Articles – Page 6 – A-Head for Success

How to Enjoy More Flow and Less Stress

July 20, 2015

What is flow? It is that sense of being in the zone, where everything seems easy. You feel empowered and in control. You have more flow when you are playing to your strengths, because your strengths tend to be what you enjoy.

Having more flow is to experience more motivation, more energy and more fun in your work. You are able to navigate challenging situations more easily because you have a foundation of inner resourcefulness to support you.

You make fewer mistakes too because your concentration improves.

This all means you are less stressed and more productive.

Like a top athlete in the zone, you are super-focused, super-motivated and you perform at your best.

So, what can you do to experience more flow? Here are my tips to help you:

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Productivity, Stress

Flow, Productivity, Stress

What’s the Difference Between a Coach, a Mentor and a Consultant?

April 14, 2014

Denial or Truth They say that all the best people get support to get them to the top and to keep them there. It is a sign of vision, strength, and drive to want to take your performance and productivity seriously enough to invest in yourself and your business in this way. But how do you know what kind of support you need?

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Customer Retention is Boring

February 20, 2014

customer retention I recently signed up for a very expensive service from someone who positions himself as an expert, no, THE expert in his field. I was given a lot of promises which made the large investment a no-brainer.

I have pretty high standards and, over the years, I have learned to lower them. And lower them some more. So, even with the hype, I wasn’t expecting everything which was offered to the degree it was positioned.

However, after a possible 20% delivery and 80% disappointment, and having given said-company ample time to catch up with themselves, I was told they were too busy to deal with it. They had new customers to deal with. New customers are EXCITING. Problems are boring – or so they believe. He is operating the customer churn and burn strategy.

This individual is pretty charismatic. He is good at winning new business. However, his reputation is being tarnished because he is good at customer attraction and very poor at customer retention. Given that keeping a customer is less expensive than attracting a new customer. And that there are only so many customers in the world, no matter how charismatic you are, looking at how to keep the ones you have is an important part of your business strategy.

Brand management and reputation management are key to this. So, a couple of questions for you:

Do you have a customer retention strategy?
How effective is your customer retention?
What would your customers say about you if you weren’t in the room?
What would your customers say are your most redeeming qualities?
What would your customers say is most frustrating in dealing with your company?

Here are some of the customer retention strategies I teach my clients:

Make sure your systems make it easy for them to do business with you
Offer only quality service and quality products
Have a quick turnaround on queries
Be easy to get hold of
Acknowledge every communication
Treat existing customers with as much care as you do prospects, if not more so
Under-promise and over-deliver – this on its own will set you apart from the competition
Stay in touch

Your customers will forgive you a lot of you care about them.

Tricia Woolfrey is an integrative business coach helping people like you and companies like yours perform at their best, so that you can be more profitable, with less stress and with your integrity intact. Call 0845 130 0854 for a free telephone consultation.

Business, Business Coach, Customer Service

Business, Customer retention, Customer service, Success, Tricia Woolfrey

A-Z of Business: Z- ZEN – Can Mindfulness be Profitable?

January 4, 2014

Mindfulness in Business When I started out in business in 1998, success to me was the achievement of a particular goal, be it profit-related, the completion of a project or the acceptance of an idea. And while these are true, they are concerned with the what of success, not the how.

Over the years, I have studied many psychological and business-school concepts. And what is missing for most people is the application of zen principles to business.

For the purpose of this article, the term zen can be considered as the mindful engagement with your work and operation of your business (or your job if you work for someone else). This means being purpose-ful about what you are doing and why, from a macro perspective and a micro perspective.

So, to begin with, why do you do what you do? What purpose does your business (or job) fulfil? I am reminded of an old parable about a man who visited a city many hundreds of years ago. He came across two men labouring under the noonday sun. He asked the first what he is doing “Oh, I am just doing some labouring. It is hard work and I will not be finished for hours.” He asked the same question to the second man who responded “I am helping to build a cathedral”. This story beautifully describes the purpose of their work. One saw it is a job, a means to an end, something he had to endure each day. The second man saw it as a vocation and put his heart and soul into each stone he laid. Which man was likely to have been more productive? Which man happier? Which would have inspired others? And which went home with a sense of achievement?

Are you clear about what your business is there to achieve in terms of a higher purpose? If you are in business purely for money, as a lot of people are, what is the higher purpose that money is there to achieve? For example, let’s take a cleaning company. Not the most glamorous of businesses and fraught with day to day problems. It would be easy to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of the issues around difficult customers and unreliable staff. So, what is the higher purpose? This would be personal to everybody but it may be to provide a beautiful environment for your clients to live or work. Or it may be to provide work and career opportunities for employees who have had difficulty holding down a job in the past. Or, if you really have no passion for the work at all, it may be to provide a good education for your children so that they can be free to make more fulfilling career and life choices for themselves.

When you have an over-riding purpose, it can carry you through the most challenging of times. It can pull you out of the mire of the day to day and into a higher, more creative, more empowered mindset. Which is likely to create more profit for you?

At a micro level, it is about being purpose-ful in the moment. This means applying yourself 100% to whatever it is you are doing, fully absorbed. The ability to multi-task is seen as a skill and even a virtue. It is something I have been proud to call a skill. And it is. But it is also a weakness. I noticed myself yesterday doing something and then stopping it to start something else and then interrupting myself doing that to do yet something else. I realised that I have become so “skilled” at multi-tasking and responding to requests and interruptions that I now interrupt myself! So I have to remind myself and, when I do, there is a flow to my work. A peacefulness, a quiet productivity which is enriching and rewarding. Of course there are times when I have to multi-task and over the years of my career I have had to do this thousands of times, shifting gear at a moment’s notice, which is why it is a difficult habit to break. However, the effort of stopping and starting and stopping and starting again reduces productivity and increases stress. It is important to be able to do it but not to make it a way of life.

True multi-tasking is a myth as usually you are simply stopping and starting, picking up and putting down. I recently saw a cartoon about women being great multi-taskers. It showed a woman flying through the air with a duster in one hand to clean the ceilings and pushing a vacuum with the other to clean the floors. But in reality it is really very difficult to apply yourself fully to more than one task at once. Sure you can wait on the phone for someone to pick up while you file something away but in reality, you are almost always only doing one thing at once. Doing that one thing with a sense of purpose can bring a richness to the most mundane of tasks. Most people hate filing but if you do your filing with an intention to create order in your environment this can transform the experience and it can even feel meditative. In addition, thinking about the piece of work that paper represents with an attitude of gratitude and appreciation can be equally rewarding. Certainly better than attacking the filing with a feeling of resentment and obligation.

So, the concept of applying yourself 100% to whatever you are doing in the moment, thinking about the purpose of that task, brings with it a higher level of clarity and productivity, a calmer demeanour and a much nicer person to take home to the family! This brings with it greater financial profit but also an intrinsic profit which is priceless.

And last, but by no means least remember the principles of karma – that you reap what you sow. So, be kind in your interactions and you will be richly rewarded with deeper and more trusting relationships as well as greater loyalty with your associates, your employees and your clients.

If you would like to learn more about how mindfulness can enhance your productivity and your profits, call me on 0845 130 0854.

On this note we end my A-Z of Business blogs, which I hope have been productive for you. As we enter the new year, I hope that your 2014 business plans are clear – your company goals, business values, products and USP…and that you feel personally prepared to take on the year ahead, manage your time effectively, serve your customers and motivate your staff. For any additional support, do contact me at tricia@pw-consulting.co.uk. I wish you a very happy new year and a successful 2014!

About Tricia Woolfrey – click HERE to find out about the author.

Business, Goals, Performance, Personal Development, Success

Mindfulness, Multi tasking, Productivity, Purpose, Success

A-Z of Business: Y – YOU – Are you the Problem or the Solution?

December 5, 2013

You and your business Whether you are in business for yourself or working for others, it is natural in times of success to take credit for it. But it’s tempting to blame external factors (other people, customers, the economy, market forces, etc) when things go wrong.

However, to do so is no help at all except that it massages a fragile ego. You are still stuck. The mark of a successful business-person is one who looks to themselves in times of challenge. In this way, they retain control rather give away their power to outside forces. To avoid looking to what you could do differently is to be a victim, powerless to make changes. In this competitive world, it is unsustainable. The power is in the ability to evolve.

All it takes is a different perspective. Look to yourself for the solution and ask yourself the right questions:

What factors have contributed to this problem?
In what way(s) have I contributed to this problem?
Where did I take my eye off the ball?
What didn’t I do which I should have done?
What did I do which I shouldn’t have done?
What didn’t I do which I could have done?
What steps can I take now which can remedy the situation?
What steps can I take to avoid this happening in the future?
Is this part of a bigger pattern?
What else can I learn from this?

By putting yourself “at cause”, you take control, you evolve and you build a more robust business. It takes courage, insight and humility. Do you have what it takes?

It can be difficult doing this for yourself and this is where a good coach/mentor can really help. Why not book a session now? Call me on 0845 130 0854 to find out more. You’ll be glad you did!

About Tricia Woolfrey – click HERE to find out about the author.

Business, Performance, Problem Solving, Strengths

Business, Business coaching, Challenge, Problem solving, Success

A-Z of Business: X- X-Ray Vision – Know your Business Inside Out

November 13, 2013

Your business results don’t reflect the effort you put in. Sound familiar?

If so, you are not alone. Indeed, some of my clients have been working so hard that they are nearing burnout. This is often because they are focusing on the wrong thing, which they believe to be the right thing. This is why having a forensic view of your company – x-ray vision – helps you to focus on those factors which make the biggest difference to your success. Working smart, not working hard is the difference which makes the difference. Productivity, not activity.

For example, if you are spending a lot of time bringing in new business but haemorrhaging customers out the back door, your efforts will be as effective as attempting to fix a burst pipe with a sticking plaster.

Or perhaps you are spending your time bringing in new business that you don’t have the infrastructure to support? Like building a house without it’s foundations.

Maybe your customer service is poor and you are busy sending out feedback forms when really the problem is that your hiring processes and training do not enforce your company value of customer satisfaction?

Or is your business booming but your customer’s aren’t paying their invoices? This is where success leads to ruin.

So, x-ray vision on the essentials helps you work strategically – making the right decisions about how you spend your time and your money and what will be the best strategy to take your business forward. The first step is to get yourself some key performance indicators. These help you to measure your performance against target on areas you consider to be important, for example:

Turnover
Profit
Product revenues
Sales growth
Cost of sales
Costs
Performance against budget
Sales conversion ratio
New sales by marketing method
ROI (see individual blog about this)
Revenue by customer
Employee satisfaction
Employee performance
Revenue by employee
Customer satisfaction
Customer complaints
Customer complaints resolved
There are also various KPIs for:
- Social media
- Site engine optimisation
- Call centre performance

Lies and statistics

A lot of clients view a nice big turnover as proof of their success and they just work very hard at increasing that number. However, a forensic examination of the statistics will let them know whether there is also a healthy profit because if the ratio of profit to turnover is low, you are working hard for little reward. It will help you look at what is creating the biggest profit and whether you need to make a loss on something to bring in profit on something else. This is both an art and a science. Also, if you are producing lots of nice big invoices but not getting paid because your credit control is not effective, that turnover is meaningless.

Here are my 5 steps to help you take control of your business with x-ray vision:

Consider what KPIs you want in your business (the above are just a few examples)
Regularly review performance against these
Look at the relationship between them
Decide what is causing the positive results and do more of those
Determine what is causing negative results and take remedial action. Make sure there will not be negative consequences elsewhere.

Remember that an x-ray shows you what is wrong structurally, it is up to you to find out the cause and to take appropriate action.

If you need help with any of this – it is hard doing it for yourself – do give me a call on 0845 130 0854. I look forward to hearing from you!

About Tricia Woolfrey – click HERE to find out about the author.

Business, Customer Service, Finance, Productivity, Profit, Sales, Success

Customer service, Employees, KPIs, Profit, Results, Revenue, Sales, Success

A-Z of Business: W: Weaknesses – You are only as strong as your weakest link

October 16, 2013

We are all made up of strengths and weaknesses, undiscovered potential and blind spots. Your best strategy for success is to exploit your strengths, uncover hidden skills (we all have them), open your eyes to your blind spots (we all have those too) and start working on these – and your weaknesses – to make sure they do not become your derailers.

Your biggest enemy in addressing any limitations is denial. If you want to have success, your best friend is your willingness to be open to discovering weaknesses and to work on them.

As the title of this article suggests – you are only as strong as your weakest link. Doing whatever it takes to mitigate against these is good insurance for the future and it will give you a sense of progress and achievement too. It may mean working on yourself (it’s much easier with the support of a good coach) or hiring in talent to make up for any shortfall. All the best teams, according to the principles of Belbin Team Roles require a variety of attributes to achieve success.

Belbin has nine team roles from Shaper (takes the business forward, creating strategy) to Completer Finisher (who puts the strategy into action). One cannot exist fruitfully without the others, otherwise the team is out of balance. Whether you are working on your own or with a team, the same principle applies.

In the 5 Pillars of Success, I look at the dimensions which help to make you successful:

1.    Clarity
Do you have a clarity of purpose, of mission and of values? Do you have a clear strategy with clear steps to take you there? Can you see clearly enough to prioritise well and delegate effectively to your team or brief your suppliers effectively? 2.    Skills
Do you have the skills you need to make you successful? Influencing? Time management? Leadership? Delegating? Presenting? Emotional intelligence? Business skills? Conflict management? What skill do you wish you had more of? What skill do you overplay so that it becomes a problem? Perfectionism? Drive? It’s just as important to see when a strength becomes a weakness as it is to recognise your blind spots. 3.    Mindset
Are you positive, motivated and solution oriented? Do you possess the personality factors for success? Have you been on my Personality for Success seminar yet? This gives you a great self-assessment tool, or you can book yourself a psychometric profile. 4.    Stress Resilience
Are you calm and resourceful under pressure? Do you respond thoughtfully to situations rather than react impulsively, building up more problems for yourself down the line? Do you allow the small things to become big things? Do you take the stresses at work home with you and the stress at home to work with you? 5.    Energy
Do you have too much work at the end of your energy? Does your lifestyle or pace impact your health? Do you have adrenal energy or core energy? It is only core energy which is sustainable but few people have this. Are you firing on all cylinders? If you aren’t, nor is your business.

And what weaknesses are there in your business? Do you have the skills, processes and systems in place to run the business effectively and profitably? Do you have a good quality team, performing well and working well together? Are you able to acquire and retain customers who pay well and are happy with your service or product? And are you able to meet your financial targets and obligations?

Remember that no one person can know it all, do it all and be it all. Perfection is not a human condition but it is a destination, one you can travel on your journey of self-development and business improvement.

What one area could you improve which would have the biggest impact for you? If you focus on one thing at a time then you will not risk dropping any of the many balls you are juggling and it is easier to integrate the change.

Why not book an assessment to see where you can best focus your efforts to create the best value? Call me on 0845 130 0854 to discuss your options.

About Tricia Woolfrey – click HERE to find out about the author.

Business, Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Performance, Personal Development, Strengths, Success

Emotional intelligence, Energy, Performance, Profit, Psychometric profiling, Skills, Strengths, Stress, Weaknesses

A-Z of Business: V – Values – Your Guiding Principles

October 2, 2013

You may think of value as being the value you provide to your clients. This, of course, is important. After all, if you are not providing value to your clients (or customers), why should they work with you? The value of your product and service needs to be clear and tangible to them if you are to have a sustainable business.

However, just as important are the values which drive you in your business. Values are what you consider to be important. They link into your vision, your mission and your strategy. They are your guiding principles.

Values are also part of your brand – the personality of your organisation.

As well as guide you, they can be a barometer in decision making. Let me take an example. Let’s say your values are:

Quality
Teamwork
Integrity
Customer delight
Innovation

If there is an opportunity to buy into a joint venture which stacks up financially with a quick and generous return on investment, but the quality of the offering is lower than your current product or service offering, this will undermine your values of quality, customer delight and possibly integrity. So, while on paper the deal may appear lucrative, the net effect is likely to be negative as people stop trusting your brand and you lose customer loyalty. If you lose customer loyalty, this will, in turn, impact your revenues. Remember it is more cost effective to keep an existing customer than it is to attract a new one.

But more important than that is your reputation. Working counter to your values undermines your brand and your brand values become different to your espoused values. They become your reputation – what people are saying about your company when you are not in the room. It is important to really understand the values which underpin your business. So, here are some questions for you:

What is important to your business? Truly? (This is no time for self-deception)
What do you want your clients and customers to be saying?
How is this different to what you imagine them to be saying now?
Are your values supported in your decision-making processes?
Your marketing?
Your logo?
Your website?
Your communications?

Remember that everybody in your organisation is an ambassador for your business (for good or ill), so it is important that they buy into your values with their own behaviours and attitudes. To what degree are your values reflected in the following:

Your hiring processes?
Your hiring decisions?
Your inductions?
Your training?
In your leadership style (and that of your other managers)?
In how you the performance of your staff is managed?

Perhaps your lived values are different from the values you would like to be known by? If so, it is possible to change them. However, it requires a structured and integrative approach. They need to weave into everything and to underpin everything with buy-in from each and every member of your staff – otherwise it is just a PR exercise which will backfire. Getting this right can create more customer loyalty, more employee satisfaction and attract new business to you.
© Tricia Woolfrey 2013

About Tricia Woolfrey – click HERE to find out about the author.

Branding, Business, Customer, Customer Service, Image, Performance, Strengths, Values

Business, Integrity, Performance, Strategy, Values

A-Z of Business: U – USP – Why You Need One

August 19, 2013

Do you really need a Unique Selling Point? What happens if you don’t have one? Well, unless you are in an industry with no competitors then your USP is what will set you apart. It will give your prospects a reason to go with you instead of someone else.

In a struggling economy, you need all the competitive advantage you can get. And if you are looking for a job, you need that competitive edge too.

So, why should someone buy your product? It is no longer enough to say “we are the best”, you need to say how. And it needs to be based on reality rather than an aspiration that you are working towards.

There was a wonderful sign displayed which went like this:

“We offer three kinds of service – Good, Cheap or Fast. You can pick any two. Good and cheap won’t be fast. Good and fast won’t be cheap. Cheap and fast won’t be good. ”

At the gym yesterday, my personal trainer said the best advice he was given is to always think of yourself as number two so that you would still strive to do better. This reminded me of the Avis USP which is “We are number two – we try harder.” What a great USP which succeeds in turning a negative into a massive positive.

Apple’s USP is to think differently – they are the company best known for their innovation, having broken many technological boundaries. They can be relied upon to be innovative, fun and customer-focused.

If you are finding it difficult to identify your USP, go back to testimonials you have been given by your customers. It is easy to forget these but hopefully you have kept a log of them. Also, consider what your competitors are doing and what they are promising. How are you different to them? What are the problems you are solving for your customers?

Let’s take an example. For an IT support company, their customers may suffer from not being terribly IT literate, having to wait a long time before an engineer can fix their problem, or their technology is stopping them from getting on with their work

Let’s look at the customers’problem, potential USPs and their corresponding straplines:

Waiting a long time for an engineer
- USP – getting their IT problems solved quickly
- Strapline – Your IT Support within 24 hours or quicker
Not very IT literate
- USP – use jargon free communication so that the problem is easier to understand
- Strapline – Taking the Jargon out of IT Support
Technology stopping them from working
- USP – getting you up and running quickly
- Strapline –Helping you to work when your computer doesn’t
Frustrated that every problem seems to mean a new computer
- USP – providing the simplest, most cost effective solutions
- Strapline – Simple Solutions to Complicated Problems

Whatever your USP, do make sure that you live and breathe it. You don’t want your USP to be “tried and failed” – it should enhance your reputation, not undermine it.

About Tricia Woolfrey – click HERE to find out about the author.

Business, Image, Marketing, Products, Sales, Strengths, Success

Business, Customer service, Marketing, Product, Sales, Services, Strengths, USP

A-Z of Business: T – Time – Achieving More in Less

July 29, 2013

Time Management How do you relate to time? Do you just see the future ahead of you, cluttered with actions and goals which threaten to suffocate you? Are you in the present moment, having fun but not getting much done? Are you stuck in the past with no idea how to develop the insight, motivation or courage to move forward? Or are you able to see time as a continuum with the past, present and future laid out in front of you?

If it is the latter, it means you are more able to learn from life experiences, get things done in the present and plan for the future.

“Not all hours and minutes are the same length” as Roger Black says. It can speed by when you are enjoying yourself, or slow down when you’re not. While we all have the same 1440 minutes every day but how is it that some people get more done than others?

It is all down to your relationship with time, how clear you are about your priorities and how everything fits in together. It is important to prioritise those things which move you towards your goals in an economical manner. This combines both effectiveness and efficiency so that your productivity improves.

A productive person is calm, focused, disciplined, flexible, balanced, has perspective and, generally, does what they say they will do. This increases your reputation with yourself and so your self-esteem enjoys a good boost too.

There are four main time enablers:

Perspective: Purpose, goals, priorities and values
Self: Self insight, self-motivation and self-management
Others: Understanding and managing others
Balance: A balance between downtime and uptime

When you have a clear perspective, with an ability to understand and manage yourself (and those others on whom you depend to get things done – or to whom you should be delegating) and balance this with self-care, you are in a much better position to improve your time management. You will also feel more resourceful, your productivity enemies slain.

Here are my top tips:

Focus on just two important items each day – this frees up your mind-clutter and gives you a sense of achievement
Fill in the spaces with smaller jobs
Have a power-hour once a week where you do all those little things you don’t have time for but which make you feel really good when they are done.
Whatever you are doing, apply your 100% attention to as you can only do one thing at once, contrary to popular belief. In addition, the stop start involved in not doing this can increase the time needed for each task by as much as 5 times!
Limit distractions – be ruthless but respectful about it
Delegate well
Manage your information overload – be super-ruthless on this one
Procrastinate discriminately – some things should be procrastinated but a lot of people procrastinate the important in favour of the trivial
Make your to do list a reality list and keep your fantasy (wish) list separate. Work your list with passion and fervour
Keep your workspace free from clutter to give yourself mindspace to think clearly and get things done

Getting things done should be a joy, not a chore, giving you a sense of empowerment, achievement and progress. By following these simple steps (which I cover in detail as part of my Achieving More in Less Time workshop), you will find that your productivity soars.

If you could use some help overcoming your time-management demons, why not book a session? Call me on 0845 130 0854.

About Tricia Woolfrey – click HERE to find out about the author.

Goals, Motivation, Performance, Productivity, Time Management

Achievements, Balance, Goals, Perspective, Productivity, Tasks, Time management