always about the money

You can’t train employee engagement but the first step is to determine how engaged your employees are.  

Take our free employee engagement survey.  We will send an anonymous survey to your employees and provide you with a free employee engagement report.    

To sign up for your free employee engagement survey and report. 

CLICK HERE NOW!

If you would like to learn more about you too can get an "actionable" business education to improve your business's operations, sales,& bottom line contact ActionCOACH Steve Goranson at 904-739-0200. www.actioncoachjax.com

Steve Goranson has owned and operated the Northeast Florida of ActionCOACH since 2014. ActionCOACH is the World's #1 Coaching franchise with of 1000 offices in 50 different countries. They coach over 15,000 business each week.

Steve's commitment is to assist small business owners, to spend less time working "in" their business and more time working "on" their business so they can build a more valuable and sellable business. In the end, you’ll be spending less total time working, will be making more money and will have truly created the company and team you always dreamed of. In addition we will help you put the FUN back in your business and your life.

Call his office to schedule a free 1/2 hour Phone Strategy Session 904-739-0200

How to scale up your business to work without you

At ActionCOACH our definition of a successful business is a "Commercial Profitable Enterprise that Works without the Business Owner".  If it doesn't, the business is broken.  You don't own a business you own a "JOB".

Getting the business working harder so you don't have to is one way to create a more valuable and sellable business.   One strategy to do this is by training others in your area of expertise. This strategy is simple, so why is it so difficult to execute?  

It can be tough to grow a service business. Clients are typically buying your expertise, and if all you have to sell is time, the size of your business will always be limited by the number of hours in your day.  We have to forget our business is not about us, but what solutions we can provide our customers.

One way to scale up your service business is to launch a training division to teach others what you know.  That's what John Taylor did when he found himself run ragged trying to grow Nova Data Testing, a Jacksonville FL based non-destructive testing company.

John found that since he was the only one in his company that had some high level certifications, he was the only one that could do those jobs.  Since he was in the field with his guys most of the time, it left little time or energy left for growing the business.  He still loved the business but hated the constant demands on her time and energy.

In an effort to pull himself out of individual projects, we worked together to first document systems of what each team member is responsible for when out on a job.  Next, we worked on building his team around his company’s 10 Points of Culture.  

Once we got the right guys on the team, he began to train them to take over and lead the jobs that didn’t need his level of certifications.  Also during this time, he began to train his key team players to get the higher level certifications that only he had.  He would go as far taking them to a hotel 2 days before the exam to just get away and cram with them for the exam.

Due in part of his focus on training his team in the areas that only he had expertise, this August he was able to take the whole month of August off to go back packing in the mountains out west.  

Increase the value of your company by training others in your area of expertise.

It can be tough to grow a service business. Clients are typically buying your expertise, and if all you have to sell is time, the size of your business will always be limited by the number of hours in your day.

One way to scale up your service business is to launch a training division or just schedule set times to teach others what you know. That's what John Taylor did when he found himself run ragged trying to grow Nova Data Testing, a Jacksonville based non-destructive testing firm.

As business owners, we all know we should be documenting our systems for others to follow, but somehow writing our owner's manual or training our team for certifications always takes a backseat to serving the next customer or fighting the next fire.

Maybe what we need to do is stop thinking of writing down our process as an internal chore and instead focus on launching a training division. That way, the job of documenting our system goes from a textbook-boring task to the raw material needed to get your business working harder so you don't have to.

 Check out our upcoming events at www.bizsuccessevents.com 

In creating a more valuable business, it is always the little things that get the big results. Our Business Health Check will give you invaluable insights into the many areas of your business that if tweaked will increase the value of your business.

By completing the Business Health Check, you will receive a Free Report based on your answers, prepared by our team of highly skilled Business Coaches.
CLICK HERE to take your Business Health Check Now

Steve Goranson has owned and operated the Northeast Florida of ActionCOACH since 2014.  ActionCOACH is the World's #1 Coaching franchise with of 1000 offices in 50 different countries. They coach over 15,000 business each week.
Steve's commitment is to assist small business owners, to spend less time working "in" their business and more time working "on" their business so they can build a more valuable and sellable business. In the end, you’ll be spending less total time working, will be making more money and will have truly created the company and team you always dreamed of. In addition we will help you put the FUN back in your business and your life.

Business Advice: How to Create an Accountable and Responsible Team and Stop Being a SAPP

One of the keys to business success for an entrepreneur is their ability to build a team of motivated employees that are aligned to the company's goals. 

A common complaint I hear from my clients about their employees is that, "They're not accountable or responsible for anything - getting work done on-time or doing quality work" or "They continuously do sloppy work and running over budget on every job".  "Why can't they be accountable or responsible?"  They are at a loss of what to do and it stresses the hell out of them. 

When you think about it maybe you start wondering, that they don't care or don't want to work hard or they just want to do what is minimally required.  Does this sound familiar?

If we are honest with ourselves, what's holding most of us back from building a success team is, well...us.  Yes, I said it.  It's us!

As a business owner, most of the time, we are the one responsible.  It's our need or maybe fear that makes us want to control everything.  The problem is that when we control everything that turns us into a SAPP - Solving All People's Problems.

 

In business there seems to be a very fine bar between success and failure.  The question I consistently ask my clients is, are you and your team acting above or below this bar? 

We all know people who act below this bar.  They are always BLAMING others, coming up with EXCUSES, or might be in DENIAL that they are the problem.  

On the other hand...  Successful business leaders and teams play above this bar.  They are looking for Opportunities, they are ACCOUNTABLE for the results they need to achieve, and they are RESPONSIBLE for their actions.

The thing that most business owners or managers don't realize is it's with our actions and our speech that we can help raise our team Above the Bar or keep the Below the Bar.

We keep our team (and family members) below the bar by asking judgmental questions like, Why did you do that? What's wrong with you?  Why can't you get this right?  Who did this?  When we ask the judgmental questions all we get are Excuse, Blaming, or Denials that they are not the problem.

The way we coach our team to be Responsible, Accountable, and take Ownership, is by asking learning type questions like, What could we have done differently?  How could we have done better?  How can we prevent this from happening again?  What could we learned from this? 

Have you noticed one thing each of these questions have in common?  The use of the word WE instead of I.  When use WE, as owners, leaders, and managers, we are taking some responsibility and ownership of the mistake.  Instead of putting the focus on the employee, we are focusing on the action and learning what the appropriate action could have been.  This way they learn, we learn, the whole team learns.

Now your team will begin to make better choices and decisions.  They won't have to be standing at your door waiting to ask you how to do things because they are afraid of making a mistake.  The best part is you'll start becoming less of a  SAPP (solving all people's problems) and more of a leader.  Your team will begin to take Ownership of the situation, being Accountable to you and Responsible for their actions.  Now you'll be well on your way to building a more valuable business that can work without you.

Help! I’m stuck in a rut!

A few years back I was standing at our kitchen sink, washing the breakfast dishes, looking out our kitchen window and I noticed this fly.  It was just flying in circles, climbing up and down the window screen desperately looking for a way out.   Feeling the fresh air, it could sense that its freedom was near.  This seemed to motivate the fly even more to try to get out.

I realized that if I didn't give the fly any help, it was destined to be flying in circles all day, and I knew that the buzzing would begin to get on my nerves.  Eventually my son who was 3 years old at the time came over and  pushed the screen open to give the fly an opening to finally break through to freedom.

As I continued to wash the dishes, I was amazed that the fly just kept going up and down in the same meticulous manner.  The path to freedom was just inches away but it seemed stuck looking in the same places to find a small hole to break through.  When I was done washing the dishes and contemplating what had just happened, my son came over and asked me, “Why didn't it just fly away?”  I thought about it for a moment and answered him that the fly never stopped to think that he could.

How many of us are unknowingly doing the same thing?  My son's question made me think about how many businesses can't move forward.

How many of us can’t break through to that next level of success because we are stuck in our own comfort zone?  How many business owners continue to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results?

But just like the fly on my window, we are stuck in our comfort zones, imprisoned by our routines, stuck doing the same thing over and over because it is just familiar to us.  A wise sage once said, “An imprisoned individual cannot set himself free.”

Eventually the fly did break through to freedom, but only when my son came over and repeatedly pushed it toward the opening, so it could finally break through to the freedom it so desired.

Who do you have that can give you more perspective and will continually push you toward the opening so you can break through to your next level of success?

As a business coach, I help my clients see the forest through the trees, give them the knowledge they need when they need it, and hold them accountable week in and week out to reach their goals.  

A business coach helps business owners create a long-term vision and set goals and milestones to achieve that vision.  A business coach can help business owners talk through solutions to overcome problems.  Business coaches can also assist with building your team, helping team members to contribute to your overall success.  Business coaching keeps business owners on track to continue to grow and create their own success.

At ActionCOACH, we coach business owners to success with proven, tested and systematized ways to reach your goals and grow your business no matter what industry you are in.

Remember every champion has a coach, and that coaching is not just sports any more.

Find out more about the ActionCOACH approach to growing a successful business.  Check out my latest workshops and seminars www.actioncoachseminars.com or call our office for a free 1/2 hour phone "breakthrough coaching session" to discover if coaching can help you.

Do you have a Black Belt in Business?

What does it mean to earn a black belt in the martial arts?  To become a trained killer.  No,  martial arts training is a lot more.  It's a form of self-defense and exercise.  But, most importantly, it is a philosophy or a way of life.

I got involved in the martial arts at a very early age, but didn't receive my Black Belt in Tang Soo Do Karate until I was almost 30.  I found martial arts was not only a great form of exercise and self defense, but also taught me how to survive the battles of business and life.  When I look back, what I really learned was the importance of goal setting, focus, determination, and the use of systems.

Each martial art has a series of belts or levels, which each student strives to reach before they can become a black belt.  This systematized approach provides students a process to gain mastery over a particular level of skills before moving on to the next level.  Showing the importance of setting end goals with milestones along the way to keep you on track.

My sensei (Karate instructor) taught me that each level you reach before a black belt, you are just learning Karate but once you become a black belt, you are now doing Karate.  Once you reach black belt, you now have the knowledge and wisdom to apply what you have learned.  The journey doesn’t stop there.  There are new goals and milestones as you reach for the higher levels of being a black belt.  As a business coach, I have found this same systematized approached can also be applied to any business.  

When do you get your black belt in business?  When are you “doing” business instead of learning business?  At ActionCOACH we have a definition for this scenario, “A commercial profitable enterprise that can work without you the business owner”. 

So, how get a black belt in business?  Let’s take a look at the 6 belts you must master before you can be a black belt in business.

White Belt:  At this level, the emphasis is on basic business mastery over time, team, & money.  It’s about getting the chaos out of your business and getting organized.  It’s about making sure you can make payroll and that your employees understand their roles & responsibilities in your organization.  It’s where you learn to delegate tasks to your team, so you can concentrate on developing higher level skills needed to obtain your business black belt.

Yellow Belt:  This level is where you work on creating predicable cash flow in the business.  You develop your Niche and USP (unique selling proposition), so you can start selling on value and not price.  You find out why your business is unique and valuable to your customers.

Green Belt:  At this level, you are working on creating efficiencies in your business.  You are starting to develop systems that will run your business so you don’t have to.

Blue Belt:  Here you learn how to get the right people “on the bus”-- the right team players, who will run your systems that will run your business.

Red Belt:  This level is where we start to see all your hard work come together.  You’ll start to see the synergies of your systems and team develop.  Now, you start grooming your general manager who will run your business for you.

Black Belt:  Now you’ve made it!  You’ve created a commercial profitable enterprise that works without you.  You are now an entrepreneur with a business black belt!  You are  generating passive income from the business.  You can now take the skills and knowledge which you have learned and apply them to other businesses or start investing your profits, so your money is making money.

To learn more about how you can turn your business into a Black Belt business, sign up for our next free webinar.  Check out my latest workshops and seminars www.actioncoachseminars.com 

3 Ways to Accelerate Your Business

The other day, I was re-listening Brad Sugar interview Keith Cunningham as part of the Master Mentor Series.  Keith is a business profitability expert, who wrote the course seminar that world-renowned Robert Kiyosaki turned into the best selling book Rich Dad, Poor Dad.  Of the many gems I received from listening to this interview, I would like to share one with you.

Most of us would agree that our business isn’t growing as fast as we would like.  If we had to describe the speed of our growth, we would compare it to the speed of a tricycle.  Most of us are peddling away as fast as we can, but - on a tricycle - we can only peddle just so fast.  To stay at that fast pace takes a lot of energy.

What can we do to increase our business growth from the pace of a tricycle to that of an automobile or jet airplane?  

Add systems, dials & knowledge.

Systems – A tricycle has only 3 systems to make it move: a steering system, a 3 wheel system and a peddling system.  None of these systems needs to be monitored or needs much knowledge to operate.  These systems are so simple even a “caveman”, sorry, I mean a 2 or 3 year old can operate it.  What allows an automobile or jet to move fast?  It has more sophisticated systems.  No longer is our acceleration powered solely by our effort, but by the automobile or jet's systems. These systems accelerate our growth, but use less energy on our part.

Dials – If our systems are not working properly, we may not be moving at all or it may even lead to an accident or someone’s death.  To prevent system failure, we need dials or a dashboard to monitor our speed and acceleration.  If we are moving at the speed of a jet and we make a mistake, it could lead to some serious consequences.

Knowledge –  Just about anyone can ride a tricycle.  It doesn’t take much knowledge or training compared to that of an automobile or jet.  However, just having a pilot’s license isn’t enough to make you qualified to fly jets.  You need continuous and more strenuous training.

To move your business growth at jet speed:

1. Create new or improve your current systems.  A jet moves faster than a propelled aircraft (or a tricycle) because of its systems.
2. Create a dashboard of KPI’s (smart numbers or key performance indicators)  for your business to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of your systems.  If not, you might be in spiral spin downward and won’t know it until you crash.
3. Continuously increase the knowledge of you and your team to run your systems better.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below...

4 Tips to Get Your Business to Serve You

Do you feel that you are working to the point of exhaustion in your business and don’t feel like you are getting any where? You are not alone. Many business owners suffer from the same business disease of working “in” and not “on” their business.

Most business owners don’t know how to break this cycle even if they recognize these symptoms. The first step to fixing a problem is to understand the problem, so let me explain. Most business owners spend a majority of their time working in their business; doing sales & marketing, invoicing & billing, paying bills, and servicing customers. Then, what ever work they can’t do, they hire employees to fill the gap.

Because there is only so much one human being can possibly do, you quickly get burnt out and become less efficient and effective in doing these tasks. This is why you feel like you are working harder and harder but getting no where.

1. Be a Leader - Your first step to working “on” the business is having the understanding that as business owner you need to be the leader, not the worker bee. You need to stop doing the work of the business and let the business begin to do the work.
2. Serve Your Team - As a business owner and leader your task is to develop and serve your team. You serve them by training them; providing them benefits, and holding them accountable to the results you expect of them. You must help them to grow so your business can grow.
3. Team Serves Your Customers - By inspiring & encouraging your team, they will in turn inspire and serve your customer. They will serve your customers by providing excellent service and being problems solvers. Your team will focus on their customers needs and become their trusted advisor. 
4. Customers Serve Your Business - Your customers will now be inspired to serve your business by buying more products and referring others. This will allow your business to now start serving you the business owner.

Start now! Begin by creating and implementing a plan to train and develop your team so they can serve your customers. This will in turn get your customers to start serving your business and finally getting your business to serve you. In this way you will because the master of your business instead of a slave to it.

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